Online Animation Resources

National Film Board of Canada : Focus on Animation : Every young Canadian remotely interested in film and animation should know about the NFB's very celebrated Animation Unit started by the great Norman McLaren and John Grierson.

Creative BC : Established by the Province of British Columbia, Creative BC provides professional expertise and business support for BC's motion picture, interactive and digital media, music and sound recording, and book and magazine publishing industries. The site is a wealth of information on animation studios in BC.

Skillset Overview : Skillset is the Sector Skills Council (SSC) for Creative Media in Great Britain. The council assembles information regarding TV, film, radio, interactive media, animation, computer games, facilities, photo imaging and publishing. Its aim is to support the improvements to the productivity of the British creative industry to ensure that it remains globally competitive. This link discusses animation in great detail.

Gene Deitch's online book : How to Succeed in Animation, from the genius behind Tom Terrific, Tom and Jerry and Popeye. Gene's book is hosted by the Animation World Network.

Animation World Network : Chock-a-block full of resources and information.

Animation Magazine : The industry's trade magazine.

Siggraph.org : The Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics. The organization's mission is to promote the generation and dissemination of information on computer graphics and interactive techniques.

August 2014 : Every year SIGGRAPH hosts a conference which is very widely attended. I was fortunate to attend the twenty-fifth anniversary conference in Florida, what a great experience. The thirty-eighth International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques is in Vancouver.

John K Stuff : You may be too young to remember The Ren and Stimpy Show, but their creator is a Canadian who has been writing his own blog on animation and character design for quite a while now. It's excellent, wacky reading!

Cartoon Brew : for even more fun.

Research and Markets : Discussion regarding the business of the animation industry worldwide.

Gamasutra : The art and business of making interactive computer and video games.

ToonBoom : The Canadian 2D animation software used to create, colour and composite The Simpsons and others. ToonBoom Harmony is the package we used at Disney Interactive. It was originally created by a company called USAnimation until ToonBoom bought them. Offices still located in Monteal where it was originally developed.

Autodesk Softimage : Very high-end 3D modeling, animation and rendering software. Interesting to note this software was also originally developed in Montreal.

Autodesk Maya : The 3D modeling, animation, lighting and rendering software used to create Avatar, Jurassic Park, Monsters vs. Aliens and many other 3D animated productions. Maya is used in the film, interactive computer and video game industries as well as in architectural and design industries.

Autodesk 3ds Max : Autodesk's original 3D software solution still used extensively in the computer and video game industry.