Animation Desk

Animation Desk

Animation Desk is a free 2D animation software for Windows. It provides a simple interface for creating frame-by-frame animations and basic editing tools. Good for beginners learning 2D animation.
Animation Desk image
animation 2d-animation framebyframe-animation beginner-animation

Animation Desk: A Free 2D Animation Software for Beginners

A free 2D animation software for Windows, providing a simple interface for creating frame-by-frame animations and basic editing tools.

What is Animation Desk?

Animation Desk is a free 2D animation software for Windows. It provides a easy-to-use interface for creating frame-by-frame animations. With support for drawing tools, onion skinning, timeline editing, it has the basic features needed for making simple 2D cartoons and animations.

The layout is straightforward with the drawing canvas on the left and timeline controls on the bottom. It has tools like pencil, eraser, brush, shape tools that make frame-by-frame animation easy. Onion skinning shows previous frames faintly to use as reference.

While more advanced software like Toon Boom or TVPaint have many more features, Animation Desk is good for beginners starting out in 2D animation. Its simple interface lets anyone get into traditional frame-by-frame animation without a steep learning curve. The save output options allow exporting as image sequences or video file.

Overall, Animation Desk is a nice free program for simple 2D animation projects. Easy to use for beginners and hobbyists to have fun with 2D cartoon creation.

Animation Desk Features

Features

  1. Drawing tools like pencil, eraser, fill bucket
  2. Onion skinning for animating frame by frame
  3. Basic editing tools like flip, rotate, resize
  4. Supports common image formats like PNG, JPG, GIF
  5. Customizable canvas size
  6. Onion skinning
  7. Frame-by-frame animation
  8. Basic sound and lip sync

Pricing

  • Free

Pros

Free and easy to use

Good for beginners

Simple interface

Cross-platform

Cons

Limited features compared to paid software

No vector or bone animation

Lacks timeline for complex projects

Cannot export video directly


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