3D Animation Software - Your Ultimate List Of 21 Tools For 2020/2021 (Updated)

3D animation software is used to create movies, short animations, game sprites, and special effects that can be later used in video games or other movies.

This type of software is usually much more advanced than 2D animation software, simply because you always have to consider one additional dimension for all scenes.

There is a verity of 3D animation software on the market, most of which come at a pretty high price. For starters, you can use free software like Blender which is more than enough for a beginner and can also serve you later in your animation career.      

List of best 3D animation software

Description

Below we will describe a few of them that are personally most interesting to us

K-3D

💰 Price: Seven Degrees of Freedom
💻 Compatibility: Windows, macOS
🎚️ Difficulty: Medium
🌟 User score: G2 - 4.5/5

Old good free software.

The moment I'm writing this, the K-3D animation software was downloaded 1091 times in the past week and the last update was back in 2013.

This means a lot. The community still leaves a high score review, not mentioning any bugs or missing features.

It's a reliable software coming with a lot of YouTube tutorials to easily jump-start your way to 3D animation.

Blender

💰 Price: Free
💻 Compatibility: Windows, macOS, Linux
🎚️ Difficulty: Medium
🌟 User score: G2 - 4.5/5 Capterra - 4.6/5

Blender is surely a name you have stumbled upon the second you got interested in 3D animation.

It has become the first-choice tool for 3D animators working on commercial and amateur 3D animations, and for a good reason.

The huge community comes with numerous tutorials on different aspects of creating 3D animations with Blender software.

One of the most important pros of Blender is that it can be applied in all projects, sized from a short animation to full movies, with absolutely no limitations.

Blender free animation software is still a fresh breeze on the expensive market that 3D animation software tends to be.

When compared to other software on this list using Blender is like building and piloting Jumbo Jet next to throwing paper planes. But if you are thinking about getting pro one day - it is definitely worth putting extra energy to learn it, especially that the knowledge base and community are humongous and extremely active.

Toontastic

💰 Price: Free - $100/mo
💻 Compatibility: Multi-platform - web-based
🎚️ Difficulty: Advanced
🌟 User score: 🕳️

Toontastic 3D is yet another tool designed for kids, who want to start their adventure with 3D animation software.

The Toontastic software was created and is being developed by Google.

This means you can expect a simple UI, loads of creative options, and app running smoothly.

Toontastick comes with Idea hub, where the youngster can get inspired by other creators.

Clara.io

💰 Price: Free - $100/mo
💻 Compatibility: Multi-platform - web-based
🎚️ Difficulty: Advanced
🌟 User score: 🕳️

Clara.io is a complete 3D modeling toolset for 3D animators and creators.

Surely the biggest advantage of using Clara is that you can work on your projects from any device, anywhere, since it is a web-based software.

This also means that all the rendering happens in the cloud, taking the hardware hassle off your back (that's a big win right here!)

Clara comes with a set of free 3D models you can use freerly in your projects.

It also has a community and support forum for users.

All you have to do to start using Clara is to register for free on their website.

Daz 3D

💰 Price: Free - Purchase of 3D models (various prices)
💻 Compatibility: Windows & Mac
🎚️ Difficulty: Advanced
🌟 User score: 🕳️

Daz Studio is a 3D animation and modeling software designed for creating scenes, characters, and items with a high-end touch and look.

With a shop as a core platform feature, you can purchase pre-made models, and items to get your project completed much faster.

After building your custom scenes, Daz allows you to render photo-realistic images and animations with studio-class processing.

The software comes with a lot of community tutorials on basic and advanced usage.

Planetside

💰 Price: Free - $699
💻 Compatibility: Windows & Mac
🎚️ Difficulty: Advanced
🌟 User score: 🕳️

Planetside Software is a company that created Terragen - a very advanced 3D terrain generator that renders realistic environments for Films, TV, Games, and VR.

It has all features you would wish to have in software like this one:

• Ray-traced Preview
• Photo-real Cloud
• Lens Effects
• Numerous shaders

The free version of Terragen is available only for personal use (or a 30-day trial for commercial use) and has a few limitations as to the use cases. However, it's still enough to decide if it's a perfect animation software for you.

Plateside's Terragen is being frequently updated with bug fixes and new features coming with every release.

Anim8or

💰 Price: Free
💻 Compatibility: Windows
🎚️ Difficulty: Simple
🌟 User score: Softonic - 3.5/5

Anim8or is another one of those tools which website takes you back in time to '00s.

The latest release for Anim8or was back in May 2017, so it's really hard to call it a modern animation software.

Still, the community doesn't seem to care at all. The Anim8or forum is still thriving with new posts coming almost every day.

If you need a very simple tool to do a very simple job, that's your choice.

Conclusion

As you can see, there's a lot of 3D animation software to pick up from. Some of it is designed for a broad purpose like Blender, and some are dedicated to creating only parts of a scene.

You can use all of these programs by Renderro, a super powerful virtual machine that will give you the best results for your work!