FREE 2D Animation Software / How to Animate in Krita!
TL;DR
A practical walkthrough of setting up and using Krita for 2D animation. Covers workspace setup, timeline tools, shortcuts, and a multi-step export process including the required FFmpeg dependency. ---
Key Concepts
Krita
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Free, open-source painting/animation program with Photoshop-like UI; funded by donations, so bug fixes may lag
Timeline panel
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The core animation workspace, toggled via Settings > Dockers or Window > Workspace > Animation
Onion Skin
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Overlay showing adjacent frames in different colors to aid in-betweening and tracing
Autoframe mode
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Automatically creates a new keyframe when you move to a new timeline position and draw
FFmpeg
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A free external binary required by Krita to export video files
Notes
§Canvas Setup
- 1920×1080 for short films or YouTube content
- 800×800 (square) for Instagram loops
- Animation template option pre-creates labeled layers for traditional-style organization
- Tutorial uses a custom 800×800 document without the template
§Enabling the Animation Workspace
- Go to Settings > Dockers > Animation and Timeline to add panels individually
- Faster: Window > Workspace > Animation
- Onion Skin can be added via Dockers or toggled directly from the Timeline panel button
- Manually add Brush Presets docker if needed during animation work
§Animation Toolbar
- Displays current frame, start/end frames, and playback controls
- Frame rate: Enter value directly (tutorial uses 25 fps)
- Left-side buttons: add blank frame, add duplicate frame, remove keyframe
- Drop frame: skips frames during playback to maintain sync on slower machines
- Autoframe mode on: new keyframe created on every new timeline position drawn on
- Autoframe mode off: all edits apply to the last keyframe made
§Onion Skin
- Shows up to 10 frames before/after current frame
- Colors and opacity of each frame are adjustable
- Typical use: 1 frame showing on each side
§Audio
- Options: open, mute, remove, adjust volume
- Audio support may be broken depending on build version
- Workaround: animate in Krita, add audio in a separate program post-export
- Broken audio makes in-app lip sync impractical
§Layer Management on the Timeline
- Adding a new layer can hide existing animation layers from the timeline view
- Fix: right-click a layer > Show in Timeline to make it visible again
- Useful for focusing on one layer or previewing all layers together
§Shortcuts / Hotkeys
- Access via Krita > Preferences > Keyboard Shortcuts
- Many animation tools have no default key assigned
- Recommended shortcuts to configure:
- Create blank frame
- Next keyframe
- Previous keyframe
- Remove keyframe
- Toggle onion skin
- Check existing assignments before setting new ones; override with "Reassign" if needed
- Clicking the blank square removes a shortcut
§Exporting Animation
- File > Render Animation > Image Sequence
- Set first/last frame numbers
- Use PNG if compositing in another program (camera moves, separate backgrounds)
- Creates one image per frame — put them in a dedicated folder
Actionable Takeaways
- Enable the animation workspace via Window > Workspace > Animation rather than adding dockers one by one
- Right-click layers and select Show in Timeline whenever a layer disappears from the timeline view
- Map at minimum these five shortcuts early: create blank frame, next/previous keyframe, remove keyframe, toggle onion skin
- Download and store FFmpeg in a permanent location before attempting video export
- If exported video won't play, re-export with baseline profile selected; fall back to Handbrake if that fails
- Export as PNG sequence when you plan to composite with backgrounds or camera moves in another program
Quotes Worth Keeping
“
If you can't afford other programs or are just starting out in animation, I think this is a pretty good choice.
“
Write down a list of all the features you want to use when animating — that will help you work faster and figure out which keys you want to assign them to.