Boats Animator vs Piximakey Studio

Boats Animator is a free stop motion animation program for Windows, macOS and Linux. It captures high-resolution webcam images, including 1080p and beyond, and provides live frame capture with immediate frame preview. Onion skinning, gridlines and aspect ratio masks help position and compare animation frames. Finished work can be exported as video files or as conforming image files for video-editing software. The program is open source under the GNU General Public License, and contributions are welcomed. A USB webcam is required. Listed hardware requirements are an Intel Pentium 4 or later with SSE2, 1 GB RAM and 1 GB available storage. Documentation lists Windows 7 or later, macOS 10.10 or later, and Ubuntu 20.04 tested for Linux builds. Version 0.13.0 is identified as the last release supporting Windows 7 and 8.1. User documentation, a Discord community and author contact are linked.

Piximakey Studio is a child-friendly app for making stop-motion and greenscreen movies, recommended from age 3. Its Ghost Image tool helps users shift figures in small increments to create animation. The greenscreen feature can replace green or another selected color with a digital background. Users can capture frames live, use onion skinning and timeline editing, record voices and sound effects, and add music and sounds. The app page also lists one-click sharing. Piximakey Studio is designed to work with the company’s physical stop-motion studios. One project can be created without an access code; an access code is needed for full use and can be requested and activated in the app. The free plan costs nothing, and a free trial is listed. Piximakey Education is intended for schools and childcare, with an app adapted for school privacy and data-processing requirements. The app is available for iOS and Android. Piximakey says its journey began with a successful Kickstarter in fall 2020.