Plastic Animation Paper 4.0 Released – 2D Animation Software
Our favorite 2D animation software, Plastic Animation Paper, has just released version 4. This is a full featured piece of software that allows you to create your wildest dreams and the best part is that it is totally free. Dimples has been playing with this software for a couple of months now. It’s great. You can do almost anything with it.
Learning to animate with this software is like going to an animation school without the tuition. It’s an education in itself. Dimples doesn’t mean to imply that the software is difficult. It’s nearly pain-free. You can begin creating simple animations immediately. When you progress to more sophisticated projects, Plastic Animation Paper will be able to move with you. Frankly, it’s all you need to create a great demo reel.
Have you been thinking about animation school? Look no further than the tutorials at Plastic Animation Paper’s website. Here are the lessons that are currently available:
- Lesson 1 – Quick introduction to the screen layout and basic drawing tools.
- Lesson 2 – Your first simple PAP animation. Animating rough blue and planning red.
- Lesson 3 – How to do a walk cycle. Timing with clones, light table, working in passes.
- Lesson 4 – Optimize your workflow using Setup and marking menus.
- Lesson 5 – Using Cutouts – basics. Introducing the Range. Your cycle from Lesson 3 is going for a little walk.
- Lesson 6 – More Cutout tricks. And animating a scene! – starting with your cycle and adding on from there.
- Lesson 7 – Layers. Get the details on all the brand new layer functions of PAP version 3.2.
They say they’re going to post more tutorials and I’m assuming these will be upgraded to reflect the changes in the upgraded version of the software. Try Plastic Animation Paper. It’s free. Just think about whose head you want to explode and draw it. (Who doesn’t like a good animated exploding head, after all?) Create your Quicktime movie from your masterpiece and post it on Youtube. It’s stunningly simple with PAP.
Don’t trust Dimples? Read this test drive of Plastic Animation Paper at The 10 Second Club.
Ottawa International Animation Festival ’06 Sept. 20 – 24
This is the 30th anniversary year of the Ottawa International Animation Festival. It is the finest animation film festival on the North American Continent. This is a unique event in the world of animation and very worth your while. Besides, it’s in beautiful Ottawa. From the Ottawa Start:
Adding local flavour to the Festival, four Ottawa animators are included in this year’s selected films. John Mark Seck‘s Vissi d’arte, a gritty urban retelling of the tragic Puccini opera ‘Tosca,†and Chris Dainty’s Emma Graves, a quirky tale of talking tombstones,will make their world premieres in the Canadian Animation Showcase. Also selected for OIAF 06 are two talented high school animators: Michelle White’s Blinky Goes to the Movies, a light-hearted look at old movies, and Boris Maras’ Flash-animated Nedrick’s Misadventures in the Montgolfier will be competing as part of the TELETOON Canadian Student Animation Scholarship program. This program, now in its 9th year, gives young animators from across Canada an extraordinary chance to be recognized for their skills.
Other notable films include:
…Joanna Quinn’s hilarious ode to film-making, Dreams and Desires, which won the Grand Prize at both the Annecy and Zagreb festivals earlier this year; The Carnival of the Animals, a delightful musical erotic fantasy by Michaela Pavlatova; three-time OIAF Grand Prize winner Andreas Hykade (Ring of Fire) returns with The Runt; legendary New York animator George Griffin’s disturbing deadpan comedy, It Pains me to Say This; the Canadian premiere of Rabbit, Run Wrake’s magical adult fairytale; and Never Like the First Time by Swedish animator extraordinaire Jonas Odell, in which four people recount their first – and very different – sexual experiences.
There’s no where else in the world where you can view such an impressive list of animated films. If you can’t make it to beautfiful Ottawa (which is awfully damn hot this year, by the way) you can still participate in the fun via the OIAF podcasts. Mark you calendar now.
[tags]OIAF, Ottawa International Film Festival, animation[/tags]
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