6 Easiest Free Animation Software for Beginners

Whether you decided to become a professional animator, or need basic animation skills for your business or just for fun, here is the list of 6 easiest free animation software for beginners. But what is animation at the first place? Simply put, computer animation is the process of making moving images through some software. There are 2D and 3D graphic animations. 2D graphics animations are generated with frame-by-frame technique, using separate images and layers. For 3D animation, models are first made, which are then animated through the art of stop motion.

Every beginner should get some time to gain the better insight and properly understand the very basics of animation. In the first place that is the concept of motion making in terms of timing and how to incorporate it properly into the animation. For example, different objects will move differently through space according to their size and weight. Then, there is a problem of putting objects into the space around them, and giving them voluminosity whether it is 2D or 3D animation. For all these basics and many more, you can find interesting literature recommended here.  Also, for broader general knowledge, you might check out 7 Best Educational YouTube Channels to Watch.

We have gone through recommendations for best and easiest free animation software for beginners from the New York Film Academy, Animation Career View and 2D Animation Software Guide. All of these sites give nice reviews of many animation software and recommendations for all levels of animation skills you have. Unfortunately, many good software for beginners are not free, but on the other side, many have become free lately. For our list here, we have tried to rank software according to the user-friendly interface level and also the level of skills needed to start animating in them. Having met the criteria we set, let’s go over our list of 6 easiest free animation software for beginners.

6. Daz3D

3D animation software

Daz3D is one of software that were not open source until 2012. Since then, it only requires for you to sign up for free. This software does require a bit of knowledge in 3D graphics, but the interface is user-friendly, and there are also plenty of interactive tutorials and help you can find on their website. Daz3D enables real-time rendering with photo-realistic results and great choice of exporting file formats. The Genesis technology enables making of realistic human or humanlike body with the base humanoid adjustable 3D mesh which offers a huge choice of morphing and modeling bases, and also a realistic articulation of models. Supported operating systems are Windows and Mac.

5. Clara.io

3D animation software

Clara.io is actually web-based software. It was so well received by the community that it now counts more than 100,000 users, and has active blog and forum where people share experiences, exchange ideas and solve problems, so beginners can get solutions in just a few clicks, you just need to sign up, for free. Some of the great features of Clara.io are: keyframe-based animation, great sub-object editing, real time and multi-user editing, great variety of mesh tools, cloud rendering, variable lighting settings and many many more. There is also a possibility of importing dozens of 3D file formats, and there is a free gallery of 3D models. Put simply, Clara.io is one of the best open source software not only for beginners but for advanced animators and professionals as well.

4. CreaToon

2D animation software

Although it is simple software, CreaToon uses imported graphics which might take some time for beginners to get used to it. Anyhow, it enables real-time editing, adding special effects (as well as audio effects) to animations, combining bitmaps and vector graphics, easy-to-use animation tools and many more. The menu is nicely arranged, with quick access to important functions, which makes it very user-friendly and perhaps one of the easiest free animation software for beginners. The bad news for non-Windows users is that it is only supported by this operating system.

3. Pencil

2D animation software

Pencil has a well packed, clear user-friendly interface and it is a 2D animating software with a great number of features and tools. It offers using both vector and bitmap graphics in creating animations. Pencil’s website is also nicely and clearly organized, and tends to bring its users to communicate and share experiences and solving problems and ideas with each other. It can be supported by Windows, Mac, Linux and OS X operating systems.

2. Gimp

2D animation software

Gimp is primarily a cross-platform image editor, but has found its role as a helping tool in simple animation making and is recommended for beginners. It is often being used for simple animations because it uses layers that are suitable for animations like movie credits for example. It is available for many operating systems including Windows, GNU/Linux and OS X.

1. Blender

3D animation software

Blender certainly deserves the very top place on our list of easiest free animation software for beginners. It is highly recommended for beginners and also used by professionals. Apart from animation, Blender has found its use in modeling, simulation, photorealistic rendering, realistic texture modeling, game creation, camera tracking among many other uses. It is also supported on Windows, Mac, Linux and FreeBSD.