Animating made Easy

Creating for a Cause Contest

noreply@blogger.com (RandomGirl) — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:51:00 +0000

Creativity and passion for animation is our main focus on GoAnimate, and we want to see just how creative you guys can get when it comes to giving back! There are so many amazing charities that are in need of resources and the key to them getting some of those resources that they desperately need is to get their word out! We have so many talented animators that could really highlight some of these great organizations. Let people know what cause or organization you are passionate about and together let's get them some well deserved attention!

We've partnered with Wacom, who have generously donated an Intuos4 Medium as a reward for our Grand Prize winner! This really is an amazing prize! The Intuos4 Medium tablet is the most popular and versatile choice among creative professionals. With 48.5 square inches of working area, this tablet provides ample workspace for most tablet users and retails for $369 (USD).

Rules
1. All entries must be tagged "creatingforacause".
2. Entries must include the name of the organization or charity you are promoting (must be a non profit)
3. You must include why you are passionate about this cause
4. Suggest ways for others to get involved in supporting your charity
5. Contest entries must include at least 1 Custom Character
6. Entries must be between 1:00 minute and 3:00 minutes in length
7. ALL animations must have some sort of audio in order to be eligible
8. Views will be counted from March 15th 00:00 (EST) up until April 14th at 11:59pm (EST)
9. One entry per household

The top 4 most viewed contest entries will then go into the final round to be judged. The staff will then choose the Grand Prize winner. We will also highlight the finalist's charities in our Blog and post links to ways people can contact them and offer support. However, there are no losers in this competition since all of your creations will help bring attention to many worthwhile causes!

Grand Prize:

1. The winning animator will receive a Wacom Intuos4 Medium drawing tablet, retail value $369 (USD)
2. The winner's charity will also receive 2 weeks of front page promotion with a link to their site
3. GoAnimate will make a donation of $100 (USD) in the winning animator's name to their charity

Now get out there and put those animating skills to excellent use and highlight some of these great causes!

Introducing 100 GoBucks Character Creator Coupons

noreply@blogger.com (Nicolas) — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 08:56:00 +0000

It has been really exciting in the previous weeks to see the Character Creator on GoAnimate grow from a little brand new tool to being one of the main themes used on the platform. It helped enhance story telling and bring our tools to a new level allowing everyone to star themselves and their own made-up characters in animated movies.

Now as the tool is advancing towards a more mature stage, it is time to adjust a bit our Facebook Connect promotion to reflect the changes. We are preparing a number of weekly updates that will see a brand new string of cool outfits and a new body type being released to the platform.

To better support the additional updates, we will be replacing our free character credits by 100 GoBucks Character Creator coupons. The concept will remain the same as before. When you share your GoAnimate activities on Facebook, every 10 activities posted (max. once every other day) you will get a 100 GoBucks coupon that you can use to purchase characters in the Character Creator.

100 GoBucks will cover the cost of a simple character with standard clothing and a few accessories. More tailor-made clothing will be slightly more expensive. As a rule, only one coupon can be used every time you create a character.

But enough of these technicalities. Enjoy a preview of the fab things to come to the Character Creator in the next few weeks!

New feature: Easily copy your custom characters

noreply@blogger.com (Nicolas) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 03:52:00 +0000

This has been a request for some time and now it's finally available on the site. In the GoAnimate animation studio, when you mouse over your characters' thumbnails in the Custom World theme, a small icon will appear. Click on it to be sent to the character creator and create a brand new character based on your existing one.

This will allow you to create different versions of the same character to fit different episodes of your series or different situations. Wear a suit to go to office and pajamas back home... or even go wilder.

Watch the below animation to see where to find the option in the studio.

Let us know what you think of this new feature!

Bringing Families Together With Animation

noreply@blogger.com (RandomGirl) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 23:15:00 +0000

As a kid some of my fondest memories have been of my family and I gathered in the living room around the TV, with our popcorn in hand, watching the latest Disney movie. Animated movies have been bringing families together since they were first introduced. Now, in this new age of technology, imagine the same scenario, except this time you are all watching an animation that you wrote and created together!

At GoAnimate, we are seeing more and more family created animations. What a great way to bring kids and adults together and make memories that can last a lifetime! Our free tools make it very easy for people without knowledge of animation software to make professional looking videos. As our motto says "Anyone Can Animate".

