beeswing wrote:
illecebra wrote:
Robin wrote:
My son, 12yo, is showing an interest in, and some talent for, computer
animation. ... 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.

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).

Hey, thanks! I've been following this thread because my daughter is
highly interested in Japanese manga...animation and comic books
both...and would like to create her own. I wanted to be supportive but
paying for Flash is a bit (*cough*) beyond us at this point. We'll look
into the options you presented.

I had the same sticker shock when I looked at Flash (even used,
slightly outdated versions). "Free" is always a nice word when attached
to software! I am wondering, though, if with Blender, he will be
severely handicapped by not having Internet access. I can probably
figure out how to hook his machine up to my Internet connection long
enough to download the software, but engaging regularly on the message
board is out. (Eventually -- say, in high school -- he'll get his own
access, but for now, we have both technical and parental reasons not to
hook up his room.)

His computer is running Win98.

GIMP sounds like something I can use!

--Robin