Skip to main content

Run Your Favorite Android Animation Productivity Apps (and Games) on Your PC or Mac with BlueStacks

BlueStacks Android Emulator for PC or Mac.
BlueStacks Android Emulator for PC or Mac.

There are many free and low cost mobile animation productivity apps for Android in the Google Play Store that would fit right into your workflow if you could access them directly from your PC/Mac  desktop (or laptop) computer.

Even if those apps can save their output to the same cloud storage you use with your PC or Mac, just the divide of using a separate device makes them inconvenient and disruptive. Worse yet, what if your Android device is underpowered for the apps you want to use, or worse still you don't own any Android devices because someone convinced you Apple Mac's, iphones, and ipads are 'cool' (they are, but you pay for 'cool').

BlueStacks is a free, open source Android emulator for Windows or Mac (currently only BlueStacks 4 can be installed on a Mac but BlueStacks 5 for Mac is coming soon).

If you're not aware of what an emulator is, it's basically a piece of software that mimics another devices operating system so you can run apps created for that device on your Windows, Mac OsX, or Linux operating system (or any other system the emulator happens to run on).

Installing & Usage

BlueStacks is relatively straight forward to install, just download the version you want, run it, and it will install itself. You'll need a Google Account to login so you can access the Google Play store. If you already have one you're good to go, if not, they're free, and give you access to all of Google's apps etc. BlueStacks is then set up as a new device in your Google account (you'll likely get security warnings about a new device login if you already have an account).

BlueStacks Home Screen.
BlueStacks Home Screen.
While BlueStacks is primarily designed for playing Android Games on your PC, this does mean it should effortlessly run most productivity apps too. Though, keep in mind, it is an emulator, there's bound to be a few apps here and there that just won't run.

The interface is fairly straight forward with a Home screen that looks just like any mobile device screen. Click on an app to open it. I'd recommend starting with the Play Store to install the apps you plan to use. There are button icons around the edge of the window, just hover your mouse pointer over these to see the pop up label for what they do. It's actually not unlike working out how to use a new phone.

Generally I recommend using BlueStacks for apps that don't have a Windows or Mac version because it still can be a little tricky getting output from some Android apps onto your PC (not hard but a minor inconvenience locating output), or if the Android version has features only available on the mobile app (for example, you can use this to upload to Instagram from your PC).

Animation/Avatar Apps I Tried using BlueStacks

Some fun, free animation apps I tried include:

VoiceTooner App for Android.
VoiceTooner.
VoiceTooner - A fun app that changes your recorded voice to match various cartoon characters within the app including a hamster, alien, robot, helium affected, and more. Save out just the voices as .wav files for your own projects, or you can save a video of the character speaking your message for posting to social media etc. Access more voices by watching an ad or you can pay to unlock them.


Photos Alive - Jellify Android App.
Photos Alive - Jellify.
Photos Alive - Jellify - This is an interesting app that can animate parts of an image to shake like jelly. It can also recognize faces and animate the whole face as if it was jelly. Animations are saved as .GIF files for posting to social media.



Draw Cartoons 2 Android App.
Draw Cartoons 2.
Draw Cartoons 2 - Skeletal Animation Studio - This particular app is one that I'd like to explore much more as it's one of the few I know of that uses bones to animate any character you can dream up. It's kind of an extreme cut down version of more advanced desktop apps like Cartoon Animator or Moho. I'm not sure how detailed you can get but for a mobile app it has potential. 


StickDraw Animation Maker Android App.
StickDraw.
Stick Draw Animation Maker - This is promoted as a stick figure animation tool but really it's just a flip book style animation maker. You could draw anything really. Kind of fun, not really anything you'd use on a desktop PC.



Cartoon Avatar - TET 'Montgomery' Burns.
Cartoon Avatar
TET 'Burns'.

Cartoon Avatar - Face Emoji & Sticker Maker - This is basically a Simpsons Avatar maker that's trying not to get noticed by Disney's lawyers. That said, it's a very good Simpson's character creator if you don't mind watching quite a few 15-30 second ads to unlock various features (honestly, I don't mind watching ads to unlock things but you can purchase the app to go ad free). Stay away from the create a character from a photo option unless you want to pay a real artist to do a custom portrait of yourself and your family in the Simpsons style.


If you know of any really good Android, mobile productivity animation apps (that aren't traditional hand drawn, frame by frame apps) please feel free to let me know.

Other Emulators

BlueStacks is not the only game in town when it comes to Android emulators, though it is the highest rated in Software Testing Help's list of 10+ BEST Android Emulators for PC and Mac. I haven't used any of the others since I found BlueStacks a while back and it just worked. However, if you are having trouble with BlueStacks there are other options including ones for Linux as well.

Unfortunately if you want to run iOS apps on your PC there aren't anywhere near the range of options, and those that are available are targeted towards app developers wanting to debug their apps before release. However if you want to give it a try FossBytes has a list of the 7 Best iOS Emulators For PC (Windows And Mac) To Run iOS Apps.