We have some great examples of users that have gotten their families involved in their hobby of creating animations. Here are just a few;

"The whole animation was based on a story I wrote for him a while ago about this time we were walking down the street near our home" says Coady. Gideon randomly says, "Look, a Brontosaurus". We looked where he was pointing and sure enough there was a silhouette of a large tree that looked remarkably like a Brontosaurus. A few days later I wrote a story very similar to this animation for him. I knew he'd love it as an animation.
Usually Gideon & Cyndi give me their opinion on a video or a drawing I've made and they tell me what they like best.
"Gideon's Dinosaur Tree" is the first time I've had them both work on the voices for a video. It was great.
Gideon was just tickled to have a character with his features and a story about his family. And then when he finally got to hear his voice on his character he thought it was the most wonderful thing and you can see how proud he is to have his own cartoon. "We look forward to making some more together." said Coady
Gideon's Dinosaur Tree by CoadyTNP

Animator Lamont Wayne, using the username “Chaostoon” has involved his family in creating animations with the site. “It has been a lot of fun for all of us,” Wayne says about GoAnimate. “We get to write stories and design characters… we laugh and have a great time.” Wayne creates an animated series with his nephews with GoAnimate. Jamari and Bralyn write, animate and voice for their characters in their self titled series. Voices have also included Wayne himself as well as the boys’ grandparents. “It has become a welcome addition to the family. It’s a fun activity to do together. It has also become educational for the boys to see how an animated cartoon is made. The best part is when the cartoon is done and we all get to watch and laugh. The boys’ mom and I share the cartoons on our Facebook pages and show the whole family and our friends. The best was when we showed their latest cartoon to the family on Christmas and it got a round of applause from everyone. You could see the pride on their faces, which makes it all worthwhile.” Jamari and Bralyn’s Christmas Special was a winner in the recent Jingle Bell Blowout Contest. “Winning a Nintendo DSi together for the boys was pretty cool. The boys were really excited.”
Jamari and Bralyn's Christmas Special by Chaostoon

Darian says "Doing a Cartoon with the family was a blast, such a great way to spend time together." Seeing as how my girlfriend and I are really busy people so to be able to sit down with Raiden, our son, and create something together was great. Raiden loved the whole idea of being in a cartoon as most kids would and he thinks he's the most famous person in the world right now ha ha. He helped me the whole way with his Cartoon as well. When I joined there was sooo much to play with I had no clue where to start so I thought "hmm why not ask Raiden he's a kid and their imaginations are unrivaled" and the rest is history, we can't wait to get another adventure going. I think the best part of the whole thing was the voice acting, we spent literally an entire day recording voices, after that though Raiden is pretty much a professional.

Raidens Random adventures by BIGELOW

In the words of Raiden "You guys rock" and he also thanks everyone who helped make it possible, he also thanks all his new fans out there. Darian said "I would also like to give a shout out to the amazing community, never have I met so many great people willing to help out and make it such a great place to hang, you welcomed us with open arms."

Hopefully these stories have inspired you to get your families involved and GoAnimate!

Make Some Room For The New Sticks In Town!

noreply@blogger.com (RandomGirl) — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 03:15:00 +0000

We just released four new characters in the Stickmen theme. Now those skinny sticks will have some beefy competition! We now have MuscleStick 3000 and FatStick300!

We are also proud to announce the arrival of StickBoy3000 and StickGirl3000! Each one of the new characters will cost 300 gobucks. We're looking forward to seeing these new additions to your animations!

Let us know what you think of them by leaving your comments below. Now, get out there and GoAnimate!

You Can Now Download Your Animation! Also, New Custom Character Clothing Available!

noreply@blogger.com (RandomGirl) — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 23:35:00 +0000

We hope you all had a nice holiday season and a big congrats to all of our Jingle Bell Blowout contest winners. Thank you all once again for making it such a wonderful success and a lot of fun to be a part of for all the staff! Stay tuned for your next chance to win big with some exciting great prizes!

New Download Feature

We have some exciting updates that we wanted to make sure that you guys know about. The first one I will go over is the new and highly anticipated download feature! Yup, now you can easily download your creations and upload them to youtube, save them on your computer, heck you can even burn off a copy to disc and show off to your grandma!

Once you have selected the video you would like to download, underneath it, you will see a large orange button that says "Download this animation". This is the button you will want to click. There is a fee for this feature and it does depend on the length of the video. However, the first download is automatically 75% off and subsequent downloads are currently 50% off the normal price! Let me be the first to tell you that the quality is OUTSTANDING! The video is saved as mpeg4 (H264, 1280x720, 6,000 Kbps, 24 frames/s) with the audio as AAC (44100Hz, 128Kbps, stereo). In other words... it's very high quality and will definitely make your creations look awesome!

