How can I create animated videos with limited artistic skills?

anorlunda · Mar 3, 2020

I would like to produce an animated video to demonstrate some 3D physical motions. I'm a bit intimidated. My artistic skills never got beyond stick men. I have zero experience with video, or animation. I'm worried about the learning curve.

My specific ambition is to depict an array of Ferris wheels, turning co-axially side by side. I could make a non-animated image of that setup; but doing that in perspective view would be challenging for me. This would be a one-off project.

I found the following.
https://www.nyfa.edu/student-resources/best-free-open-source-animation-software/

What would PF members recommend for me?

jedishrfu · Mar 3, 2020

Interesting list of tools. I would start at the top and try Pencil. It looks like it has a lot of resources to teach you how to use it.

Alternatively, I would've tried using the Processing IDE and program the image I wanted using Java. It would take longer for sure but then you have full control over every aspect. Processing has 3D libraries that support rotation of 3D shapes.

https://processing.org/tutorials/p3d/

https://processing.org/

and Processing has many other cool libraries and examples.

From the Wikipedia description:

Processing is an open-source graphical library and integrated development environment (IDE) built for the electronic arts, new media art, and visual design communities with the purpose of teaching non-programmers the fundamentals of computer programming in a visual context.

Processing uses the Java language, with additional simplifications such as additional classes and aliased mathematical functions and operations. It also provides a graphical user interface for simplifying the compilation and execution stage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Processing_(programming_language)

anorlunda · Mar 3, 2020

Ay ay ay. I left out an overriding fact. My platform is a Chromebook, running a variant of Android. I need to search the Google Android Play Store for tools.

jedishrfu · Mar 3, 2020

Ahh, that's a bummer. I've heard that some Linux apps could run on Chrome:

https://www.howtogeek.com/363331/how-to-set-up-and-use-linux-apps-on-chrome-os/

It requires that Chrome OS be higher than version 68 to allow this feature.

This article says it's possible to run Pencil2D on a Chromebook:

https://discuss.pencil2d.org/t/do-chromebooks-run-pencil2d/3986

robphy · Mar 3, 2020

Try Glowscript (the web-based version of VPython).
Glowscript was developed by physicists for physics students.
If you don't want to work at glowscript.org , you can work on trinket.io .

In VPython programs, you worry about the physics and the math.
VPython handles the 3-d graphics and the graphical views, animations, and user interactions.https://www.glowscript.org/#/user/GlowScriptDemos/folder/Examples/program/Stonehenge-VPython