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Animation is a beloved and wonderful art form. Millions enjoy animated shorts, TV series, and full length movies. Animation also takes many forms. You have Stop Motion, Traditional Hand Drawn cell, Japanese and Japanese influenced Anime, 3d CGI, and more.

Even though many have loved and enjoyed watching animation over the years, creating animation has always been out of the reach of the majority. Think about traditional hand drawn or stop motion animation for a bit. Even with a large animating team and the proper audio and video equipment, a 30 minute show could take weeks, or even months to produce. One second of film would take 30 different hand drawn or repositioned frames!

Rumor has it that even the crude Short animated film, The Spirit of Christmas, that became South Park took creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone over a month to complete using construction paper.

Now, think about 3d animation. Not only did you need the artistic skills of traditional animation, but also the skills to model in 3d using complex software systems, and the powerful, expensive computer hardware to create the characters, 3d world, and the animation itself.

By now you may be wondering if the title of the article is wrong, and what I meant to write was animation is not for everyone and needs a tremendous budget. Stick with me for a bit more.

There are many reasons to get into animation. The creation of art, telling great stories, or even just creating shows for your own entertainment or kids to enjoy. Some of you may even be able to turn your animation into your work. And now, thanks to advances in software and computer power, animation is available in one form or another to anyone with a computer.

There are great software titles available now that can create just about any form of animation you like. From mimicking 2D cell animation to 3D CGI, there is a platform that can turn you into an animator. Other good news is that the price of some of these platforms is dropping to all time lows as ease of use is rising like never before.

Software for 2D animation, such as Anime Studio or Toon Boom, start at around $50 for lite versions, and go up to around $300 for full featured version used by many professional studios.

Software for 3D animation used to be very cost prohibitive. Industry standard programs like Auto Desk 3ds Max can run up to $4000! but, in the 3D world, there are now cost effective ways to create animation. Poser is a 3D character Creation tool and animator that runs around $200.

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