Getting started in animation

red rover

Member
Joined
Sep 3, 2018
Messages
7
Reaction score
0
Age
65
My favorite YT videos are the animated history channels like simply history, the armchair historian, suibhne, and other animated history channels. I would like to do a channel like this myself but honestly have no clue where to start or even if this is the right forum to begin with. honestly any feedback would be greatly appreciated!
 

Farley Productions

Pursuing the Arts one step at a time.
Joined
Apr 17, 2017
Messages
740
Reaction score
363
Age
30
Channel Type
Director
I'm not one to really know any knowledge when it comes to animation...but I believe channels like those have advertised about a place called "SkillShare" to learn about animation, video creation, photography and more.
And I believe that that Oversimplified History wouldn't advertise something like this unless he actually used it and believed in it's value. So other then Youtube tutorials here and there and the occasional books I'd recommend checking out that site. Hopefully it can help you in learning what you want to know.

Best of luck. =]
 
Joined
Dec 17, 2018
Messages
18
Reaction score
8
Age
64
I used to work in an art studio where they trained students to work in the video game industry for Warner Brothers and Ubisoft. The product they used most (and they used several) was Autodesk Maya. It isn't free, but if you are a student (I.e. registered in an accredited school) you can get it free for 3 years.

The classic free animation software is Blender, it's available for Windows, Linux, and Mac and it is very powerful, but it has a fairly steep learning curve. The most famous video produced with Blender has to be "Big Buck Bunny" and as you can see the results are truly professional. If you're on a low budget and are willing to put the time in to learn how to use the product then it would be an ideal choice.

I create animated explainers to use within all of my videos and I make them using Apple Keynote. It's not really animation software but for simple sequences it is amazing and, best of all, it's free. Of course, being an Apple product it only runs on the Mac. You can learn how to use it in about 2 hours and when you export your videos using a Prores 4444 codec the quality is excellent. But again, it is not really animation software, more like powerpoint on steroids.
Hope this helps!
 

Dutchie Abroad

Exploring the world one video at a time!
Joined
Aug 13, 2017
Messages
939
Reaction score
690
Age
31
Location
Melbourne, Australia
Website
www.youtube.com
Channel Type
Vlogger
My favorite YT videos are the animated history channels like simply history, the armchair historian, suibhne, and other animated history channels. I would like to do a channel like this myself but honestly have no clue where to start or even if this is the right forum to begin with. honestly any feedback would be greatly appreciated!
I love channels like that as well :) Overly Sarcastic Productions and Extra History are good ones as well.

You can make your animations as simple or complex as you like. However, if you want to do a history you channel, you HAVE to do your research. Your animation doesn't have to be amazing if the information is interesting to listen at.

If you're starting out, I wouldn't bother with 3D animation software like Maya and Blender. Just use Photoshop, Gimp, Manga studio or whatever drawing program you are used to. Animated small segments and draw poses and then edit everything together in a video editor of your choice.
 

Seansie

Loving YTtalk
Joined
Jan 22, 2018
Messages
254
Reaction score
117
Age
25
Channel Type
Animator
I do animations and love to watch channels like that! There's a lot of different ways you can approach it and it depends a lot on the skills you have/are willing to learn as well as the style in which you want to do your animations. Some channels prefer using programs from the Adobe cloud such as Illustrator, Animate, and After Effects which give off a more 2D look. Toon Boom and other online programs also work in similar ways. Like others have suggested, Maya and Blender are also great software, but those are more used in the 3D animation field.

Hope this helps! If you have any questions on specifics of a certain program, don't hesitate to ask
 

Dave2017

Get The Picture?
Joined
Jan 17, 2017
Messages
1,892
Reaction score
670
Location
Denmark
Channel Type
Youtuber
I have an animation channel (not about history though but more kind of like philosophy and stufff) I use a program called videoscribe for my animation videos so if you are looking for a place to start I suggest you try of that software :) It is very easy to use and there is a free trial too....
 

Krisfire

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 27, 2019
Messages
67
Reaction score
28
Age
25
Location
Arkansas
Website
www.youtube.com
Channel Type
Director
There are a lot of really good replies here! Most animators I've been seeing on youtube, especially, the educational ones, have been using after effects or another motion graphics software and have been tweaking it for their needs. Just from some of the channels you posted I think after effects would do most if not everything they do. With some learning of course.

Andrew Kramer from VideoCopilot has some great tutorials for getting started with after effects. I've only seen people get limited by their imagination lol.

The channel "Kurzgesagt - In a nutshell" (A personal favorite) Makes their animations with After Effects and Illustrator.

So in my opinion, the best way to start animation is after effects, then after you know a bit more about HOW you wanna do them or HOW you want them to look, you can start going to the more specialized software.