10 Best Animation Courses and Online Training

Unleash your creativity with our selection of the best animation courses, suitable for all skill levels.

Key Takeaways:

• Techniques for 2D and 3D animation.
• Learn from industry professionals.
• Courses for beginners to advanced animators.

What will I learn from animation courses?

Animation courses teach you techniques for creating 2D and 3D animations, guided by industry professionals, from basic principles to advanced skills.

1. Explore Animation
2. Cinematography for 2D Animation Essentials
3. Creative Coding
4. Videoscribe Whiteboard Animations: The Complete Guide
5. Character Setup and Animation
6. Learn 3D Animation – The Ultimate Blender Guide
7. 2D Game Development with libGDX
8. Maya for Beginners: Complete Guide to 3D Animation in Maya
9. Basic Physics for Animators
10. PowerPoint Masterclass – Presentation Design & Animation

Animation Courses Evaluation & Selection Criteria

We selected animation courses by evaluating the expertise of instructors, quality of course content, and user reviews. Our focus is on courses that cover both 2D and 3D animation techniques, suitable for all skill levels.

List of  Best Animation Courses and Online Training:

Explore Animation

• • • National Film and Television School via FutureLearn
    • 12 hours of effort required
    • 50,421+ already enrolled!
    • Course Type: Self-paced
    • ★★★★★ (68 Reviews)

Who is up for learning stop motion, 2D, CGI, and pixilation, with award-winning animators? If you are interested, then you should probably join this course. This an opportunity for you to learn Big-scale animation in the real world, and you can also gain expertise in 3D computer animation which is very essential, as we see, mostly cartoons and games around us have taken a form of 3D to give a more realistic experience to the users. With the weekly classes, you can learn a lot of important stuff, as every topic is broken down into multiple classes for the ease of the learners. Check out the Best MATLAB Courses with Certificates.

Cinematography for 2D Animation Essentials

• • • 2D Animation 101 Courses via Udemy
    • 15,463+ already enrolled!
    • ★★★★★ (1,215 Reviews)

This course is very special if you are keen to learn about cinematography? Cinematography is the study of motion-picture photography and filming either electronically utilizing an image sensor, or chemically through a light-sensitive material such as film stock. This course will help you learn about different cinematography concepts and you will be given exercises to apply and improve different cinematography concepts to your animation. And you will be learning different types of techniques to make the audience feel something. This course will also give you a chance to improve and polish your shots. You do not even need any prior knowledge to join this course.

Find out more about Sketchup training and enhance your design skills with our recommended courses.

Creative Coding

• • • New York University (NYU) via edX
    • 140 hours of effort required
    • 24,560+ already enrolled!
    • Course Type: Instructor-led

This course is all you need to learn about object-oriented programming for graphic design, digital media, and creative applications. Through this course, you will get familiar with p5.js and it will help you in building the fundamentals of computational thinking applied through p5.js. As you proceed on, you will be given the best practices for designing software within an event-driven and object-oriented, and even real-time framework. You will know how to ideate, conceptualize, and devise original creative works. You will get to know about the cultural literacy of the computational arts. Furthermore, you get to learn different strategies, project planning, and problem-solving skills.

Videoscribe Whiteboard Animations: The Complete Guide

• • • Life Progression Project via Udemy
    • 8,518+ already enrolled!
    • ★★★★★ (1,205 Reviews)

Want to know what Sparkol Videoscribe and whiteboard video animations are? If yes, then this is your goto course. This course will help you in learning how to create an engaging whiteboard animation and the use of Videoscribe and its workflow. Through this course, you will be able to make captivating stories using Videoscribe and not just Videoscribe you will be able to tell stories visually using whiteboard animations. As you continue with classes, you will progress into some advanced knowledge which includes learning to use Illustrator, Photoshop, and Premiere Pro. You will also learn about the royalty free websites which are used for music and images.