Popular posts from this blog

Using Avatar Maker with Cartoon Animator - Free Vector Cartoon Avatar Creator with Four Art Styles

I'm always on the lookout for cartoon avatar makers of any kind, whether it be ones that 'cartoonify' your photo, or ones that let you build a cartoon likeness from a library of individual features.  Free Avatar Maker  falls into the latter category and can be used for making head and shoulder cartoon avatars. While it doesn't have an extensive library of character features (you may struggle to get a good likeness), uniquely it will make your avatar in four different art styles concurrently, allowing you to save the one you like most, or even all four.  I wasn't overly impressed how my TET avatar looked in the first two styles, but style three is quite possibly the coolest looking version of my avatar I've ever seen in a third party avatar creator. It's a very contemporary style. Style four, line art, is also not too bad. Avatar Maker's User Interface. Switch between the four different art styles shown across the top at any time. I particularly like the

Make Disney/Pixar Style Characters with Reallusion's Character Creator and Toon Figure Bases

The Extraordinary Tourist Classic Coat outfit created using Reallusion's Toon Designer for CC3. I've talked before how I've wanted to get into 3D Disney/Pixar style character animation since I first saw the animated cutscenes for the very first Tomb Raider game back in 1996. It's why I initially bought Reallusion's iClone 3D studio app as soon as I could afford a computer that would run it. But then Reallusion released their 3D Character Creator (CC) for iClone and I wanted to create my characters with that (and I did try with Bat Storm ). But the focus of CC was realism, even with ToKoMotion's stylised body morphs . Now with Reallusion's Cartoon Designer bundle for CC3 which features two packs, Toon Figures , and Toon Hair , designing Disney/Pixar style 3D characters just got a whole lot quicker. The two packs are the bare essentials for creating Toon style characters. Five body morphs (2 male, 2 female, and one adolescent body morph that w

Can You Learn Reallusion's Cartoon Animator 5 for Free Using Their 137 Official YouTube Video Tutorials Sorted Into a Logical Learning Order?

Or you could just buy The Lazy Animator Beginner's Guide to Cartoon Animator . While Reallusion's Cartoon Animator is one of the easiest 2D animation studios to get up and running with quickly, learning it from all of the official, free, video tutorials can be more overwhelming than helpful. With more than 137 videos totaling more than 28 and a half hours of tutorials, spread across three generations of the software (Cartoon Animator 3 through 5) it's hard to know if what you're learning is a current or legacy feature that you either need to know or can be skipped. Many of the official tutorials only teach specific features of the software and don't relate at all to previous or later tutorials. As a result there are many features either not mentioned or are hard to find. To make your learning easier, on this page, I've collected together all of the essential, official, free video tutorials and sorted them into a learning order that makes sense. Simply start at

Inochi2D - Free Open Source 2D VTuber Avatar Rigging and Puppeteering Software (Part 1)

Inochi2D Creator - Free Open Source VTuber Software. If you've been looking for a way to live perform as a 2D cartoon avatar on camera, whether it be for a live stream or for pre-recorded content like educational videos, then VTuber software is a low cost (or even no cost) option worth looking into. In my previous post, How to Become a VTuber - 2D and 3D Software for Creating and Controlling Your Avatar , I took a brief look at the relatively new but completely free and open source Inochi2D  which I thought showed great potential for my own needs of creating a live performance character rig for my own TET Avatar that I use for all my promotional materials. While it is possible to live perform my character using Cartoon Animator itself, Reallusion's MotionLive2D capture system isn't great - with lip sync in particular. More importantly though, I can't exactly teach people how to use Cartoon Animator if I'm using Cartoon Animator to control my Avatar. What is Inochi2D

Moho 14 Released - Still the Best 2D Animation Software for Indy Animators on a Budget

Moho 14 Released. Regular readers know I am a Reallusion, Cartoon Animator advocate through and through. Hands down I would recommend Cartoon Animator 5 first over Lost Marble's Moho 14 to anyone who is just starting in 2D animation, is a team of one, or just needs to animate as quickly as possible. However, feature for feature, Moho is, arguably, the best 2D animation software for the rest of us who can't justify a Toon Boom Harmony , or Adobe Creative Cloud subscription (and even with their applications Moho is very competitive on features). You can get started with Moho Debut for just USD$59.99 which is a cut down version of Moho Pro but it still has the most essential features needed for 2D animation. While Moho Pro is a whopping USD$399.99 (Cartoon Animator, which only has one version, is just USD$149.00) upgrades to new version numbers come down to a quarter of the price at USD$99.00. Even though Reallusion just released features like Motion Pilot Puppet Animation and

Artbreeder - Using AI created Character and Background Content in your Animations

A selection of User/AI generated images from Artbreeder. If you're looking for an endless supply of 2D character and background images for your animations then Artbreeder , an online Artificial Intelligence (AI) that generates image mash-ups you can tweak as much as you like, could be the ultimate content library. What is Artbreeder? Artbreeder is free to use though there are various paid plans, that give you additional features, such as higher resolution download images or more settings to play with. All images created on the site are Public Domain (CC0 License) and can be used in commercial projects. Using Artbreeder's online app you can generate head shot portraits, full body characters, landscapes, and other scenes simply by choosing two or more existing images to mash together then, using a series of sliders, to select which traits from each image you wish to lean toward in the final image. Photo Comparison - Top is my original uploaded photo. Bottom is Artbreeder's ap

Reallusion Releases Cartoon Animator 5 - One Version, More Features, Lower Price!

If you're serious about producing 2D animation as quickly as possible, while still achieving professional results, Reallusion's Cartoon Animator 5 makes the most compelling case yet as your animation studio/tool of choice. Cartoon Animator's point of difference has always been its ease of use and accelerated workflow. Creating fast, 2D animation using puppet, bone rigged based characters and props, on a stage with 3D depth for easy scene parallax effects. As it has developed Reallusion has incorporated more advanced features like motion capture for both face and body as well as being able to export scenes to post production tools like After Effects with the addition of plugins. After moving away from Flash based vector image support for a few years, Reallusion is back with full .SVG (scalable vector graphics) support for resolution independent graphics. They've also added Spring Dynamic physics and Full Form Deformation tools, both of which make it ridiculously easy t