Last week, Fan Cinema Today covered some free filmmaking software for Macs, including a stop-motion program (and it’s not the first free one we’ve covered either). That’s all fine and dandy, but what if you prefer Windows or Linux? Why should you be penalized? Where’s your free software?
It’s right here. Below are four programs for your stop-motion animating enjoyment. Only one is Linux, and one of the Windows programs is a 30-day trial version, but heck, you still can’t beat the price. Of course, you get what you pay for, and professional programs will offer more features, tech support and so on, but if you’re simply interested in dabbling, these may be a good fit for you.
First stop? Stop Motion Animator. It’s a simple program, mainly designed for basic clay animation, that will work with any Video for Windows compatible capture devices, such as Web Cameras, analog video cameras and digital video cameras. The camera can be connected to a computer that has a dedicated capture card or a USB port.
Anasazi Stop Motion Animator is a bit more robust. Created by Animateclay.com and programmer Penn Taylor, this software saves and plays back your animation on your hard drive. Features include: Immediate Playback; Live Onion Skinning; Frame Flipping; Single / Multiple Frame Grabbing Markers; User Assignable Hot Keys; Resizable Video Window; Multiple Configuration Profiles Compression Support; and Windows Native AVI support.
That 30-day trial Windows program I mentioned? That’s Take 5.
And finally, for the Linux gang, there’s Stopmotion, a free application that allows users to create stop-motion flicks from pictures imported from a camera or from the hard drive. You can also add sound effects and export the animation to different video formats such as mpeg or avi.
Give ‘em a shot, and let us know what you think of them in the comments section below!
I am not Animator but I like your blog theme.
How can I decorate my blog like this?
Thanks anyway
Look in the “About FCT” section–there’s a link to the theme creator’s site, although I did modify it a bit from the original.