Animation Career Guide and Counseling

Question: What are the best software applications for animation and graphical design? Hey, I am going to sign up for an animation course and I would like to know what are the best sofware programs to do graphical designs and animation. You see, the lecturer in charge informed me that I have to practice on some programs to gain some powerful experience in this field of animation and I need to know the best products to work with in my projects. Can anyone with enough experience plese tell me, because i love to do animation right now. Answer when you read this question.

Answer: A good animation software is MONKEYJAM, I make all my films with it. You can download it here http://giantscreamingrobotmonkeys.com/monkeyjam/

Question: How can I incorporate animation into event planning? How do I get started? I am majoring in Media Arts and Animation. I have also been entertaining at birthday parties and I love doing that. I would like to start work on my own and start planning other events and incorporate digital art and animation skills. What are some ways I could do this?

Answer: Well I would suggest setting up some samples to do with your birthday parties now. Get feed back on what the parents think and make it part of your act or show for the kids. Heck interact with the characters on the screen. (You have a line, they have a line, that sort of thing) Then brainstorm about other events you could work this into. Wedding, showers, bachelorette parties, and more. I would imagine you could take this quite far. I would also suggest getting on some forums where Media Arts is the theme. Get feed back and learn from what other have done. And start building up a social network through Twitter, Facebook, or Myspace.

Question: What animation was in the record books for 'causing the most child seizures' a few years ago? I want you to give me the answer to this question. Which TV animation has caused the most seizures amongst Japanese children ever? I want you to give me the answer to this question. Which TV animation has caused the most seizures amongst Japanese children ever? This cartoon is also a massive phenomenon. Not much help...

Answer: I'm pretty sure it was Pokemon.

Question: How can I make basic animation appear on home videos? I've seen basic animation done on wedding videos or baby baptisms. Usually in the form a fairy or baby cupid flying around. It usually looks a bit cheap, but how is it done? Or how can I do any type of animation? I have a brand new Mac.

Answer: most macs come with video editing software which usually has things like this built in. do u have imovie? haha i totally guessed that name but im sure it exists. Edit: holy crap it does http://www.apple.com/ilife/imovie/

Question: What are the best software programs for animation and graphical design? Hey, in case no one got the question the first time, I am signing up for an animation course and I would like to the best type of software programs for animation and graphical design to do on my computer. I also would like to know if there are any quality programs that would allow me to record, filter and edit sound for any animation project that I would love to do. Please, if there are any users with enough experience in this, tell me know.

Answer: Every computer artist knows how to use Photoshop, for starters! In terms of animation, Flash is a great program to get started learning animation and vector graphics. It is always beneficial for an animator to know Flash. In terms of 3D animation, I heard that many studios use Maya. This is a very expensive program intended for corporations, so hopefully you can get access through your school.

Question: What are the greatest strengths of animation as compared to live action? What does animation do best? If you wanted to tell a story in an audiovisual medium, why would you choose to animate it? I suspect that animation's greatest strengths lie in speculative fiction. Look at some of the most influential anime series ever, like Yamato, Gundam, Macross, and Evangelion. Or look at one of the most acclaimed non-comedy American cartoons, Avatar. Any of these in live action would be prohibitively expensive, and might not work as well anyway.

Answer: Animation can push the bounds and do whatever the heck it wants without us overly questioning it. Live action can only go so far in the realm of reality. If they try to have someone fly, it's hard to believe because we know it doesn't happen. They can only take things so far before people get critical and questioning. That's why animation is superior. They can honestly get away with anything, as long as they know what they are doing. The only issue is when they draw something like... a chase scene, and have cars doing things that cars don't do. Still can get away with it, but if we know it's a normal car, then it gets suspicious.

Question: Where can I find a good animation video to show me step by step instructions? I am working on an animation and I have to do two types of animations for this chunky character. 1 is a smear head turn and the 2nd is a regular head turn. His face is chunky and he has a hat and earrings. How do I get those to look smooth?

Answer: You can try to find animation tutorials and/or references over at youtube.com You can try to animate the "key-frames" first, then animate the "in-between" frames next. Key-frames are your key parts of the action and the in-between frames are every other frame between the key-frames leading up to the moment of action. You should draw the first frame and the last frame of the action as your keyframes (minimal amount of key-frames should be 2 but can end up with more). Let's say for example an action is 5 frames long. Your keyframes are frames 1 and 5. Draw them first. Your in-between frames will be frames 2 through 4. Draw in frame 3 first as your mid point. This will help not only to keep your animation smooth but also maintain your proportion. After you animate frame 3, then you can draw in frames 2 or 4 (it doesn't matter which one first). Eventually your animations could become more complicated and may require more key-frames. Hope this helps. .

Question: What are the best colleges for animation in India? I need to join in Animation college. So i need to know about the best animation colleges in India.

Answer: Private Institutions. Tekno Point Multimedia, Maya Academy Of Advanced Cinematics (MAAC), Arena Multimedia, Zee Institute Of Creative Arts (ZICA), National Institute of Information Technology (NIIT), The Toonz-Webel Academy, Whistling Woods International, Escotoonz Animation, Hearts Animation Academy, The JJ School Of Arts, Government or autonomous institutions The National Institute of Design (NID), Paldi, Ahmedabad, offers courses in graphic design, animation film design, film and video communications and so on o Undergraduate Course: If you have scored brilliantly in plus two then you can join the four-year graduate diploma programs in design and opt for specialisation. Admission is through a written test and an interview.Number of seats: 60.Postgraduate diploma program: You can also opt for PG Diploma in design, with Communication Design as one of the specialisation areas. Communication Design consists of Graphic Design, Animation Film Design, and Film and Video Communication. Selection is based on an all-India-level entrance test and interview. 2. The Birla Institute of Technology (deemed university), Mesra, Ranchi offers a B.Sc. animation and multimedia course at its Jaipur and Noida Centres. 3. The Film and Television Institute of India, Pune conducts a year-and-a-half certificate course in animation and computer graphics. Fine Arts diploma holders are given preference. 4. The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) in Mumbai and Guwahati offers Master of Design (Animation) programs for meritorious B.Tech holders. 5. The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) centres in Pune and Mohali also provide training facilities in animation. C-DAC, Mohali offers Post Graduate diploma courses in animation and multimedia for graduates in any discipline. For more information regarding Animation, please log on to: Animation.

Question: What is the best animation school in California? I am thinking about going to school for animation/visual effects. I really want it pay off, though and would like to know which school offers the most respected program. Thank you!

Answer: Cal Arts by far has the best animation department in California, if not the nation. It's mostly affiliated with Disney, however it's a competitive school to get into and is very respected for that industry. Notable alumni include Tim Burton, Craig McCracken (creator of Powerpuff Girls, and even the creator of Spongebob (I can't remember the person's name). However, there's a list I'll provide a link to that gives more names of successful alumni. If you want to get into animation, Cal Arts is by far the best place to go. Good luck

Question: What is the best animation software for a beginner? I am looking to start dabbling with making my own little cartoon show with some sort of software. I am not very experinced in actual animation, but have story boards and such down. What is the best bang for my buck? I would like the capability to create characters, have different backgrounds, set backgrounds, sound, sound recording, and be able to watch it like a normal show.

Answer: For a beginner, most programs you will have to draw stuff yourself, sorry. But I know some pretty good programs for a beginner, and Adobe Flash really isn't for beginners, so don't try that. There is one that you can make animations totally online, it's called www.Doink.com or there's one called www.Aniboom.com . If you're looking for something harder than that, I suggest Easy GIF Animator 4, it's fun and easy to use. And if you have a PCI suggest something called Pencil. There is also a stick figure animator called Pivot, they give you one pre-made stick person in every animation, you can change that one or make your own. None of these programs actually have a sound recording feature, but if you have aPC just upload your animations to Windows Movie Movie Maker and record the sound and drag it to the timeline. Hope this helps!

Question: Which art colleges are the best and have good animation programs? I'm gonna be a senior in high school this year and need to get my butt in gear looking at colleges! I intend to major in animation, so I want to find the best college and animation program that I can. If possible, it would be nice to stay relatively close to Ohio, but that isn't my number one priority... So what is your opinion? Does anyone maybe have experience in an animation program at a certain college that they can vouch for? Any information anyone has would be greatly appreciated!

Answer: SCAD (Savannah College of Art & Design) has one of the top three animation programs in the country. Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida, has what is considered the best animation program in the country.

Question: What was the song playing during the animation montage at the Oscars this year? The song was playing during the animation montage when Wall-E is looking at the tv and sees all the different animation movies of the year. It had an rock/electric sound to it. It sounded quite new.

Answer: You might not believe me, but the name of the song is "Attack of the 60 ft Lesbian Octopus" by Does it Offend You, Yeah. They're a British band who released that album at the end of 2007. I was both excited and confused that the Academy would choose this song, and I'm sure it would have caused some controversy if they mentioned the name. If you don't believe me, look it up.

Question: How to make a animation with Flash player? Or, how to make a Flash animation? I want to make a animation with Flash player but i don't know that how to make a animation with Flash player (specially Macromedia Flash player). So, please help me.

Answer: flash player only plays swf files, http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash to make flash animation you need flash, http://www.adobe.com/products/flash/ sothink.com swf quicker http://www.sothink.com/product/swfquicker/ Powerbullet Presenter - Create Flash-Presentations http://www.powerbullet.com/ SWFTOOLS http://www.swftools.org/about.html Synfig Animation Studio http://synfig.org/Main_Page ..

Question: Is there a good animation program that can be downloaded on a mac? I'm switching from a pc to a mac soon, and on my pc i used Corel Animation Shop 3. I use it to make small animations, but I can't put it on a mac. Does anybody know of a program, it doesnt have to be free, that is good for animations for a mac?

Answer: I'm not sure what animation you plan on doing but I find these two useful: iStop Motion - Stopframe and drawn animation iStop is the cheapest out of my recommendations - but it depends if you want to do stop frame or not. You can make frames in other programs and stitch them together, but if you want computer animation go with: Adobe Flash - 2d computer animation Adobe After Effects - 2d computer animation (more for films/ adverts)

Question: How to save a flash animation in a website to our computer? When we surfing the net, we can save images by right clicking the particular images, But, how to save a particular flash animation? Also, When we save the web page images are saved but, flash animations are not saved. How to save those facsinating flash animations?

Answer: I have always just right clicked them and save image as. It will save in the format it is on the page you are visiting. It will only be useful as a flash animation in the correct environment ie: If you make it into an emoticon in MSN messenger or added to a blog via a html addition, yes this works for flash animations too.

Question: How can I do "exit" animation, and also draw the path of the animation, in Powerpoint? I have the Microsoft Office Version of Powerpoint, and all it seems capable of doing is the "entry animation". How can I draw the path I want the object to take, and how can I do exit animation? Do I have some newb version that won't allow these? Thank you for your feedback.

Answer: It sounds like you are using an Animation Scheme or some sort of other preset animation. You need to get yourself into the Custom Animation palette. In PowerPoint XP/2003, select the object you want to animate, right click on it and select Custom Animation. The palette should launch and at the top is a pulldown menu for Add Effect that gives you Entrance, Exit, Emphasis and Motion Paths. If you are using PowerPoint 2007, you get to the Custom Animation palette by going to the Animation tab at the top and clicking on the icon/words that say Custom Animation. That should launch the palette off to the right just like in XP/2003.