D1 Different Animation software

Unit 31 Task 3 D1
Usability, functionality price compare

Blender 

Blender is usually used by experienced animators and also for creating different effects. The software allows you to customise the locations of different tools to let you make it as efficient and quick as possible making it more user friendly.

This software includes a suite with tool that you can use to create different 3D animations and interactive 3D content. Blender is mainly targeted towards people in media because it is better suited for commercials and other broadcasting methods.

The program offers;

A small files size that makes it easy for you to distribute.

A fully suited creation suite.

A high quality 3D architectures but still enables you to create them efficiently.

Adobe Flash Software

Adobe Flash Software (Flash) is a type of multimedia software that you can use to create animations but also games, these games are best suited and mostly used as browser and mobile games.

It can also be used to create different assets that can be used in websites for example; navigation buttons, slideshows, moving text and web banners.

This software isn't as advanced as the other softwares that I have compared in this blog; Blender and Maya, but it easily creates simple animations that you could find on most websites. 

The main thing that Flash has over the other animation softwares is that it has a much smoother learning curve, it could be picked up by a novice and in a hour they could create an animation (how ever short it may be) that could be used for a purpose. 

This software animates on a 2D surface that makes it unlike Blender and Maya so although it is the most user friendly it cannot be used for 3D animation.

Some of the features included with Flash

The user friendly nature of Flash makes it efficient when creating animation. 

The content created in Flash will resize itself when the canvas it is on is resized.

The software uses layers in its animation style allowing extra control and depth to the different animation on the layers.

The software has a library that allows to store the assets like images and animations in a suitable order and can all be found in the same place.

The differences between Flash and Blender

One of the main differences between Flash and Blender is that Blender uses 3D polygons to animate shapes and to create the 3D movement, where as Flash creates it's shape free hand and so the shapes that are created are as good the animators hand. This makes Flash suited better for games on a smaller scale like browser games and apps. Blenders polygon animation makes it better suited for a game on a larger scale, alot of freelancer game designers use Blender to create their games. 

Maya

Maya has alot of similarities to Blender, both are used in the designing and rendering 3D graphics, but Maya is the industry standard program for creating 3D objects for games and films etc. It can produce more graphically impressive and more realistic graphics than other less complex softwares for example Blender

Some of the features included in Maya are;

Craft animation tools, these allow you to make complicated camera movements within your animations.

Also included substance smart textures, that have dynamic, animated and editable resolutions

The differences between Blender and Maya

Blender can be considered a free Maya, but because it is a free source it does not perform as well as Maya and there are more limitations. Blender is much simpler which means it will be easier for people to use and the smoother learning curve makes it suited for animators that do it for a hobby or independently like; video makers, animators and video game animators.  

Maya is not free but because of this it can offer alot more than Blender, unfortunately this makes it very difficult to use and even harder to master. But for those that can master Maya it can offer high reward as it is widely renown as the industry standard, in most companies Maya will be used for its technological superiority.