What does a FREE 2D Rigged Pipeline look like?

From start to finish this package of software will cover all your needs. There of course is paid software I prefer, but we're talking FREE here!

Here is what the pipeline looks like and where you are likely to use each software

Software breakdown

There is no escape from paperwork even in art. Contracts, scripts, spreadsheets, schedules and all sorts of other documents are needed. Libre Office is a completely free alternative to microsoft and google sheets. Free of any kind of AI too! Libre Office https://www.libreoffice.org/

Storyboarder by Wounder Unit provides an excellent storyboarding software. Now you could technically skip this any board in any animation software, I have found the features in storyboarder are highly useful. (my only issue is that it doesn't work with my huion!)

Davinci Resolve is likely the best Free professional grade editing software available. You can record scratch audio on the fly, and it can even be used as a compositing software replacing adobe after effects in most pipelines.

Audacity has been a long time staple for free quality recording software. Comes with lots of great tools for cleaning and adjusting your audio recordings.

Krtia while on great frame by frame animation option on its own, it also excels as preproduction software to take care of designs and background needs of any pipeline. My preference is still Clipstudio but its hard to beat free.

Tahoma 2D is is a sleeper hit. It has frame by frame, it has bitmap, it has vector, it has a node system. It's able to do rigged animation in a style thats a hybrid between adobe animate and Toonboom's methods.

I myself underestimated its capabilities. An absolutely fantastic choice for a free rigged 2D pipeline.

Blender is a powerhouse. It can fill in all sorts of gaps that can come up in a project. It can be used for previs, it can do compositing, it can build you 3D elements for your 2D production.

Even on large professional scale productions we have used blender for things here and there.

Poduction Tracking

There a lot of moving parts to a production. Staying ontop of things can be a full time job (and on most productions it is!) You can use all sorts of serices to automate things but in the free stages you are likely to use something like a spreadsheet. Getting them set up can be tons of hours of work.

Thankfully StormStarDragon has done that work for you and is giving it away for free! You might need to add something for tracking your rig completions but everything else is fully ready to go! Grab it here off their ko-fi.