Testing the Waters

Bears, a sexy grandpa, and superheroes.

What do these seemingly random ideas all have in common? These were the basis for animated commercials from the insurance company known as Geico.

Geico may best be remembered for the animated Gecko which made their commercials popular, so it's no surprise they cranked out a few more humorous animations for commercials. However, these latest animations were not made using absurdly expensive animation software. Instead, they were created using tools offered by the website, Xtranormal.

Xtranormal is actually a very good site that anyone interested in animation can use to test the waters. The steps to creating an animation is outlined and characters, sets, voices, and sounds are all available for use in creating short movies. All that's left is to use a bit of imagination and creativity to put together a short movie. Xtranormal then handles the rest, such as rendering the animation.

How easy is it to use? Well, right before making this post I actually created this short clip.

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/11258745

Now you  may be thinking, what's the catch? The catch is that Xtranormal is not exactly free. Instead, the site opts to use a point system to purchase sets, characters, and publish videos. Upon signing up for an account you are awarded 300 Xtranormal Points which is all I needed to create that animation. Once purchased, the characters and sets can be used as many times as one would like, though publishing still costs 100 XP.

Overall, this is a great way to have a bit of fun animating without shelling out several hundred (if not thousand) dollars for professional animation software.

So have a little fun, and feel free to share the link to your creations in the comments! I would love to see what others can accomplish using this tool!