Autodesk Animator
Screenshot of Autodesk Animator
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| Developer(s) | Jim Kent, Yost Group, Autodesk |
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| Initial release | 1989 |
| Last release |
"Studio" / 1995
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| Operating system | MS-DOS, Windows 95 |
| Platform | x86 |
| Type | Animation software |
| License | Proprietary (Animator Studio) Freeware / BSD license (Animator Pro) |
| Website | animatorpro |
Autodesk Animator, also known as Ani Pro, PJ Paint, PJ, was a 2D computer animation and painting program in 1989 for PC with MS-DOS. The program was considered to be groundbreaking in the field of computer animation when it was initially released, and was very popular in the late 1980s and the early 1990s.
Animator gave the ability to do frame-by-frame animation (creating each frame as an individual picture, much like traditional cel animation). Animator Studio also had tweening features (transforming one shape into another by letting the computer draw each in-between shape onto a separate frame). Animator and Animator Pro supported FLI and FLC animation file formats, while Animator Studio also supported the AVI format. Animator was particular strong in Palette based editing, effects (like Color cycling) and animations a favoured technology in the time of indexed CGA and VGA graphics modes.
Unlike other DOS software from that time, Animator was not restricted by the 640 kilobyte conventional memory limitation as it utilized a DOS extender by Phar Lap. Animator's combination of twenty tools multiplied by twenty inks, 3D 'optics,' unparalleled palette handling, custom fonts and many other useful features (such as its own internal scripting language POCO), put it many years ahead of better known animation tools of the time.
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