Animation software for kids?

[Brian G Turner]

My two youngest have both asked for some kind of animation program they can run in Windows 7. Thing is, I have no idea of what may be appropriate.

Both have some limited experience with Photoshop and have Wacom tabs. However, I figure they'll need to avoid anything too advanced.

Any good introductory programs out there? And not too expensive either, please.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Scratch.
Designed by MIT and on OS X, Linux, Rasberry Pi, Windows.
Photoshop is only suitable to draw keyframes, which are maybe better done on paper and scanned/photographed.

Drawing and Animating are quite separate really, unless it's Cel based animation.

There is a HUGE amount of worthless junk "animation" SW for kids. Anything themed is rubbish.

You need to decide exactly what you mean by animation too. It's EXTREMELY time consuming, with poor results unless a good artist. Stop motion phone camera of plasticine and then free SW to make that to video (repeat frames small amount for fast movement, more and or shots repeats for slow movement) is much more satisfying for kids or adults without huge time input.

 

[millymollymo]

Another vote for Scratch here - it allows for all levels of ability and is used in schools/secondary to promote coding.