also known as CGI & 3d
Computer animation is the rising star of animation, movies are full of it, computer games rely on it, and there is a lot of interest in it.
If you want to create animation there are some simple programmes that children can use; and if you already have a suite of reasonably powerful computers, basic forms of computer generated animation may be a real possibility.
This is a rapidly evolving area, and currently this site does not provide much information. However there are a number of programmes people have used successfully with young people.
With Pivot you can create animations easily, just move sections of the stick figure and create a sequence of frames you can also create your own figure using objects made of lines and circles.
Flash Is a powerful animation package, which is not cheap, but it quickly gets young people hooked; and there is an excellent tutorial to get you started. Available for the mac & pc, this is an industry tool that kids as young as 13+ can get into. Have a look, and if the costs put you off, many arts centres run courses as a starting point.
The complete animator Is for pc only, but can be used for quite cool work and is suitable for quite young children.
Anime Made by LostMarble.com on both the mac and the pc this is a drawn animation programme which can achieve a great deal.
Any feedback with your experiences of 'easy to use' computer animation software for young people would be most welcome.
With some software you don't even need to download any software to get started
Flipbook from Benneton is one of the quickest and easiest we have seen. Its very basic, but it works and, when you have finished you can choose options to embed your movie or because it is a .gif you can just right click on it to download. If this works for you then there is a slightly more advanced program called flip boom
We have not used Secondlife for making any films yet. But there is some interesting stuff going up on youtube, so it might be an option worth exploring especially if some of your class already use it.
This is one of the things that has got us quite excited. Xtranormal is not really an animation package as such, and their tag line "if you can type you can make movies" is a bit hopeful, but there is a lot you can do with it.