Animation Companion

Animation Companion is a relatively simple application for creating 2D frame animations, sprites and sprite strips. It is very easy to use and provides you with a respectable array of tools.

It is meant to be used together with other editing software, as any changes made to the images included in your projects are merged into the animations automatically.

The first few steps are often the most difficult when beginning a new project, and Animation Companion can help you out by providing you with several useful templates. You can use them as the base layers to ensure your imported graphics are positioned correctly.

Numerous animations can be opened at the same time, and you can, for example, create separate projects that contain all the animations designed for a specific character.

Animation Companion supports PNG, JPG, GIF and PSD files when it comes to importing content, and these visual elements can be arranged in multiple layers.

You can move, rotate or resize the images in your projects, and the program generates a preview to give you an idea of what the completed animation would look like.

Moreover, it is possible to create new, intermediate frames by mixing two of the available ones.

Once you feel that the results match your expectations, you can export your creation as an animated GIF, sprite strip or sequence of PNG images.

Animation Companion is still in the early stages of the development process, and plenty of new features are likely to be introduced in future versions.

At the moment, the interface does have a rather outdated feel, and it is not particularly responsive.

Overall, however, Animation Companion is a straightforward and easy-to-use tool that can be used by experienced game developers or artists, as well as complete novices. It enables you to create complex animations and can export them to GIF files, PNG image sequences and sprite strips.