Once you have clicked the big orange download button, the conversion process begins. Sometimes this may take a bit (several minutes), but you will get an email message once the conversion is complete and your video is ready to download. At that time, you will return to the animation page. Now, instead of seeing a big orange download bar, you will see a big green one, this means it's ready! Click that button and select where on your computer you would like to save your creation. If you have any questions about the download feature, you can refer to the FAQ's, or feel free to post in the forum or message a member of the staff for help. We are always here to help :)

Now for our second big update! New Custom Character clothes!!! Yayy!
As you can see our newly created characters below are pretty excited about the new clothing options and are having some fun shopping for new duds!

There are quite a few new outfit choices in the character creator including some uniforms, hospital wear, and since it is winter, we have some warmer weather clothing options available. You can now also choose men's or women's clothing for the large body style. Or if you feel like dressing down, see the picture below. We now have jammies! And who doesn't love to work in their pj's! Ha ha!

If you have any comments or questions feel free to post them here on the blog, forum, or message a staff member. Now let's GoAnimate!!

Jingle Bell Blowout Winners Announced!

noreply@blogger.com (RandomGirl) — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 01:12:00 +0000

I’m sure this is the post that many of you have been patiently awaiting. But first, we'd like to say that we all had a lot of fun watching your contest entries! You all really impressed us with your creativity and level of quality that each of you put into them. A big thank you to all who entered! Trust me, it made judging pretty tough, but after tallying all the votes, we have picked the winners. They are posted below.

Santa Trapped in the Bathroom:

Grand Prize Winner - Nintendo DSi
Jamari and Bralyn's Christmas Special by Chaostoon: http://goanimate.com/movie/0oYSllbWSbuE/1

Runner’s Up – 2,000 Gobucks

Rudy's bath by Showtime - http://goanimate.com/movie/0GTfSboP_mB4/1
Trek the Halls by Megora - http://goanimate.com/movie/0hc9PTzgzIFg/1

Wish List:

Grand Prize Winner – Nintendo DSi
All I want for Christmas... by CheekyBoy: http://goanimate.com/go/movie/0rS5vy8WzFvE/

Runner’s Up – 2,000 Gobucks

Peace on Earth by Mojochi - http://goanimate.com/movie/0MpNU3u-Y5bI/1
This Christmas by PandaBoy - http://goanimate.com/movie/0J9z_L0ZfmG4/1

Congratulations to all the winners and a huge thank you to all who entered and made the contest such a wonderful success!

GoAnimate's Jingle Bell Blowout Contest! Win a Nintendo Dsi!

noreply@blogger.com (RandomGirl) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 09:36:00 +0000

Creativity is our main focus on GoAnimate, and we want to see just how creative you guys can get! So, we are going to make this one a bit more challenging! But, with great work, comes great rewards!!

We will have not one but two chances to be a Grand Prize winner and the proud owner of a brand new Nintendo Dsi!! How cool is that?! I have one of these myself and let me tell you, they are awesome and so much fun! They have loads of features including Wi-Fi capabilities and a really cool camera that has tons of effects you can add to your pictures to customize them! Oh yeah, and you can play lots of great games on them! This is one of the must haves this holiday season!

Details
Now for the low down on how you can win big! We have decided to start off with two story lines or ideas. It will be your challenge to create animations around them! You can pick one or make entries for both ideas, but they have to be separate animations. We will have one Grand Prize winner and two runners up for each story line. But, you can only win once.

•Story Idea #1 - Imagine it is Christmas Eve and Santa is nowhere to be found! Where has he gone you ask? Simple, he's trapped in the bathroom! How and why did he get locked in there? Will he be able to escape in time? (Cue the mission impossible theme song) Will Christmas be ruined?!? These are all questions that you will need to answer!

•Story Idea #2 - Put something outrageous on your Christmas List and create a story as to why you desperately need this "thing". Make sure to include how receiving this wish would impact your life.

Rules
•All entries must be tagged "jinglebellcontest"
•Animations will have to have at least 50 views and be shared once by 12:01 AM (EST) Dec. 24th 2009 in order to qualify
•Contest entries must include at least 1 Custom Character
•Entries must be between 1:00 minute and 3:00 minutes in length
•ALL animation must have some sort of audio in order to be eligible
•Every entry must also include two of the following phrases: "Mario", "Darth Vader", "Lich King", "Spock", "Edward", "Harry", "Chicken", "Naruto", "Akuma", "Bunny", "Peanut Butter" and one of the following verbs: "pray", "fail", "animate", "dream"
•Winners will be judged by the staff
•Winners will be announced on or before Dec. 31st 2009

Prizes
2 Grand Prize winners will receive a new Nintendo Dsi (one winner for each story idea)
There will be 2 runners up from each story line that will each receive 2,000 Gobucks each

Disclaimer - Only residents of the following countries will be able to receive a Nintendo Dsi: US, Canada, UK, France, and Germany
**Winner can choose to get the cash equivalent (US$169) instead of the Nintendo Dsi**

Happy Holidays and let the animating begin!!

Happy Thanksgiving! 50% Off Custom Characters for a Limited Time

noreply@blogger.com (RandomGirl) — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 07:34:00 +0000

All of the staff at GoAnimate would like to wish you and your families a Happy Turkey Day! We would also like to take the time to say how thankful we are to have such a great community of users! You guys have been so supportive of the site, each other and just all around awesome!

We are also offering 50% off Custom Characters for a limited time. From now until Dec. 3rd, they will be half off!! But don't worry, you will get a whole character. Ok, I had to throw in my lame attempt at humor. (The discount applies only to the original pieces, not the new options)

But, in all seriousness, we do hope that you all have a safe and fun holiday and get to spend it with your families and those that you are thankful for. Please feel free to post comments and say what you may be giving thanks for this holiday season!

Welcome to the latest GoAnimate updates.

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 06:49:00 +0000

New Channels Tab

We have a new channels tab! No longer will you have it pop up on you at a inconvenient time. You can check out the latest animations by theme. In the mood for some Star Trek or Street Fighter? No, worries just one quick click and you are there.

New Clothes!
You have asked for it and we have listened. That's right, new clothing options for the character creator! Now you can make your character dress uptown, downtown and everything in between with the new additions. And we will continue to add more in the future.

Auto Save Update
No more closing out the wrong window when you have more than one open and losing all of your hard work. Now when auto saving, the studio creates a temp file. Once you manually save this it is removed. But if you are working on a project and oh no you accidentally close it out. Next time you edit the animation, the studio will present you with the option of loading the temp file or your manually saved file. With no loss of your animation it's back to animating you go.

Language Update
We have great news for all of our friends who speak multiple languages. Our studio now recognizes all types of languages as long as you use system fonts.

Stay tuned for more fantastic updates! We will also be announcing our Holiday Contest soon!

New Facebook Login!

noreply@blogger.com (RandomGirl) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:54:00 +0000

Hi Everyone!

Yet another update to tell you all about! This one is great news for the many Facebook fans out there. Now you can sign into GoAnimate using your Facebook account. This means that for new users coming to our site for the first time, can use their Facebook log in and GoAnimate will automatically create an account for them. On our front page, you will now see a "Login with Facebook" option next to the regular "Sign In" button.

For existing GoAnimate users, you will still need to connect your Facebook accounts from your userpage in order to make this work. This should help streamline your ability to share your animations and activity with your Facebook friends!

We hope you find this new feature helpful and as always look forward to hearing your feedback!

Studio layout, screenshot feature and new body type

noreply@blogger.com (Nicolas) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 08:39:00 +0000

A quick note to summarize the changes that happened between end of last week and today.

Studio Layout

We update the theme selection menu in the studio. With this new drop down menu, it should be faster to select specific themes and even specific types of items within each theme. We did that change to try and help reduce loading time in the studio.

Screenshot Feature

More and more users are making profile pictures using GoAnimate characters. We wanted to make this easier by having a screenshot feature within the studio directly.

Now you can click on screenshot, then select the area from the stage that you want to save as a picture and BAM! It gets saved just like that! You can then reupload it as a profile picture or use it on other sites.

Another use of this feature is to take snapshots of backgrounds you create in order to easily re-use them in the future. Pretty handy.

New Body Type

We added a third body type in the character creator as part of our continuous effort to add variety to this tool. We also changed a bit the flow of the steps in the tool. You will now select clothes first and then design your character's facial features.

You can expect to see much more new items added to the character creator as time goes by.

Other updates:

- Number of free character credits (Forum thread)

- Number of pixels displayed when adding movement in the studio (Forum thread)

That's it for this time. As usual, please let you know what you think of the changes!

