Create 2D Animated Movies in Flash or QuickTime with Pencil
Pencil is a drawing cum 2D animation software that’s free but offers features that you would normally find in expensive programs like Adobe Flash or Toon Boom Studio.
Pencil is designed to mimic the traditional drawing and animation process where animation artists draw individual frames and play them in sequence but at a very high speed.
With Pencil, you begin by drawing a sketch on the canvas using the inbuilt tools. That’s your first keyframe. You then continue sketching other frames and compile to complete the animation.
Pencil also supports Onion Skins so you can reference the previous frame while sketching consecutive frames. Then there’s a camera layer for adding perspective to you animations.
Finally, drawings or 2D Animations created with Pencil can be exported to a variety of formats including SWF Flash, QuickTime MOV or a sequence of PNG image files.
Pencil is available for Windows, Mac and Linux platforms. It also works with your touch screen Tablet PC.
Pencil 0.4 | Download Pencil - Thanks Jane.
Amit Agarwal
Google Developer Expert, Google Cloud Champion
Amit Agarwal is a Google Developer Expert in Google Workspace and Google Apps Script. He holds an engineering degree in Computer Science (I.I.T.) and is the first professional blogger in India.
Amit has developed several popular Google add-ons including Mail Merge for Gmail and Document Studio. Read more on Lifehacker and YourStory
