From domestic to commercial use, computers have proven it's worth. One such advantage is that, we can freely make our ideas come to life and paint our imagination into reality using some open source animation software.
Open source means that the original source code is freely available to users for modification.
Before getting deep into this initiation, let's take a look at some underlying information.
Animation became very popular since the 1950s when television sets started to become common in most wealthy countries.
In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets and then exhibited on film.
Today, most animations are made with computer animation software.
So, what is animation?
The animation is a rapid display of 2D or 3D sequences of frames or images to create an illusion of motion.
What is animation software?
Animation software allows us to create motion with frames. Basically, we create frames in the software and it creates an illusion of motion by showing frame by frame per second.
Now let's jump into the topic.
List of open source animation software
Blender 3d
Image credit : Blender
Blender is the free and open source 3D creation suite. It supports the entirety of the 3D pipeline—modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing and motion tracking, video editing and 2D animation pipeline.
Features of blender
- Rendering
- Modeling
- Sculpting
- Animation and Rigging
- Grease Pencil
- Video editing
- Scripting
Blender software comes with a powerful unbiased rendering engine that offers stunning ultra-realistic rendering.
The new EEVEE engine gives real-time rendering. Previsualize Cycles shading with great accuracy in real-time, in the viewport, and significantly speed up the shading and texturing process.
Blender’s comprehensive array of modeling tools make creating, transforming, sculpting and editing your models a breeze.
Digital sculpting tools provide the power and flexibility required in several stages of the digital production pipeline. For example, during character design and exploration or environment design.
By offering the sculpting and the polygonal modeling toolsets side by side, Blender greatly simplifies the transition between conceptual research and final model production.
Whether it’s simple keyframing or complex walk-cycles, the Blender animation feature allows artists to turn their still characters into impressive animations.
Grease Pencil is a particular type of Blender object that allows you to draw in the 3D space. You can use it to make traditional 2D animation, cut-out animation, motion graphics or use it as a storyboard tool among other things.
Blender comes with a built-in video sequence editor. It allows you to perform basic actions like video cuts and splicing, as well as more complex tasks like video masking or color grading.
With a large community of enthusiasts and developers, Blender comes loaded with a vast array of extensions that you can turn on or off easily.
That's not the end of the list. There are so many feature of blender software.
Synfig – Free and open-source animation software
Image credit : Synfig
Synfig is free and open-source software licensed under GNU GPL v3. The major feature of synfig is vector tweening.
Features of synfig
- Layers and filter
- Vector tweening
- Bones
- Advanced Controls
It provides 50+ layers to create artwork and animation of any complexity. Choose from various layer types: geometric, gradients, filters, distortions, transformations, fractals and others.
Transform any vector shape into another! Synfig gives you powerful tools for full control on your vector artwork. Just set the key positions and in-between frames will be calculated automatically.
The full-featured bone system allows you to create cutout animation using bitmap images or control your vector artwork. Use an additional Skeleton Distortion layer to apply complex deformations to bitmap artwork.
You can link parameters of various layers – directly or through mathematical expressions. This allows you to create advanced character puppets and other dynamic structures.
Opentoonz
Based on the software "Toonz", developed by Digital Video S.p.A. in Italy.OpenToonz has been customized by Studio Ghibli and used for the creation of its works for many years.
Dwango has launched the OpenToonz project in cooperation with Digital Video and Studio Ghibli.
Features of opentoonz
- GTS
- Sequence number scanning conducted efficiently according to in-between animation numbers.
- Compatible with 4 types of scanning.
(black & white, colored, with or without binarization) - You can save settings for scanning. Processes can be reproduced when some cuts are rescanned.
- Compatible with the TWAIN standards
- Digital painting
- You can use Anti-aliased lines.
- Since the data of paintings are independent of those of the palette, it is easy to paint with provisional colors.
- Smooth operations even with high definition image data.
- Filming
- Both an xsheet and a timeline interface available.
- Effects can be synthesized easily with the GUI using the node tree.
- Images can be handled with the real scale considering resolution [dpi].
- It is possible to use more effects by using plug-ins.
- Other feature
- Compatible with both raster and vector images.
- Interconversion between the sequence image of the colored binarized TGA and the OpenToonz format for compatibility.
- Localized Japanese version available.
Pencil2d Animation - open source animation software
Image credit : Pencil2d
Pencil2D animation software is completely open source and free to use, even commercially!
Features of Pencil2D - open source animation software
- Minimal Design
- Raster & Vector
- Cross-Platform
Lightweight and easy to use so you can focus on animating and not what button to hit next.
Seamlessly switch between raster and vector workflows, allowing you to sketch, ink & paint on the go.
Free 2d animation software Pencil2D is cross-platform and runs on Windows, macOS, Linux & FreeBSD.
Conclusion
There we are with our open source animation software list. If you are a beginner start with some basic 2D animations and 2D software.
As 3d software like a blender does have some learning curves but it is also the best free software with lots of features.
You can download these software from their official site, all links are mentioned in the article.
Did we skip something? Or confused about some queries?
Don't hesitate, share your thoughts in the comment box.
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