Web / Authoring / Graphics / Software / Animation

Animation Software

Animagic Gif Animator

A simple, easy to use GIF animation creator and viewer. Supports "dirty rectangles" which crops to the minimum bounding rectangle that surrounds the changed pixels between frames. From Right to Left Software. PC.

Animation Maker

VSE Animation Maker 3.0 is an easy to use GIF animation tool. Mac OS.

Animation Master

A cross-platform animation package that rivals high-end software costing thousands more. Yes, it's true, it's software even an artist can afford.

A Smaller GIF

Simple GIF animation optimization program that trades compatibility for file size. Supports dirty rectangles From Pedagoguery Software. Mac/PC.

Director(*)

Imports 2D and 3D graphics, text, animations, sounds, and digital video which can then be integrated, synchronized, and animated over time using Director's powerful animation and integration tools. Allows you to create a variety of multimedia productions, including business presentations, web content, interactive advertising pieces, kiosk productions, and CD-ROM titles.

Flash (*)

Does cel-style animation and vector graphics. This program also has the ability to incorporate stereo .WAV or AIFF sound files with your animation. From Macromedia.

Fireworks

A suite of text, design, illustration, image editing, URL, JavaScript, and animation tools. Allows you to create everything for your Web site, without jumping from application to application. Designers can optimize and preview final output in every popular format.

GifBuilder (*)

Scriptable Mac shareware utility that creates animated GIFs. Supports dirty rectangles. By Yves Piguet.

GIF Construction Set

Shareware PC GIF animation creator by Alchemy Mindworks.

GIFCruncher (*)

Spinwave's answer to the GIFWizard juggernaut. GIFCruncher (and its companion JPEGCruncher for JPEGS) optimizes GIFs for file size off your hard drive or from the Web for free. The quantization is better than GIFWizard, and banding at lower bit depths is smoother.

GIFDancer

Features user-defined control of the most important animation and file-optimization settings, including looping, and customized color palettes.

Giffy

Windows GIF animation program with min. bounding rectangle frame optimization and palette remapping. Site also includes premade animations. From WebReady.

GIFMation

Intuitive GIF animation program from BoxTop Software. Rivals GIFBuilder in ease of use and has a nifty integrated bandwidth simulator. Mac.

GIF Movie Gear

The interface is based on a filmstripmetaphor to show all the frames at once, and all aspects of the animation (transparency, timing, order, etc.)can be controlled using the mouse, drag&drop and the toolbar. Also has palette reduction and inter-frame optimization functions to shrink animation files down to Web-friendly sizes.

GIF Wizard (*)

Free Web-based GIF reduction service. Can optimize GIFs on the Web or off your hard drive. Supports LZW optimization, multiple bit depths, color merging, and various palettes to create the highly optimized GIFs and animated GIFs.

ImageReady

Create GIF animations, image maps and more. Sporting the familiar Adobe interface, ImageReady works seamlessly with both Adobe Photoshop(R) and Illustrator(R) to streamline your Web graphics workflow from creative concept to display on the Web.

JetEffects

This WYSIWYG animator produces Java based animation from an easy to use interface. No programming required. From Peak Technologies.

Lake Clear Animato

PC Shareware paint utility that allows you to create and animate GIFs. Allows you to import .bmp and .jpg files as well.

Liquid Motion Pro

Create interactive java animations with this drag and drop program. No programming required. Available for PowerMac and PC's. From Microsoft.

PhotoImpact GIF Animator (*)

PC-based GIF animation program with built-in effects, and supports one-step frame differencing which saves only the pixels that change from frame to frame. From Ulead Systems.

SPG ColorWorks

Paint, view, animate, tweak, and optimize graphics for the Web. The GIF Animator component has lossless or lossy frame differencing and minimum bounding box frame optimization.

SX Paint

High end raster based image tool; Painting, Special Effects, Layers, Text Effects, Directory Browser, GIF Animations, 8/24/48 bit painting with full alpha/transparency support. For machines with the Intel processor

WebImage

A suite of graphic tools that allows you to manipulate and optimize graphics for the Web, including JPEG, GIF, and PNG files. From Group42. PC.

WebMotion (*)

Lets you build GIF or Java animations with a simple interface. From Astound for PC and Mac.

WebPainter

GIF Animation creation program with special effects but no frame optimization features. Includes free Giffyview bandwidth simulator. From Totally Hip Software. Mac/PC.

WebVise Totality

Contains an animation module for Photoshop so you can create animations without leaving Photoshop. Also does GIF and JPEG compression, dithering, digital watermarking and more.

Xara Webster

A versatile graphics tool that can import/export vector and bitmaps graphics. Allows you to compose, manipulate (reduce colors etc.), and add text to your animations. In addition to GIF and JPEG formats Webster can export PNG and their own vector-based proprietary format.

Collections

The Animation Software Toolbox

Valuable software index sorted by operating system and file format.

Comments are welcome