Although not as versatile as After Effects, Adobe Animate is used by many digital artists to create various animations. In 1996, the year its first version was released, it was known as FutureSplash Animator. When the company that develops it was acquired by Macromedia, the product was rebranded as Macromedia Flash. In 2016, nine years after Adobe Systems bought Macromedia, Adobe renamed it to Adobe Animate.

One of the key aspects that make Adobe Animate an appealing choice to work with animation is its low system requirements. Unlike some other Adobe products that require a processor that supports Advanced Vector Extensions 2 (AVX2) and high RAM capacity, this software can run on a PC with 2GB of RAM, not to mention that it requires only 4GB of hard drive storage.

Features and Highlights

Animation Templates

Adobe Animate 2023 provides a number of animation templates divided into different categories. You can view the complete list by pressing Ctrl + Shift + N. It includes Advertising, AIR for Android, AIR for IOS, Animation, Banners, HTML5 Canvas, Media Playback, Presentations, and Sample Files. The last mentioned is a perfect starting point for beginners, as it allows them to learn by doing instead of just reading tutorials.

Flexi Bones

In Adobe Animate, there is a term called Bone, referring to structures that form an object. In addition to Soft Bones and Hard Bones released in Animate 2022, users of Animate 2023 have access to Flexi Bones as well, which is a part of the Asset Warp tool to provide a greater amount of control for creating poses through bone manipulation.

Premade Assets

Adobe Animate 2023 includes dozens of premade assets, which are grouped into Animated, Static, and Sound Clips. Each category has subcategories for better asset management and to make the search easier. If you are looking for a specific asset, there is a search box at the top of the asset group list.

New Document Presets

When you create a new document, in addition to using a template, you can also use a preset. In Adobe Animate 2023, each preset is pre-configured for a specific project type. If you want to create an animated character, select Character Animation and then choose one of the four presets, namely HD, Full HD, 4K, or Standard. You can customize the screen dimension, measurement unit, frame rate, and platform type, which includes ActionScript 3.0 and HTML5 Canvas.

Adobe Animate 2023 Free Download for Windows

It is relatively easy to learn Adobe Animate, but it takes some time to master all of its features no matter what. The good news is there are many tutorials available that can help new users, including the sample files bundled in its installation package.

Many users have asked about which one is better between Animate and After Effects, but the answer depends on what you really need. If your project includes vector-based animation, interactive content, or web-based animation, Animate is the better choice not only in terms of features but also ease of use. You can click the link below to download Adobe Animate 2023 for Windows: