What software do you use?

[James Dykstra]

So let me be the first bold soul to post to the forum. I've done some stop motion animation with my students this past year and have used a cool little free product called Stop Motion Animator. It's a little limited in what it can do, but, being free, you can't complain too much about that.

What software do you guys use? What does it cost? Is it user friendly? Enquiring minds want to know.

[Oscar Stringer]

Hello

SM Animator is a great way to get started and seems to work with most webcams.
I use "I Can Animate" by Kudlian Soft, on Mac's. They have now released a PC version.
Both versions sell for about £35.

http://www.kudlian.net/products/icananimate

It's very easy to use and allows you to remove single frames at any stage of the filming, which is crucial in the classroom.

Good luck.

[Mr Gorse]

I use windows movie maker and audacity, both of which are free. WMM crashes quite frequently and it only has a small working memory. Audacity is excellent and is freely downloadable from the Internet.

[Kevin H.]

I also use Stop-Motion Animator, for the same reasons: free and easy to use.
We move the AVI files into MovieMaker (but you need a codec for MM to recognize the file, I realized) and then add titles, etc.
Kevin

[Kathleen Gerard]

For stopaction/claymation:
1) iMovie, mostly b/c I already knew how to use it and it's easy. A little buggy, though, when you're trying to change time/frame length en masse.
2) SamAnimation, free, super-easy, includes onionskinning and other features, but only works with a built-in camera from what I can tell.
3) I've explored some with Frames, but haven't used it with students yet. I like the ChromaKey option, but didn't find it that much more flexible or featureful than iMovie that I wanted to switch right away.
For illustration animation:
1) Used to love Kids Animation Maker, but, sadly, it wasn't updated for OSX.
2) Animation-ish--very kid-friendly and fun