List of Animation Programs and Applications (to make your life easier)

Let's continually add to this.

Pencil: An animation/drawing software for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux. It lets you create traditional hand-drawn animation (cartoon) using both bitmap and vector graphics. Pencil is free and open source.
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Audacity: Audacity® is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems.
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Corel Painter 11: Corel® Painter™ 11 is the ultimate digital art studio for anyone ready to expand their definition of creativity. Working with the most advanced digital painting and natural media tools available, you can create the art you’ve always envisioned.
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Realflow: RealFlow is a stand-alone application for fluid and dynamics simulation that allows easy, intuitive control and visualization of the behaviour of fluids and rigid bodies, and their interaction with a surrounding environment. RealFlow was the first, and remains the definitive tool for creating impressively accurate and realistic fluid simulation effects in the Computer Graphics market.
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AfterBurn:It is a particle based volumetric solution, where AfterBurn builds a volumetric effect around each particle center. With numerous controls, user can add more or less detail to the volume, change color, rendering method and more. Most of the parameters can be animated over the particle age (or some other property) by using AFC and Interpolation Controller.
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FumeFX: FumeFX is a powerful fluid dynamics engine designed for the simulation and rendering of realistic fire, smoke, explosion, and other gaseous phenomena. It’s versatility, robustness, and intuitive workflow make it a perfect solution for even the most demanding tasks in the computer graphics industry.
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Vray: Created with the busy and rigorous 3D artist in mind, this topnotch raytracing technology allows immediate interaction between the user and the virtual environment. V-Ray RT follows the user’s actions while working on the scene and automatically and progressively generates a photorealistic preview of the scene. It is designed to improve and fasten the artist’s work on the Texturing and Lightening stage.
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Unfold 3D:
UNFOLD3D appeared in year 2003, as the very first automatic unwrapper. Since then, UNFOLD3D has always been the best UV generator.
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Unwrella: Unwrella is an exact unwrapping plug-in for Autodesk 3DSMAX and Autodesk Maya. It is a single click solution which allows you to automatically unfold your 3D models with exact pixel to model surface aspect ratio, speeding up texture baking UV map production significantly.
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Pyrocluster: pyrocluster offers state of the art volume acceleration rendering technologies, and it is by far one of the fastest and most flexible 3D smoke/cloud generators for 3ds max 8 through 2010. To guarantee a flawless integration into 3ds max, many new workflow and design concepts have been introduced. pyrocluster is now much more user friendly and offers even better control over volumetric effects like any other tool for 3ds max.
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Brazil:
Brazil r/s is the industry standard for high-end quality, flexibility, reliability, and artist-friendly workflow in 3ds Max.
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RayFire: RayFire Tool gives you the ability to shoot, destroy, demolish, wreck, break down, wreak havoc, blow up, burst, detonate, explode and do other similar things you have always dreamed of to do in Max.
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Pencil +: Pencil+ 2, a Non Photo Realistic ( NPR ) shader plug-in for 3ds Max, creates color pencil painted stroke expressions. The plug-in achieves well designed pen drawings and flat cell paintings.
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Liquid +: Liquid+ is the advanced NPR (Non Photo Realistic) renderer plug-in that lets 3D artists truly realize the blotted-style or soft-style fascinating rendering images on 3DCG.
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Ghost Trails: GhostTrails is an animated extrusion modifier for 3dsmax. It is ideal for stylised motion blur effects, tire tracks and many other uses. Have a look at our gallery to see what's possible, then Download the trial version of GhostTrails and try it out for yourself! (Its free and really cool CHECK IT OUT!, says Steve Stone!)
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Fryrender : All the elements involved in the render (materials, lights, cameras, ...) are based on physically accurate models up to the point that when you hit render a simulation of the real behavior of light happens inside. Moreover, fryrender is the first engine of its kind capable of transforming scenes into a format that can be navigated in real-time with the aid of our Virtual Reality technology RC5.
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ToonBoom: Toon Boom Animate is a unique end-to-end vector based professional animation software that includes content creation, compositing and delivery to audiences across media. Ideal for professional animators, boutique studios, students and educators, it’s a complete papperless animation application.
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ToonBoom Stroyboard: Storyboard Pro creates professional storyboards and generates real-time animatic in a same environment. Integrated in the production pipeline, Storyboard Pro efficiently manages your pre-production
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Modo: Modo delivers the next evolution of 3D modeling, painting and rendering in a single integrated and accelerated package for the Mac and PC. And now, modo is a true end-to-end solution that includes true 3D sculpting tools, animation and network rendering! More than just features, modo is a truly elegant integration of technology, raw horsepower and refined workflow.

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Renderman: This is Pixar's renderer is very powerful you should take a look.

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