The Latest At GoAnimate!

noreply@blogger.com (RandomGirl) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 23:13:00 +0000

Hi Everyone!
We have a lot of updates to fill you guys in on. We've been pretty busy here at GoAnimate lately!

Halloween Spooktacular Contest

First, we would like to congratulate the winners of the Halloween Spooktacular Contest. Thanks to all of you who entered. It was a big success and hopefully you guys had as much fun making your entries as we did watching all of them!

Grand Prize Winner -10 Custom Character Creator credits + $10 Amazon.com GC
The Distress Call by RoTV

Three First Place Winners -3 Custom Character Creator credits
Where am I? by cheekyboy

Halloween Night by DarkPhoenixXD

Halloween Spooks by Mojochi

New Update to the Character Creator

We have added new features to the Character Creator that will allow you to customize your characters even more! Now you can add a scar here, a bandaid there, wrinkle lines or even some blush or earrings! Check out the characters below with a few of the added new options!

New View Count Display

Some of you may have also noticed that now under your profile pictures it displays your view count. Pretty cool huh? Also, to make it easier for you guys to recognize who is part of the staff, instead of displaying a number under the profile picture, it will say Site Admin.

New Community Blog Comming Soon!

We will be starting a bi-weekly community blog post that will include user submitted content as well as stuff we think you guys will enjoy! So for example, our first post we would love for you guys to submit pictures how you are celebrating Halloween! You could send us pictures of your carved pumpkins, your cool costumes, decorated houses, etc...

Please send these to me at michelle@goanimate.com

New Custom Character Creator Released!!

noreply@blogger.com (RandomGirl) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 21:10:00 +0000

It's Here, It's Here! Our New Custom Character Creator Is Released!!

We know you guys have been waiting patiently for this feature for some time and the wait is over! Now you can custom create any character you want, the possibilities are endless! You can create yourself, your friends, family, celebrities, and make your own adventures with them come to life!

You can create a look-a-like of yourself and integrate it with our already existing themes and make animated tales of yourself and the crew of the USS Enterprise, battle it out with a Streetfighter, hang out with Willie Nelson, party with some celebrities, just to name a few examples!

To create a Custom Character just click on the Create tab to get started.

Then, just follow the arrows, to go thru selecting all your custom features. You can use the arrows to move things around and the other buttons will shrink, enlarge, rotate, and move say your eyes closer or further apart. You can customize all the facial features, clothing and colors on everything! Pretty cool huh?

Once you are happy with your character click the save button and it will be added to your personal list of characters. We also have pre-made ones to chose from. You can find those from the drop down menu at the start of the creation process.

You can also earn Character Creator credits by linking your GoAnimate account with your Face Book account and posting on your page! Please feel free to post in the forum if you have any questions or you can message support@goanimate.com

Now Let's GoAnimate!!

Announcing GoAnimate's Halloween Spooktacular Contest!

noreply@blogger.com (RandomGirl) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 02:14:00 +0000

GoAnimate's Halloween Spooktacular Contest!

It’s my favorite time of year again! It’s coming up on Halloween and it’s time to get spooky! I think the perfect way is with a good old fashioned Ghost Story. Time to gather around the campfire, turn off the lanterns and get ready to be afraid, very afraid! We want you guys to make your scariest, spookiest ghost stories come to life!

General Conditions:

The contest will be divided into two separate parts. The first part of the contest will be based on highest number of views. This period will start at 12:01 AM(EST) October 19th and ends at 11:59 PM(EST) October 25st 2009. You can start working on your animation now. We will reset the view counts to zero once the first part of the contest begins.

The ten highest viewed contest entries will then move on as “Finalists” to the second portion of the contest. They will then be judged by the GoAnimate staff. We will choose one Grand Prize winner and three first place winners. Once the results are in from both parts, we will announce the winners on October 28th.

Eligibility:

Each contest entry must be a Ghost Story. You can make it funny, mysterious, or just down right scary! It can be whatever your creative mind can come up with! However if you think your entry may be extremely frightening, you might want to add a warning. We wouldn’t want to give anyone a heart attack! Ha Ha!

1. Entries must be between 1:30 minutes – 2:00 minutes long. We don’t want super short ones, but don’t want to hassle with long load times either.

2. Animations without music and/or sound effects will not be considered.

3. The winning animations will be based on General Conditions listed above.

4. You can use any theme or combination of themes for your entry.

5. All entries must be tagged with “spooktacular” in order to be eligible. Make sure that you add the tag when you publish it, so that we will not Staff Pick it. Staff Picked animations will not be eligible.