Character Setup and Animation

• • • Unity via Coursera
    • 10 hours of effort required
    • 7,875+ already enrolled!
    • ★★★★★ (40 Reviews)

This course consists of a series of courses, but this is the fourth part of the course which aims on teaching how to design a character. 3D artists are critical to find and they have a high demand in the industry of game design. So, this course points in making you a professional 3D artist. You will be working on a sci-fi themed 3D adventure game. Through this course, you will be learning to import assets and create effects that are more stylish and cartoony. Something special about this course is that you will gain knowledge on how to use Unity’s Collaborate service for effective version control.

For more on how to start with digital sculpting and animation, click here for 3D art learning resources.

Learn 3D Animation – The Ultimate Blender Guide

• • • Alex Cordebard via Udemy
    • 16,774+ already enrolled!
    • ★★★★☆ (1,921 Reviews)

This course is an A-Z guide on how to become a professional 3D Animator. With this course, you will know all of the basics and the more advanced skills to masterfully navigate and create your own works of 3D art. This course will help you feel certain navigating around Blender and the different tools to use and along with what they do. By the end of this course, you will have enough skills to create your own characters and animation scenes and will have knowledge about all the different steps to go from nothing to a completely finished animation project.

Uncover a world of animation possibilities through our curated selection of courses, including those focused on Adobe Character Animator.

2D Game Development with libGDX

• • • Amazon via Udacity
    • 8 Weeks of effort required
    • Skill Level: Intermediate

With this course, you will learn to use LibGDX to build 2D games. These games can run from web browsers to mobile devices, almost everywhere. At first in this course, you will start by learning simple drawings, and then later you will turn them into simple animations, physics, and user input handling. At the end of this course, you will be given a project in which you will be creating a game called Icicles. This project will put your learnt skills to a test. In this game, icicles rain down from the top of the screen and the player will have to avoid them using the phone’s tilt mechanism.

Maya for Beginners: Complete Guide to 3D Animation in Maya

• • • Video School Online Inc, Lucas Ridley via Udemy
    • 22,103+ already enrolled!
    • ★★★★★ (4,719 Reviews)

People who are interested in learning the software Maya should enroll in this course. Get to learn 3D animation in Autodesk Maya: Modeling, Texturing, Lighting, Rigging, Animation, Dynamics with this course. With this course, you can build and design your own 3D objects, and animate your 3D objects with keyframes. You can also learn about rigging a 3D character for animation or how to render your projects for high-quality playback. By the end of this course, you will be simulating dynamic effects like water, cloth, and smoke. Additionally, you will know how to settle together an entire 3D animated scene.

Basic Physics for Animators

• • • San Jose State University via Canvas Network
    • 15 hours of effort required
    • Taught By: ALEJANDRO GARCIA
    • ★★★★☆

This course will help you to understand the physics of an animation artist. In this self-paced course, you will learn to create physically perfect timing and spacing for a falling motion animation. You will get to recognize the common paths of action, along with the physical accuracy of timing and spacing for parabolic and circular arcs. This course will give you enough knowledge to evaluate the timing, spacing, and path of action in terms of forces and the Law of Acceleration. By the end of this course, you will know about all the physical concepts which are very important for an animator.

PowerPoint Masterclass – Presentation Design & Animation

• • • Andrew Pach via Udemy
    • 16,430+ already enrolled!
    • ★★★★★ (3,310 Reviews)

With this animation course, not only will you learn animations and videos but you will also learn how to make an advanced PowerPoint presentation slide. You will get comfortable with basic and advanced PowerPoint features, and you will quickly learn PowerPoint by working with an experienced professional. You will be capable enough to create engaging and well-designed slides and animations. You will become a better graphic designer and a digital artist and animate any kind of object and slide in PowerPoint. Not just this, but you will have all the skills needed to create your very own PowerPoint templates and create simple explainer videos ready to publish online.v

Thus, this is the list of top 10 Best Animation Courses and Online Training. These animation courses can be very useful if you have an attentive look at it. We hope you find this very beneficial and you enroll in at least one of the animation courses. Keep learning!