Advice needed in regard to animation software/tools

[SteelSandwich]

Good afternoon Captains,

 

The other day I was reading up on the famous Four days battle. In the accounts provided there were detailed descriptions of the position of the ships on each side, which gave me an idea.

 

I would like to see if I can make some sort of animation out of those stationary locations.

So, making the ships sail in a (fluent) motion as they would've done in that battle itself.

In case I am not explaining this well enough, here is a picture to illustrate:

 

The goal is to get from picture one, via the animation of sorts, to the ship position in picture two.

 

My question therefore is, are there any captains out there that could recommend certain software/tools for this use?

 

The end-goal of this little project is to get some of the famous Naval Action battles animated in the same way. Especially the earlier Trafalgar battles have been recorded in birds-eye view, which allows for easy tracking and recreation of the battle.

 

Have a good day!

[Eldberg]

For an easy solution you could us Adobe Flash. It is simply setting keyframes, using motion tween, and moving the ships as you please while progressing down the timeline. You do not need to do every frame, as motion tween fills in the blanks, smoothing out the animation.

Otherwise your best friend would be Autodesk Maya/3DS Max. A little more complex, but you can use 3D models and it opens up a lot more options.
 

[312_JS]

Yeah Flash would be my choice as well.

Think you could do it in PowerPoint as well by the way.