This article needs additional citations for verification .(July 2013) |
![]() | |
![]() Pivot Animator 4 running on Windows Vista | |
Developer(s) | Peter Bone |
---|---|
Initial release | June 13, 2001 |
Stable release | 5.2.5 / January 25, 2024 |
Written in | Delphi |
Operating system | Windows |
Type | Graphics software |
License | Freeware |
Website | pivotanimator![]() |
Pivot Animator (formerly Pivot Stickfigure Animator and usually shortened to Pivot) is a freeware application that allows users to create stick-figure and sprite animations, and save them in the animated GIF format for use on web pages and the AVI format (in Pivot Animator 3 and later). [1]
Pivot provides a simple, easy to use interface with a few features. It uses fixed-length 'sticks' to ensure size consistency during animation.
The first version of Pivot Animator had several software bugs. Stick figures were limited to one type of stick figure, the default stick figure. Animations could be saved in the PIV (Pivot Project File) or exported as Animated .GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) files. Users were given few options of image optimization, compression or resizing when saving their animation. This was one of the first animation programs available on the computer.
The second major release of the Pivot Stickfigure Animator. This version implemented the 'Stick Figure Builder', which allowed users to create their own stick figure designs saved in the STK format. This allowed a much wider scope of animation choice for Pivot users. It also fixed a few minor bugs, added the buttons to the main interface to bring a stick figure in front or behind other figures, and could automatically check to make sure the user did not lose any unsaved projects.
This release was sent intentionally to the Pivot Animation groups for testing but the version was leaked from various unofficial sources to the general public. There was an improved interface, with new icons, a better default stickman with a thicker body, and a reorganization of the features. New features included the ability to import any image into the animation. Another added feature was the ability to have multiple backgrounds in an animation. When a user saves a .piv file, the frame rate is saved with it.
Pivot 4.1 beta was released on January 2, 2013, with new features including: [2]
Pivot Animator 4.1.10 was released as the "stable" version of 4.1 and is still the latest non-beta version so far (as of October 2015).
Pivot 4.2 was announced on December 23, 2014 followed by a beta release on January 1, 2015. [3] New features include copying and pasting selected stick figures and sprites, a transparent figure builder window, [4] and the ability to export images in the Scalable Vector Graphics format.
Pivot 5.1 beta was released in July 2021, with several new features including:
Pivot Animator 5 requires Windows 10 and a GPU.
The Graphics Interchange Format is a bitmap image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released on June 15, 1987.
Multiple-image Network Graphics (MNG) is a graphics file format published in 2001 for animated images. Its specification is publicly documented and there are free software reference implementations available.
Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe for Windows and macOS. It was created in 1987 by Thomas and John Knoll. It is the most used tool for professional digital art, especially in raster graphics editing, and its name has become genericised as a verb although Adobe disapproves of such use.
Preview is the built-in image viewer and PDF viewer of the macOS operating system. In addition to viewing and printing digital images and Portable Document Format (PDF) files, it can also edit these media types. It employs the Aqua graphical user interface, the Quartz graphics layer, and the ImageIO and Core Image frameworks.
Microsoft Paint is a simple raster graphics editor that has been included with all versions of Microsoft Windows. The program opens, modifies and saves image files in Windows bitmap (BMP), JPEG, GIF, PNG, and single-page TIFF formats. The program can be in color mode or two-color black-and-white, but there is no grayscale mode. For its simplicity and wide availability, it rapidly became one of the most used Windows applications, introducing many to painting on a computer for the first time.
Xfig is a free and open-source vector graphics editor which runs under the X Window System on most UNIX-compatible platforms.
Adobe Fireworks was a bitmap and vector graphics editor, which Adobe acquired in 2005. Fireworks was made for web designers for rapidly creating website prototypes and application interfaces. Its features included slices, which are segments of an image that are converted to HTML elements, and the ability to add hotspots, which are segments of an image that are converted to hyperlinks. It was designed to integrate with other Adobe products such as Adobe Dreamweaver and Adobe Flash. It was available as either a standalone product or bundled with Adobe Creative Suite. Older versions were bundled with Macromedia Studio. Adobe discontinued Fireworks in 2013, citing the increasing overlap in functionality with its other products such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, and Adobe Edge.
