Hello this is my first post
i have been looking at animation and im interested in making a few , i know nothing about animation software , but i know the process takes long ,
can u advice me on a easy to use software to create something like

AKIRA or 1960`s spiderman



thankyou in advance

I believe illusionmage.webs*com offers a trial that can create some really professional looking animations. If you decide to buy, it's pretty cheap and also has lots of guides and tutorials to get you started

Hello tammy.
Don't listen to jtr - he is probably selling a free and open source software.
While Akira used some 3d graphics the 1960's spiderman didn't so if you want a purely 2d animation software where you draw everything yourself here is a list:
Digicel flipbook:
http://www.digicelinc.com/flipbook.htm
DigiCel FlipBook lets you draw right on the computer with your mouse or tablet. Or you can draw on paper, like the pros, and shoot your rough drawings under a camera for speed and then scan your cleaned-up drawings for quality. FlipBook will keep track of all your drawings in its traditional exposure sheet with thumbnail images and play them back instantly with sound. FlipBook also provides specially designed tools to help you paint your drawings quickly and easily without having to learn or go through a lot of difficult steps. You can add pans, zooms, rotation, blurs and dissolves and then export movies that you can play on TV or post on the internet.


Plastic Animation Paper
http://plasticanimationpaper.dk/
PAP is a free and light weight 2d animation software.
Here is an example of animation done with PAP:


Toon Boom Animate:
http://www.toonboom.com/
The Worldwide Leader In Animation Software And Digital Media
Demo video of Toon Boom Animate Family 2d animation software:


Pencil - a tradition animation software.
http://www.pencil-animation.org/
Pencil is an animation/drawing software for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux. It lets you create traditional hand-drawn animation (cartoon) using both bitmap and vector graphics. Pencil is free and open source.

Here is a video showing the animation process in Pencil:

_________________
Andyba, 3d artist
skills: 3d modeling, texturing, rendering, 3d character animation, compositing
3d software experience: 3ds max, Maya, Softimage XSI, Deep Paint 3d, Body Paint 3D, Wings 3D, Z Brush
2d software experience: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe After effects, Macromedia Flash, Freehand

Toon Boom is a good stuff. Animating in pencil takes lot of time and there is quite hard to foresee how much frames you need to make your movement as fast as you want. My colleagues were doing such things once. It needs experience but effect is awesome

baalnazzar, what makes Toon Boon a easier tool than "Pensil". In a word what Pensil is missing to be as good as Toon Boon?
_________________
Andyba, 3d artist
skills: 3d modeling, texturing, rendering, 3d character animation, compositing
3d software experience: 3ds max, Maya, Softimage XSI, Deep Paint 3d, Body Paint 3D, Wings 3D, Z Brush
2d software experience: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe After effects, Macromedia Flash, Freehand

I didn't say that Toon Boom is better than anything. It's just good program

And what about pencil - I've just mentioned it's quite hard and time consuming to do draw animation frame by frame. Especially when drawings are very detailed.

I think user friendly software is Blender. Its free and has a very active helping forum

patricia3d, the topic is about 2d animation software kind of where you have to draw everything with a pencil.

baalnazzar, oh I thought that you are talking about the "Pencil" animation software. While you were talking about a real life pencil.
_________________
Andyba, 3d artist
skills: 3d modeling, texturing, rendering, 3d character animation, compositing
3d software experience: 3ds max, Maya, Softimage XSI, Deep Paint 3d, Body Paint 3D, Wings 3D, Z Brush
2d software experience: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe After effects, Macromedia Flash, Freehand

I would add Adobe After Effect. It can be used for 2d animation and it is a very powerful software.

Cool video, it is a digital flipbook.

Actually I have tried filpbook maker to make the flash page flipping ebook just like above. Anyone is interested in this, you can Google Flipbook Maker Software.

Btw, I tried Kvisoft Flipbook Maker and found it was well. You can download a free trial to have a try.

Blender 3D is the user friendly 3D animation software