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This question is specifically for @MadHattersDaughter but I will happily accept answers from anybody who has ever dabbled in animation. (Bit random to ask for animation advice on a writing website, I know, but the problem with forums about animation is that people expect you to actually know things, and... I know no things.)

Is there any 2D animation software out there that is:

1. Free
2. Easy to use
3. Actually does stuff

Basically, I've downloaded a few different animation software programs, and they all have either one of two problems. Either they are so bloody complicated that I can't figure out how to do the first thing with them, or they are relatively simple to use, but don't have the capacity to perform the most basic of tasks, like copy/pasting more than one frame at a time.

If any of you out there have ever done any 2D animation before, could you please let me know what software you used, because I really don't want to resort to making every individual frame on photoshop and importing them into Windows Movie Maker.

Awesome! Do you prefer Krita or Opentoonz?

Krita. I use krita for worldbuilding and map work too, since I have a drawing tablet so I'm deeper into the krita workflow. If I had no drawing tablet, and back when I did not, I preferred opentoonz because it was simple to import images into and the built-in layer editing tools could be used to create sense of motion.

I'm not real far into my copy of the animators survival guide, but it does have loads of useful information and is heavily recommended by everyone animating anything ever so maybe pick up a copy if you're interested.

I've made animated game assets in pyxeledit and gimp. though pyxel edit is more made for such things while gimp is a whole image editing and creation software (doesnt lend itself to art much typically, but again: any software you know well and get a workflow in can be extremely versatile).

I can vouch for Krita! It's user interface is a lot easier to use than others and I find it better than opentoons because it is more drawing-friendly. If you prefer animation that isn't too detailed, opentoonz is the way to go!

I think most animation programs that are worth it often come with a learning curve.

And now that I'm about to lose my free student subscription to ToonBoom (although ToonBoom Harmony essential is only 27USD a month which isn't obscene for a super powerful, somewhat straightforward program.) I'll be looking for alternatives myself!

It's extra difficult finding a decent animation program that doesn't cost but you might spend $20/month for Photoshop or Adobe Animate for a short time. Photoshop has decent animation tools. Adobe Animate or After Effects is good for rigging characters or motion graphics.

Procreate is a one-time $10 app that I've animated in before where the layers act like frames like Photoshop. It's pretty simple and has an onion skin.

I just downloaded OpenToonz and took a peek at it and it seems quite similar to ToonBoom Harmony so there will definitely be a learning curve but it's not so complicated once you get the gist. And you can copy-paste multiple frames and I think there's an easy way to color too.

All the buttons in animation programs are admittedly overwhelming to look at but really you just need to know how to draw on frames. There's lots of tutorials for every program too.

I'll just kindly point out that the price doesn't matter if you're willing to sail the seas, and if anybody doesn't know how to do that hit me up.

On note of photoshop, affinity photo is a great alternative thats a one time purchase and is so similar to photoshop that even advanced tutorials are easily followable in the program.

Massive thanks to all you guys for your help! Unfortunately, Opentoonz was one of the programs that I downloaded and immediately dismissed because I couldn't figure out how to do a single thing, but from the sounds of it, that program would probably be the most useful tool for me, so I will look into it a bit more and see if I can wrap my head around it. Will hopefully have a nice, shiny video to show you all soon. ^_^

Can confirm that Opentoonz is actually really simple to use. It just confused me at the beginning by presenting me with about a million different tools that I'm never going to use. Once I found out that you can make your own layout with only the tools you actually need, I was much happier. ^_^

Nice! I'm glad it worked out for you in the end. :)

So, I've been playing around in Opentoonz and the video I'm working on is set in a steampunk world, so I decided to create a little steampunky border for the video. Haven't made much of a start on the actual video yet, but since I've only been fucking around on Opentoonz for a couple of days, I'm pretty damn proud of it. ^_^

https://imgur.com/c80AEHX

That looks pretty good.

Ta muchly ^_^

That looks really nice. For two days screwing around with an unfamiliar software it's doubly impressive.

Also, when I scrolled down I found this: https://imgur.io/gallery/Zn1NB0g

Thank you so much for that gift. ^_^

Reminds me of steins;gate.

Holy. This looks awesome!