DigiCel FlipBook enables you to draw 2D animations with your mouse or tablet pen. You can also import drawings captured with a webcam or scanner. It creates a movie file you can watch on any media player, post on the internet or record onto DVD and play on TV.

It is a good tool for practising drawn animation because it allows you to make key frames and then space then out to add in-betweens. Once you have created a few drawings you can play them back at various speeds and decide if you need more in-betweens.

The DigiCel FlipBook workspace, displaying a demo animation that comes with the software.

It can also be used to review pencil tests of drawings made on paper and captured with a webcam. A number of big name animation studios use FlipBook for this purpose. It has a built in exposure sheet system with a display of the sound track so is useful for testing lip synch animation.

The FlipBook lightbox showing three layers of drawings.

This is a tool for the serious animator. It does not come with lots of special effects, but it does have tools to help the hand animator. These include layers, light box, background and trace functions. The Light Box lets you determine just how visible previous and next layers are when adding drawings. The Trace tool makes it easy to redraw roughs as finished line work. The drawing tools include variable line thicknesses, flexible lines and ovals. Colour can be added by brush, can or spray.

There are several easy to follow instructional videos on DigiCel website and there are a number of animations created with the software on YouTube.

You can try it out for yourself by downloading the trial version from the DigiCel. It is fully working but the movies it creates have a large permanent watermark.

Tip: if you decide to buy the software from the DigiCel website shop then look for the special offer on the home page of their website to get 50% off.

Visit the DigiCel website.

MonkeyJam is a free digital pencil test program that runs on the Windows operating system. It lets you capture images from a webcam, camcorder, or scanner and assemble the separate frames into an animation. You can also import existing images and sound files from your computer. Although it is designed for pencil and paper, MonkeyJam can also be used for stop-motion animation. Once you have created your movie it can be exported as an AVI file.

MonkeyJam information panel (click pic to enlarge)

The MonkeyJam software downloaded and installed on my PC without problems. The program starts with a window containing an information panel and a frame list. There is a help file with a quick start section to give the basics.

The first step is to select a folder to store your image files. The nest step is to select a method of adding your images to the frame list. This can be from a video source such as webcam or from a scanner. Alternatively you can import existing image files that you already have on you computer.

For the purposed of this test I decided to use the stills that I had created for my bouncing ball demonstration. It was simply a matter of selecting the images from the computer and clicking the import button. To view the animation you select Preview from the Tools menu and the software builds your movie and opens another window to play it back. It is as simple as that. You can then export your movie to an AVI file for sharing with others, such as uploading to YouTube.
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Windows Movie Maker interface

Windows Movie Maker is software for creating and editing video movies and is included in Microsoft Windows. The feature that makes it a useful tool for novice animators is the ability to add single pictures and play them back as a movie. You can also add sound effects and music and export your finished work to a move in WMV or AVI format.

The first step is to open the program:
1. From the Start menu, click All Programs.
2. Click Windows Movie Maker.
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The Animationizer in use

Stop-frame animation is a method Chris Neale has been using to create paper prototypes of website forms to explain them to his clients. To achieve this he has written some software for the Mac that will capture pictures from a webcam and convert them into a QuickTime movie.

Chris suggests that the software “might be helpful for artists looking for a simple tool to make animations with.
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Stop Motion Pro interface.

Having mentioned the Stop Motion Pro software in my previous post about plasticine animation I decided to test drive the free version that  is available as a download from the Stop Motion Pro website. The latest Wallace and Gromit half hour special from Aardman, “A Matter of Loaf and Death” was filmed using Stop Motion Pro HD Studio. You would expect software of this calibre to be very expensive, but luckily for us home animators it comes in a range of prices to suit most pockets. The basic version is called “Stop Motion Pro Action!” and this does enough to satisfy the needs of a novice animator. It is compatible with Microsoft Vista, XP and Windows 7.
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