6. NO CUSTOM CHARACTERS THAT WERE CREATED DURING THE BETA TEST CAN BE INCLUDED, as they and any animations they appear in will also be deleted. The CC will be released in a few days, if you want to add one then, it will be ok

Prizes
Grand Prize Winner - 10 Custom Character Creator Credits and a $10 Amazon Gift Card
Three First Place Winners - 3 Custom Character Creator Credits each

Yayy! It's Chat Time on GoAnimate With Meebo!

noreply@blogger.com (RandomGirl) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 01:03:00 +0000

Hello GoAnimators!

We have just introduced a new feature that you guys have been wanting for quite a while! It took us a bit, but we think we found a good one that will work well with the site. Meebo is easy to use and alot of fun. Now, you can chat with your fans and friends right on the GoAnimate site! If you only plan to use Meebo to chat with your GoAnimate friends then you will not even need to register for an account. The feature is fully integrated with the site.

Meebo lets their users gather their friends and form a single "Buddy" list where you guys can communicate in real time across different IM platforms, communities, and other social networks. Users can keep in touch with friends across dozens of IM platforms, including AIM, Yahoo!, MSN, Google Talk, MySpace IM, Facebook Chat, and more. If you would like to import your friends list from other platforms, you will need to sign up for an account. For more information or support you can visit Meebo.

You will notice that there is now a Meebo Chat bar that sits at the bottom of the page. Below you will see what it will look like when you log into GoAnimate now.

To get started, you will need to become a Fan of the person/people that you wish to chat with. Then you can click Add Friend from their profile page. But it works both ways in order to start chatting. They will also need to Fan you and click to add you as a Friend in order for them to show up on your Meebo Friends list. Once you have your friends list set up, you will be able to see when they are online and available to chat.

Another pretty cool thing about Meebo is you can easily share content with each other while you chat. If you notice in my picture above, there is an arrow on the bottom left that points to a link to "Share Page". So, if you are talking to someone and want them to check out an animation or maybe a specific thread in the forum, click this link and drag it into your chat box.

Now if for some reason you wish to no longer be chat buddies with someone, you can simply go to their profile page and click Remove Friend. Hopefully, you guys will have lots of fun and put this new feature to good use!

Interactive Animation Showdown - Winners Announced!!

noreply@blogger.com (RandomGirl) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:06:00 +0000

Hi Everyone,

A big thank you to all of you that participated in our Interactive Animation Showdown! The contest was a lot of fun and we got to see some very creative uses for our new Interactive Feature. We really did enjoy watching all of your contest entries and congratulations to all the winners! You guys really did an outstanding job!

So, without hesitation I present to you the Official Winners!

Grand Prize Winner - 2,000 Gobucks & $20 Amazon.com Gift Card

T-Roll's How to Lose Fans and Infuriating People by Coady

Three First Place Winners - 1,000 Gobucks

H I T M A N-The Interactive Game by vp1234567

Find the Red Dot Interactive animation entry by Stevie wonder

PLAY!!! Survival interactiveanimation by thebest creator

Congratulations again to all the winners and thank you to all of those that participated and made the contest a big success! Stay tuned for an announcement about our next contest and your next shot at GoAnimate fame and prizes! In the meantime, have fun animating! :-)

New Web Based Audio Recording/Editing Tool!

noreply@blogger.com (RandomGirl) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 02:09:00 +0000

Hi Everyone!

GoAnimate has been very active lately with the contest and we're getting some really great entries so far! Love to see all the creative uses for the new "Interactive" feature!

We wanted to tell you all about this really great site that we found http://aviary.com/tools/myna.
It is a web based application for audio recording and editing. You can also mix music tracks and add effects! There is no need to download anything or worry about installing a codec, like you would need to do with Audacity.

Here is a screenshot of what the audio studio looks like. It's very easy to use and the site has a great help section if you have any questions.

The site also has several other tools that you can use to create props and effects.

All of the different tools have great tutorial videos you can easily access from the main http://aviary.com page. We hope that you will find this site useful and in the meantime, Have Fun Animating!!

It's Time For a Showdown! You Could Win Big!!

noreply@blogger.com (RandomGirl) — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 07:40:00 +0000

Interactive Animation Showdown!!

Are you guys ready to get active? Or better yet, Interactive? Well now is the time! Create an animation using our new Interactive Speech Bubbles and you could be a winner!!

