I’m beginning my career in animation and visual effects and i would like to know if someone knows a good animation program i can use to do animation for practice… i have not experience and i am not professional at this.. what program can be good for a beginner like me? hope this help other people too. Thanks.

Autodesk holds several of the most powerful applications, but they can be difficult to get your hands on if you do not qualify for a student license.  Many have cut their teeth on Blender, and you may want to take a look at Houdini http://www.sidefx.com/ which has a great apprentice license.  All of these can be a bit overwhelming at first, however.

I may get flamed for saying this, but if you are the toe dipping type and animation is your focus consider starting off in Flash.  You will learn all about timelines, keyframing, easing, event synchronization, compositing, encoding - even particles, rigging and inverse kinematics if you desire; but all in a greatly simplified and accessible environment (not that great things can’t be done with it: http://www.sitasingstheblues.com/watch.html).  Then with a couple of nice portfolio animations and the foundation knowledge of how animation works you can open Pandora’s...I mean Autodesk’s box.

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