

Ask HN: How do you create nice, clean 2D animations? - pbnjay

For explainer videos, simple animated gifs etc. that you put on your website for example. The most recent example is the GitHub LFS animation: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;1986-announcing-git-large-file-storage-lfs<p>I&#x27;ve found a few options but none seem to make quite as polished animations as I&#x27;ve seen around the web.
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benologist
Adobe Flash, gives you a layered timeline, transitions you can apply/create on
elements you put on the stage etc, and you can do it all programmatically too.
There are multiple export formats including gif.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU6BwCPv3Ak](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU6BwCPv3Ak)

[http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-create-your-
fir...](http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-create-your-first-
animation-in-flash.html)

If you're comfortable doing it in code there's also JavaScript/HTML like this
library which came from / uses Flash methods but I'm not sure how you go from
this to gif:

[https://greensock.com/get-started-js](https://greensock.com/get-started-js)

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pbnjay
Interesting I didn't know Flash could export to GIF, thanks! I have some
experience with Flash from many moons ago so that might be a viable option.

I wish I could just pay and download though, I really don't want a
subscription...

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benologist
You can also use it as a basis for searching - "flash alternatives" might turn
up something good enough with better licensing.

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beckler
This might be a good resource.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_2D_animation_software](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_2D_animation_software)

~~~
pbnjay
Yeah I found that but that doesn't tell me what anyone actually uses. I've
tried each of the open-source and freeware apps, I'm asking this because the
rest seem pretty pricey for a bootstrapper.

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dinkumator
I've used google web designer for a few simple animations:
[https://www.google.com/webdesigner/](https://www.google.com/webdesigner/)

