Robin wrote:
My son, 12yo, is showing an interest in, and some talent for, computer
animation. Like a lot of kids, he enjoys comic strips and classic
comics and also draws his own comics (his writing is better than his
artwork). He's also familiar with a lot of styles of cartoons, from
Rocky & Bullwinkle and Wallace & Gromit up to popular kids' cartoons
(though we do limit TV watching). He astounded me recently by using
PowerPoint (which happens to be loaded on his computer, a Win98
hand-me-down) to create a several-minute-long, reasonably complex
animation. I know PowerPoint isn't the right tool for the job, but I
don't know what is. I'd like to get him some software suitable for
beginners that will introduce him to principles of animation and give
him the tools to do some fun stuff. It would have to be something
that's been around a few years, so it would work on his computer, but
then I'd also be happy to get something used. I just don't know what to
look for. Something designed to teach animation techniques would be
perfect. It would be great if it were directed to kids, but I'm not
looking for one of those branded software packages that let you insert,
say, Disney characters into pre-designed backgrounds.

I'd also be interested in recommendations on books or other resources
for him. This is a field completely alien to me -- I have art/design
training, but it was all before computers!

I'd be willing to send him to a summer class if I can find a suitable
one in this area, but summer's a long way off, and in any case he'd
probably do better if he first has the chance to learn some of the
basic programs/tools, whatever they are.

Suggestions on how to encourage this interest are very welcome.

--Robin

I cannot reccommend Blender enough! It has a pretty steep learning
curve, but if your son is patient enough to read and try the tutorials
(and, if you can afford to blow 39 Euros on it, Blender's excellent
handbook), he will LOVE it. (It has even been used for a couple of
movies, IIRC including Spiderman 2.)

Blender is professional-grade 3d modeling and animation software that
has been released under an Open Source Software license. It is
available free of charge from http://www.blender3d.org for Linux, MS
Windows, Mac OSX, and Solaris. There are a number of free tutorials and
other resources on that site, and blender artists and developers hang
out in #blender, a channel on freenode IRC (freenode.net). They are
*very* welcoming to new artists, and a lot more knowledgeable than I am.

I'm not sure how old your son's computer is, but Blender uses the
computer's processor and RAM to render images, so he doesn't need the
latest-greatest graphics card to use it.

If he's more interested in still graphics, there is The GIMP at
www.gimp.org (or its better-known non-free counterpart Photoshop).

If you need *any* help please let me know. (I don't check my yahoo email
much, so please give me a heads-up here if you've emailed me.)

illecebra (yet another Free and Open Source Software geek)