Animation and Video Life

M obile productivity apps have become so capable that they can be great alternatives to their PC/MAC equivalents or serve as great tools in their own right when you're away from your desk. While some apps simply mimic their desktop counterparts, others offer well thought out, touch-friendly interfaces that are easier and more fun to use. Every so often I check out what's available for 2D animation for Android devices, since that's what I use, that can complement my workflow with Reallusion's Cartoon Animator 5. Some may be available for Apple devices as well. Below I've listed six free (F) apps (with optional paid (P) upgrades) on the Google Play Store that you might want to explore. Some are just fun apps on their own while others may be useful as part of your workflow on bigger animation projects. Not all are exclusively animation apps and could be used on any production. JotterPad (F/P) The name JotterPad makes this sound like a notepad application but it's

Generative AI sequence of a woman in a business suit. From sketch to refined image using Krita AI Diffusion - by TET G enerative image AI, where you describe an image with a text prompt to an Artificial Intelligence model and it produces a new image based on your prompt, is gaining a strong hold as a tool for many artists. Krita AI Diffusion brings generative AI image tools right into your favourite free and opensource, graphics editor, Krita. Not only that, if you have a computer with decent specs (and at least 10GB of hard drive space), Krita AI Diffusion is completely free. What If I Don't Have a Powerful Computer? If you're in my situation, with a computer that was around before anyone in the mainstream had even heard of generative AI, you can still access Krita AI Diffusion for free, using a cloud based AI server, Interstice  and 300 tokens, to get you started. Once your initial tokens run out, purchase 5000 more for 10€ (approx US$11.00). Tokens never expire. I would

I 'm not a big fan of Adobe because of their overpriced subscription only model for their Creative Cloud Suite of applications, but that doesn't mean I don't like their software. Adobe Express is a free Canva alternative with cloud based art and design tools for creating graphics, videos and more, for all kinds of projects and social media (they even have a free AI prompt to image generator). Adobe Express'  Animate From Audio Quick Task featuring the Sticky character. Animate From Audio Thanks to a video by Boss Media Tech , I found the free Software they use , I discovered Adobe Express' Animate From Audio tool, which apparently is being used to great effect by a few TikToker's to create funny, viral videos. Specifically featuring the Sticky, Stickman character. The tool can be found in the Quick Tasks section under the main '+' menu. Just select Animate from Audio . With it you can create a quick video (up to 2 minutes) simply by recording your

O ver the years I've looked at various ways of creating and animating a digital avatar, from simply creating a character for Cartoon Animator and voicing and animating it myself, to creating a  live motion capture ready Vtuber avatar puppeted and voiced by me in real-time. In the last year or so, making photographic images talk, using AI and AI voice cloning has really progressed. To the point where I wondered if I could create a photographic AI avatar of myself, complete with my cloned voice, that I might use on some of my videos? Creating My Avatar: Artflow To create my avatar image, as far as I'm concerned,  Artflow.ai is the best value AI site for creating consistent digital characters (or 'actors' as Artflow calls them). That's pretty much their entire focus. Artflow's actor model training user interface. You get your first actor for free, 100 free credits per month (which equates to 100 still images per month - get an additional 50 credits if you sign

The Emo Girl Character created by Start Animating. A I generative video isn't new but it is the next big thing in the visual imaging space as various development teams work to perfect the generated output.  Just like generating still images AI video sometimes struggles with physics, arm and hand movement, and the general structure of things. However it is getting better and, as is the catch cry of all AI development, this is the worst it will ever be, because it's improving fast. If you're an animator one current potential use of generative AI video is to animate your key frames, as opposed to generating something entirely from a text prompt. Starting with an image helps to keep your characters and art style consistent across AI generations. With that in mind I tried five, free image to video AI generators to see what their potential might be and whether they can handle cartoon style characters well. Note all but the last entry on the list do not create any sound with the

A nimating a character's mouth talking in any form of animation is one of the more time consuming jobs of character animation. Particularly if your project is dialogue heavy or your character has the urge to sing. Fortunately auto lip syncing in many animation software studios is becoming more common and is helping to speed up the lip syncing process. Reallusion's Cartoon Animator is no exception with a fairly good auto lip sync feature. I made a tutorial video demonstrating how to auto and manual lip sync in Cartoon Animator here . However auto lip sync is not perfect (yet) so you'll definitely find yourself manually lip syncing a character at some point. Or maybe you just prefer to manually lip sync yourself because you like that level of control. Whatever the reason here are Six tips to help improve your lip sync and to stop you getting bogged down into really small details that literally do not matter for the amount of screen time they'll get. 1. Auto Lip Sync is NO