DATES -

The contest dates are 12:01 AM September 14, through 11:59 PM (EST) September 27. Any animations PUBLISHED before or after these dates will be considered ineligible. When the view counting period begins, all contest entries will have their views reset back to 0.

**REMEMBER, WHEN WORKING ON YOUR ANIMATION, TO SAVE YOUR ENTRY AS A DRAFT UNTIL THE CONTEST PERIOD HAS STARTED.**

RULES -

Each contest entry must include our new Interactive Speech bubbles. You can make it a game, a mystery; it can be whatever your creative mind can come up with!

1. Entries must contain a minimum of at least five Interactive Speech Bubbles used throughout the complete animation. However, there is no maximum number you can use, so the sky is the limit!

2. Animations without music and/or sound effects will not be considered.

3. The winning animations will be based on highest number of views. Views will only count during the contest period. Any views received after 11:59 PM (EST) September 27 will not be considered in the determination of the winners.

4. You can use any theme or combination of themes for your entry.

5. All entries must be tagged with "interactiveanimation" in order to be eligible, however only the first or main animation needs to be tagged. This is the one that will be used to keep track of view counts.

PRIZES -

~ One Grand Prize Winner will receive 2,000 Gobucks and a $20(USD) Amazon.com Virtual Gift Card

~ Three First Place Winners will each receive 1,000 Gobucks

Interactive Animations! New Speech Bubble Link Feature

noreply@blogger.com (RandomGirl) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 09:16:00 +0000

Today we added a new feature to the studio: The Speech Bubble Link feature.

This is a great new addition and will have many different uses! Now, when you drag out a speech bubble and click to edit it, there will be a new button. The new button looks like a little blue and green globe.

When you click the globe button you will get a pop up and you can link to any other page on GoAnimate. You could link to one of your other animations, a user page, a forum thread, there are so many possibilities! When people click the link they will automatically be redirected to wherever you send them on the site.

This could really have a lot of fun uses!

For Example

You could link to other episodes of your series.
Link to your profile page (this could be very beneficial if your animation is embedded on another site).
You could make an animation with alternate endings and have users click to pick which they want to see.
Collaborating with other users on a story could be fun, just link to the next persons part.
Link to a forum post you want people to see.
Help promote your favorite animations.
You could make a game out of it and if the viewer picks the right links, it leads them to a win or lose screen.

We can't wait to see all the creative ways you guys will use this new feature! Please let us know what you think of it and what ideas you come up with. Have fun and enjoy!

New widget, GoBucks offers and FX behavior

noreply@blogger.com (Nicolas) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 08:52:00 +0000

Another week, another update on GoAnimate... and there's a lot this week!

New widget

Tired of embedding your and other people's animations on your site one by one. No problem! The GoAnimate widget is here. Just select a category and a theme (optional) and you will get a continuously updated flow of animations on your site. No maintenance required.

It comes in 2 different colors and the dimensions can be tweaked to fit anywhere on your site.

GoBucks Offers

As we are releasing more premium characters and content we thought we should also release more ways for everyone to earn GoBucks. Now when you go to the "add credit" page, you will see offers that allow you to earn GoBucks and that do not force you to spend money.

FX Behavior

Ever tried to use that widescreen effect and couple it with a zoom?! Just impossible?? Well, not anymore! Now special effects on GoAnimate are attached to the player screen instead of the stage inside the studio. This means that when you zoom inside a scene the FX will stay nicely in place as an overlay.

If you feel some of the current FX behaved better before, let us know and we will also make them available as props to give more flexibility. Try it out now!

We're looking forward to hearing your comments regarding these updates!

More updates

- You will now need to update your Flash Player to version 10.0.12 or better to use GoAnimate. This is needed to enable some of the new features we're releasing.

- News highlights on the FAQs and forum pages

- Following a large number of comments, Pamela does not touch her breast anymore... (Sorry guys)

- Bug fixes on the stick figure theme

New Special FX: Pan

noreply@blogger.com (Nicolas) — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 11:16:00 +0000

Today we have added a new special effect in the studio: The PAN effect. This effect should make it much easier to create camera movements in your scenes. It is meant to be used together with the zoom and cut effect to add dynamic effects in your scenes.

To use it, simply drag it to the starting location where you want the camera to focus. Then drag the effect to the destination where you want to camera to stop of the end of the scene. As you drag you will see that the starting position remains the same and you are only dragging the end position for the effect. After this you can fine-tune both starting and ending position the way you want.

