by Maya Staresinic
During our March Break Maker Camp, we noticed that some of the campers were really interested in creating their own animations. Yes, we showed them apps and software like Scratch 2.0and Scratch Jr., but one camper in particular was interested in working with an app that would allow her to be more creative and to infuse her artistic abilities into her animations. That’s when I decided to do some searching for an app that would allow the user to create their own films, stories, etc. while also allowing the user to completely personalize their animations. After doing some digging around, I stumbled upon the app Animation Studio by miSoft.
Animation Studio advertises itself as an easy to use animation app when creating your own animated movies. The app is user friendly and appeals to beginner animators all the way to seasoned veteran animators. This means that you can eith
er submerge yourself into simple animations to get your footing, and when you are ready, you can go beyond and participate in more challenge animations. It is an app that will go at a pace comfortable for you. What’s great about the app is that it gives the user complete control of how their animation will turn out. You are able to add characters (either premade characters or you can fully develop and create a completely unique characters yourself), add backgrounds (again, either premade backgrounds or backgrounds you create yourself), and input soundtracks with voice, music and/or text to speech. All functions that give the user the ability to create a completely personalized animation, created from their imagination.
Going further into the apps features, users have the ability to import frames from videos to trace over or to add to their project throughout; to add unlimited layers to a frame; to link/copy layers between frames (giving you the ability to animate only what you wish to animate or to have static objects), to define the camera’s position (rotate, zoom, swivel), and to cut-out elements from a scene to save them to a clipboard for later use or to share between projects. When it comes to creating your own character(s), there are eight realistic, pressure-sensitive brushes that really give the user the ability to create a “life-like” character.
Talking about the app and sharing its features with you can only do so much. To really understand and see the capabilities of the app, please check out the following animation created using Animation Studio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2bD7eVtClo
Animation Studio is available from the app store for $4.99
