Animation / Digital Effects Specialists Opinions required

[Jewrean]

Next year I will be helping my school with a school drama production and as an IT teacher I've been asked to have a background projected for the performance. I'll spare you with the details but basically I need to know what the best package / program / method is to create an animation of spider webs being thrown / shot.

Picture one of the performers throwing an invisible rope towards the screen and then spider webs unraveling onto the background (the background will most likely be in Power-point just so I can Click to progress).

Any opinions / suggestions (whether professional or not) are welcome. Please no trolling.

ALSO: If you believe that this thread would probably be better suited to a forum specifically catering to those in Animation could you please direct me to one?

THX Y'ALL

 

[Jewrean]

Bump.
Waited over-night, almost a day. At least one response would be nice.

 

[Gingerman]

3rd year animation student here.

If you dont have a budget I'd reccommend Blender. Great free package that actually holds up pretty well in comparison to the mainstream ones. If you can get your hands on a copy Maya is a great piece of software for animation.

If you have more details I'll try and give a more fleshed out opinion

 

[chowderface]

I don't know of any animator-specific forums myself, although I probably should since I am one...

In any case, Gingerman has the right idea. Although, there's really not any form of animation that's particularly quick and easy, so if you don't have the time to teach yourself Maya/Blender, you might want to find a freelancer and blow a couple hundred bucks to have them animate it for you (and I'm assuming you're only needing a few seconds of animation or you might need to spend a couple MORE hundred dollars). If spending money on this isn't realistic, the only other thing I can suggest is "change the script".

 

[Jewrean]

Note that the animation in question is 2D, not 3D. Does that change the advice? I have a friend who is learning Maya and other similar programs but I would rather not bother him about it.

 

[redisforever]

Ok, for this, probably ParticleIllusion 3.
Simple, effective, and perfect for this. Probably just get the trial version.

 

[RoboGeek]

for a 2D animation just use adobe flash its very simple and as long as you can draw or have access to someone its great

 

[chowderface]

Yeah, actually that does change the advice. Flash or ToonBOOM are good choices. Again, if you can't fox it yourself you might want to hire a freelancer, although in this case that piece of advice is slightly more self-serving because I'm an animator by trade. You wanna talk numbers or see a reel?

 

[Lilani]

Next year I will be helping my school with a school drama production and as an IT teacher I've been asked to have a background projected for the performance. I'll spare you with the details but basically I need to know what the best package / program / method is to create an animation of spider webs being thrown / shot.

Picture one of the performers throwing an invisible rope towards the screen and then spider webs unraveling onto the background (the background will most likely be in Power-point just so I can Click to progress).

Any opinions / suggestions (whether professional or not) are welcome. Please no trolling.

ALSO: If you believe that this thread would probably be better suited to a forum specifically catering to those in Animation could you please direct me to one?

THX Y'ALL

As a student, you can get 3D Studio Max, Maya, and any other Autodesk program in full for free for three years. Go Autodesk.com and register for their education community (here [http://students.autodesk.com/?nd=register] is a link to the page) and once you're registered you can download any of the programs you want, and any version of the programs from 2010 to 2012. Keep in mind your license will only last 3 years, and I don't think there are any discounts once that's up, but that should be long enough for you to get plenty of practice and experience in on them.