When you add a scene, the Pan effect is copied to the next one, but the ending position is now your starting position. Neat, huh?! And... if you want to use a zoom or cut effect in that next scene instead, no problem, simply click on these effects and they will be copied to the right position.

That's about it really. It's now up to you to let us know what you think of this effect and if it is a good complement to the existing zoom and cut ones. Enjoy! :o)

Stick Figures, Renaming Movie States and Published Date

noreply@blogger.com (Nicolas) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 10:14:00 +0000

It's time for another update already! Here is what has been changed on the site today.

Stick Figure Theme
You asked for more actions... Here you go! We updated the theme to include more fighting actions both hand-to-hand combat and using firearms. We also added so more generic actions like lying down, kneeling down, different walks and swinging stuff. You may also realize the stick figures now have super powers and can wear new headgear that will surely remind you of a popular cartoon series... we let you guess what it is.

KA... ME... HA... ME.... HHHHHHAAAAAAAAA!!!!

Renaming Movie States
It's always a bit tricky to rename something on a site already launched for a while, but we thought this relabeling was worth it and hopefully will help new users better understand the different states available to save your movies.

Now on the save movie screen in the animation studio, you can choose to save your animation as draft (the old private no sharing state) or to publish the animation. Once you publish the animation you can choose to publish it as public (the old public state) so that anyone can watch it or as private (the old private sharing on state) so that only people you give the URL to can watch it. In private state you can also share the animation on social networks.

We hope the change won't be too confusing at first. You will see that on your user page the labels for your movies have been updated as well.

Published Date
As we made this change, we also introduced the concept of a published date. From now on after you turn your animation to public, we will record the published date and this date will not change in the future. This means that even though you edit a published movie, that date will remain the same and the movie will not show in the latest list. This will help making sure that the movies on the watch page are all "fresh"!

Basically, if you want to republish your movie with a new date, the only way to do so is to make a copy of that movie, which means losing all the stats of the movie.

As usual, let us know your comments regarding these changes.

New Forum Categories

noreply@blogger.com (ELLARU) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:51:00 +0000

Hi everyone! We're happy to see that the GoAnimate community is growing steadily - and in tandem, that the forums are receiving more traffic than ever before! It's wonderful to see everyone sharing their ideas, animations, random jokes and comments. Because everyone has something to share, we decided to modify the forums, so that threads would be located in the appropriate places. Please read the following descriptions of the forum categories, and please make sure that you start threads in the appropriate category!

About GoAnimate

In this category, discuss tips and tricks to improve animations. Here you can also talk about other GoAnimate topics.

Animation in General

In this category, you can promote your latest work, thank your friends, discuss your favorite cartoons and animated films.

Errors and Bugs

This is the forum to address errors and bugs, or if you cannot figure out how to access a certain feature.

Suggestions

In this category, you can tell us how we can make GoAnimate better. It can be new characters, new actions, new features, new themes, etc.

Open Forum

This is the category for chatterbugs! If you want to chat about anything (and everything) that doesn't fit in any of the categories above, feel free to speak your mind here.

Threads that are not located in the appropriate categories will be moved - this is to ensure that you are finding relevant threads for what you are interested in.

Stay tuned for further updates to the forum as we have exciting plans in the works !

As always send us your thoughts and suggestions.

What's New: July 16th, 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Nicolas) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 11:10:00 +0000

Two "what's new" posts in one day! Pretty cool, huh?! ... Okay... Okay... I know, I'm cheating. I could have put all these together in one... :oS

Anyway... Here's what's new!

Sharers Highlighted on Animation Pages
The first update is an addition to the animation page. In the right column, there is now a new block showing who has been sharing that particular animation. That's a way for you as a sharer to get more exposure. Not only do you get extra GoPoints when you share, but you also get a spot on the animation page showing your helped promote that animation.

Note that your picture will be added there only if views are generated from your sharing. This means that if you send an email to your friends or share the animation on Facebook, your picture will only appear after one of your friends watched the movie.

"Best from Rising Stars"
Getting your work noticed on any website is hard. Here, you may spend hours working on an animation and then get no views at all. Is that fair?! Well, after discussing with both newer and older users on the site, we felt that it was important to try and do our bit to give newer users more exposure.

That's why we added this new section under the "Watch" Page of the site. Now, if you select "Best for Rising Stars", you will see promising animations created by users who may not be that well known yet on the site. This is a way for everyone to discover new talent on the site more easily. We hope that this will help in getting your work noticed faster.

As usual, pleast let us know your comments on these updates.