I have a friend who recently wrote, "My daughter is an avid fan of Japanese animation (called anime). She is also a very talented artist and draws anime-like cartoons continuously. She has asked for an animation program for her birthday so that she can use her charaters to create actual animation. She thinks she might want Flash XL, but is not sure if that is the right program." What software would you recommend for this type of animation work?
Jasc is pretty basic and easy to use. I think its pretty inexpensive too. I think Corel has an animation program too but I can' t remember the name of it to save my life. If I remember I'll post it.
That's a toughie. Flash is merely OK for this kind of a thing, and it really doesn't have the ability to scan and edit images in and of itself, so you'd be relegated to also picking up photoshop or corel photopaint - both of which are great for turning scanned drawings into digital art. I'd say of macromedia's tools, director may be more appropriate - I used that for simple classroom animations a lifetime ago. Putting together a full blown animated movie I think you would look into adobe after effects, 3d studio max (maybe there's a cheaper version) but after effects is really a special effects package and 3d studio is more for 3d character and object animation. I think it's probably time to look outside of mainstream apps and look at niche specific software like this http://www.toonboom.com/
Depending upon her age, you may want to have a look at Truespace 6.6 by Caligari. http://www.caligari.com/ Go their site Gallery and check out some of stills that folks have submitted. There's also an animation gallery. One I like is the Jan 05 winner they have posted, a robot video http://www.caligari.com/Gallery/Animations/2005/jan/default.asp?Cate=GAnimations. Very cool stuff, and it doesn't take much to get started. My artistic ability is quite poor, yet even I can make decent looking graphics with it. /*tom*/ BTW: my wacked out avatar is done in Truespace.
Being it anime, you're not going to want to use 3d studio max or maya. I'd suggest flash and even a drawing tablet for her, the tablet would enable to still draw by hand directly into the computer instead of having to worry about scanning.