Happy New Year! I first wanted to thank each of you for being a reader of my blog. I appreciate your comments and support. May your studio’s flourish in 2013!

Now for a fun Tech Tuesday. You may have seen some of these animations on YouTube but maybe you didn’t know where they came from or how it was done…

GoAnimate is a do-it-yourself animated video website. Simple and short animations are free to create and then you can upgrade for more options if you desire. With the free version you typically have a few characters and scenes to choose from and 10 lines of dialogue to work with. Let me warn you thought, those 10 lines get used pretty quickly.

I created a short animation to try it out and within a few minutes I had a fun 1 minute long animation that I could share with my students. The hardest part was to come up with the dialogue.

Full video makers (upgrade) offers total creative control, still allowing with easy drag and drop tools. The libraries contain thousands of characters, backgrounds and props and even allows the user to create custom characters and audio. So if this is something you can see using a lot whether for personal or studio use, upgrading would give you the most tools to choose from.

And now for my GoAnimate debut you can watch my animation, Hidden Treasures!