A toolkit rather than one program
Animation studios use different applications for design, animation, compositing, editing and sound. A project might begin with drawings, move into animation software and finish in an editing application, with several artists contributing.
If you are commissioning animation, you don’t need to operate those tools. It helps to understand what they do—and when the choice affects you.
Preparing the artwork
Before something moves, someone needs to decide what it looks like. A character or graphic can begin as a sketch before becoming artwork suitable for animation. Vector tools such as Adobe Illustrator create artwork from paths and shapes that can be scaled without the pixelation associated with enlarging a small raster image.
Preparation matters. A character whose arms move independently needs to be organised differently from a single finished illustration. Original artwork, separated layers and the correct fonts can give an animator much more to work with than a small image saved from a website.
What we use at Move
Our toolkit includes Maya and Fusion for our 3D animation workflow, Toon Boom and CelAction for 2D, and After Effects across our animation projects—particularly motion graphics.
Maya supports the creation and animation of 3D characters and scenes. Fusion supports compositing: bringing rendered elements together into the finished image.
Our 2D work uses Toon Boom and CelAction. The approach depends on the design, performance and how the animation needs to be produced. A character’s appearance is only part of the decision; we also consider how they will move and what future scenes might ask of them.
After Effects has a role across our work, especially when animating graphics, typography and brand elements. Each application can contribute to a different part of the result.
Different tools can serve different approaches
Toon Boom Harmony supports drawn animation and rigged characters. A rig provides controls for moving parts of a character, rather than requiring every frame to be drawn from scratch. After Effects supports motion graphics, effects and compositing.
Other 3D applications include Cinema 4D and Blender. These are alternatives with their own workflows, rather than a league table. The useful question is whether the proposed method suits the film and the people making it.
Imagine a character lifting a heavy box. The software provides controls, but the animator decides how they prepare, where their weight goes and when they struggle. Those decisions make the action believable.
Finishing the film
Compositing brings separate visual elements together into a finished shot. Editing arranges shots over time. They are related jobs, but they solve different problems. Sound brings another set of choices about voices, music and effects.
A finished film can therefore depend on several sets of working files. The delivered video is the result of that work; it is not a substitute for the editable source files.
When should a client care about the software?
The choice becomes particularly relevant when someone else needs to update the work. Perhaps your in-house team will change the text every month, a character needs to appear in an interactive experience or another team will make future episodes. Raise those requirements at the start.
Ask which editable files are included, which applications and versions they require, and whether additional fonts, plugins or linked assets are needed. Agree which changes your team could realistically make.
Receiving a project file does not automatically make every part easy to edit. A text update and a new character performance involve different amounts of work.
Choose the approach around the film
Start with what the audience needs to understand or feel. Then discuss the visual approach, the team and how the work will be delivered.
You do not need to arrive with a preferred application. Tell us where the film will appear and whether you need to update or reuse it later. Those details help us plan the right approach.