A stick figure is a very simple drawing of a human or other animal, in which the limbs and torso are represented using straight lines. The head is most often represented by a circle, which can be filled or unfilled. Details such as hands, feet, and a neck may be present or absent, and the head is sometimes embellished with details such as facial features or hair. Simpler stick figures often display disproportionate physical features and ambiguous emotion.
A wallpaper or background is a digital image used as a decorative background of a graphical user interface on the screen of a computer, smartphone or other electronic device. On a computer, wallpapers are generally used on the desktop, while on a mobile phone they serve as the background for the home screen. Though most devices include a default background image, modern devices usually allow users to manually change the background image.
Anim8or is a freeware OpenGL-based 3D modeling and animation program by R. Steven Glanville, a software engineer at NVidia. Currently at stable version 1.01.1402, it is a compact program with several tools which would normally be expected in high-end, paid software. To date, every version released has been under 3 MB, despite the fact that it does not make full use of Windows' native interface, carrying some graphical elements of its own. Although few official tutorials have been posted by the author, many other users have posted their own on sites such as YouTube and the anim8or home page. While Anim8or was once comparable to other freeware 3D animation software such as Blender, it has seen less progression in recent years, with Blender now being more capable than before.
Microsoft PhotoDraw is a discontinued vector graphics and raster image editing software developed by Microsoft. It was released in 1999 as part of the Microsoft Office 2000 family of products and was specifically designed for creating and editing graphics, illustrations, and photo compositions.
Tux Paint is a free and open source raster graphics editor geared towards young children. The project was started in 2002 by Bill Kendrick who continues to maintain and improve it, with help from numerous volunteers. Tux Paint is seen by many as a free software alternative to Kid Pix, a similar proprietary educational software product.
A number of vector graphics editors exist for various platforms. Potential users of these editors will make a comparison of vector graphics editors based on factors such as the availability for the user's platform, the software license, the feature set, the merits of the user interface (UI) and the focus of the program. Some programs are more suitable for artistic work while others are better for technical drawings. Another important factor is the application's support of various vector and bitmap image formats for import and export.
Windows Photo Gallery is a discontinued image organizer, photo editor and photo sharing program. It is a part of Microsoft's Windows Essentials software suite.
In fields employing interface design skills, slicing is the process of dividing a single 2D user interface composition layout (comp) into multiple image files of the graphical user interface (GUI) for one or more electronic pages. It is typically part of the client side development process of creating a web page and/or web site, but is also used in the user interface design process of software development and game development.
PhotoScape is a graphics editing program, developed by MOOII Tech, Korea. The basic concept of PhotoScape is 'easy and fun', allowing users to easily edit photographs taken from their digital cameras or even mobile phones. PhotoScape provides a simple user interface to perform common photo enhancements including color adjustment, cutting, resizing, printing and GIF animation. Photoscape operates on Microsoft Windows and Mac and is available on Linux systems as a Snap package. The default languages are English and Korean, with additional language packages available for download.
Game-Maker is an MS-DOS-based suite of game design tools, accompanied by demonstration games, produced between 1991 and 1995 by the Amherst, New Hampshire based Recreational Software Designs and sold through direct mail in the US by KD Software. Game-Maker also was sold under various names by licensed distributors in the UK, Korea, and other territories including Captain GameMaker and Create Your Own Games With GameMaker!. Game-Maker is notable as one of the first complete game design packages for DOS-based PCs, for its fully mouse-driven graphical interface, and for its early support for VGA graphics, Sound Blaster sound, and full-screen four-way scrolling.
Microsoft Photos is an image viewer and image organizer developed by Microsoft. It was first included in Windows 8 as a functional replacement for Windows Photo Viewer and Windows Photo Gallery.
Art of Illusion is a free software, and open source software package for making 3D graphics.
Aseprite is a proprietary, source-available image editor designed primarily for pixel art drawing and animation. It runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux, and features different tools for image and animation editing such as layers, frames, tilemap support, command-line interface, Lua scripting, among others. It is developed by Igara Studio S.A. and led by the developers David, Gaspar, and Martín Capello. Aseprite can be downloaded as freeware, or purchased on Steam or Itch.io. Aseprite source code and binaries are distributed under EULA, educational, and Steam proprietary licenses.