Children’s Technology Review/July 2008

"Finally -- somebody made an easy to use animation tool kit for the rest of us. Ideal for introducing the powerful concept of moving art, or animation to children (or adults), Animation-ish is a $60 CD-based program for Mac or Windows that is easy to install and use, as long as you don't mind the price, and the frustration of trying to draw with a mouse. The "ish" at the end of the title comes from a book by children's illustrator Peter Reynolds, who appears in short idea video clips throughout the program.

"There are three levels of animation introduced. The easiest, called Wiggledoodle-ish lets you make a three-frame scribble, and see it come alive with animated wriggling. The next level, called FlipBook-ish, allows you to create simple animation projects using an unlimited number of frames and tracing tools. The hardest level, Advanced-ish, introduces you to foregrounds and backgrounds.

"The package includes a handy Classroom Activity Guide, with animation projects, such as animating the life of a butterfly. Besides the price (we'd like a $20 home version), the clip art library is limited in size, as is the screen size. Testers had a hard time finding the "undo" button. But these are minor issues. You can easily import images, or export work as Flash movies, QuickTime, AVI, a DV stream or an image sequence, adding to this program's usefulness.

"Prices start at $60, and site licenses are available. Fablevision encourages the use of an $80 Wacom Bamboo drawing tablet, not included in the price. Created by Toon Boom for Fablevision.

"Details: FableVision, Inc., www.fablevision.com. Price: $60. Ages: 5-up. Platform: Windows, Mac OSX. Teaches/Purpose: art, creativity, animation. Rating (1 to 5 stars): 4.6 stars. Entry date: 5/28/2008. [WB]"