Toon Boom's Flip Boom

While not intended for complicated animation projects, Toon Boom's latest delivery, Flip Boom, may be designed for children - but it's a great starter program for the novice animator looking to learn the basics of frame animation.

Flip Boom is a highly simplified animation program with a perfect price tag for both beginners and children; at just $29.99, it's money well spent to learn the basics of animation. While I was disappointed by the limited color palette and the inability to import more detailed background images, the program is still a great starter program.

I've often had people write me asking what program I would recommend for their children to start learning the principles of animation; I've never really had a good answer. I could recommend a few simplified programs, but they were inevitably fairly expensive. With an interface designed specifically to make the learning curve easy for children and its low price, this program has become the perfect solution to that oft-asked question.

I may end up playing in it myself; it's a great deal of fun just to mess around with, even if I was disappointed that the brush sizes didn't respond to my tablet's pressure sensitivity - but that may be a problem with my off-brand tablet drivers, and not the program itself. Even experienced animators may enjoy Flip Boom to create quick, short animations that don't require more advanced functions. Onion-skinning makes it easy to work from one frame to the next.

The program could be improved by adding layers, for another step in the learning process - allowing learners of all ages to start off by working with roughs, then move up to retracing clean art as well as creating composite scenes by layering action on top of a background for the real animation experience. Flip Boom does allow painting behind existing strokes, though, so that's a decent start.