New Facebook Login!

Hi Everyone!

Yet another update to tell you all about! This one is great news for the many Facebook fans out there. Now you can sign into GoAnimate using your Facebook account. This means that for new users coming to our site for the first time, can use their Facebook log in and GoAnimate will automatically create an account for them. On our front page, you will now see a "Login with Facebook" option next to the regular "Sign In" button.

For existing GoAnimate users, you will still need to connect your Facebook accounts from your userpage in order to make this work. This should help streamline your ability to share your animations and activity with your Facebook friends!

We hope you find this new feature helpful and as always look forward to hearing your feedback!

Studio layout, screenshot feature and new body type

A quick note to summarize the changes that happened between end of last week and today.

Studio Layout

We update the theme selection menu in the studio. With this new drop down menu, it should be faster to select specific themes and even specific types of items within each theme. We did that change to try and help reduce loading time in the studio.

Screenshot Feature

More and more users are making profile pictures using GoAnimate characters. We wanted to make this easier by having a screenshot feature within the studio directly.

Now you can click on screenshot, then select the area from the stage that you want to save as a picture and BAM! It gets saved just like that! You can then reupload it as a profile picture or use it on other sites.

Another use of this feature is to take snapshots of backgrounds you create in order to easily re-use them in the future. Pretty handy.

New Body Type

We added a third body type in the character creator as part of our continuous effort to add variety to this tool. We also changed a bit the flow of the steps in the tool. You will now select clothes first and then design your character's facial features.

You can expect to see much more new items added to the character creator as time goes by.

Other updates:

- Number of free character credits (Forum thread)

- Number of pixels displayed when adding movement in the studio (Forum thread)

That's it for this time. As usual, please let you know what you think of the changes!

The Latest At GoAnimate!

Hi Everyone!
We have a lot of updates to fill you guys in on. We've been pretty busy here at GoAnimate lately!

Halloween Spooktacular Contest

First, we would like to congratulate the winners of the Halloween Spooktacular Contest. Thanks to all of you who entered. It was a big success and hopefully you guys had as much fun making your entries as we did watching all of them!

Grand Prize Winner -10 Custom Character Creator credits + $10 Amazon.com GC
The Distress Call by RoTV


Three First Place Winners -3 Custom Character Creator credits
Where am I? by cheekyboy


Halloween Night by DarkPhoenixXD


Halloween Spooks by Mojochi

New Update to the Character Creator

We have added new features to the Character Creator that will allow you to customize your characters even more! Now you can add a scar here, a bandaid there, wrinkle lines or even some blush or earrings! Check out the characters below with a few of the added new options!

New View Count Display

Some of you may have also noticed that now under your profile pictures it displays your view count. Pretty cool huh? Also, to make it easier for you guys to recognize who is part of the staff, instead of displaying a number under the profile picture, it will say Site Admin.

New Community Blog Comming Soon!

We will be starting a bi-weekly community blog post that will include user submitted content as well as stuff we think you guys will enjoy! So for example, our first post we would love for you guys to submit pictures how you are celebrating Halloween! You could send us pictures of your carved pumpkins, your cool costumes, decorated houses, etc...

Please send these to me at michelle@goanimate.com

New Custom Character Creator Released!!

It's Here, It's Here! Our New Custom Character Creator Is Released!!

We know you guys have been waiting patiently for this feature for some time and the wait is over! Now you can custom create any character you want, the possibilities are endless! You can create yourself, your friends, family, celebrities, and make your own adventures with them come to life!

You can create a look-a-like of yourself and integrate it with our already existing themes and make animated tales of yourself and the crew of the USS Enterprise, battle it out with a Streetfighter, hang out with Willie Nelson, party with some celebrities, just to name a few examples!

To create a Custom Character just click on the Create tab to get started.

Then, just follow the arrows, to go thru selecting all your custom features. You can use the arrows to move things around and the other buttons will shrink, enlarge, rotate, and move say your eyes closer or further apart. You can customize all the facial features, clothing and colors on everything! Pretty cool huh?

Once you are happy with your character click the save button and it will be added to your personal list of characters. We also have pre-made ones to chose from. You can find those from the drop down menu at the start of the creation process.

You can also earn Character Creator credits by linking your GoAnimate account with your Face Book account and posting on your page! Please feel free to post in the forum if you have any questions or you can message support@goanimate.com

Now Let's GoAnimate!!

Announcing GoAnimate's Halloween Spooktacular Contest!

GoAnimate's Halloween Spooktacular Contest!

It’s my favorite time of year again! It’s coming up on Halloween and it’s time to get spooky! I think the perfect way is with a good old fashioned Ghost Story. Time to gather around the campfire, turn off the lanterns and get ready to be afraid, very afraid! We want you guys to make your scariest, spookiest ghost stories come to life!

General Conditions:

The contest will be divided into two separate parts. The first part of the contest will be based on highest number of views. This period will start at 12:01 AM(EST) October 19th and ends at 11:59 PM(EST) October 25st 2009. You can start working on your animation now. We will reset the view counts to zero once the first part of the contest begins.

The ten highest viewed contest entries will then move on as “Finalists” to the second portion of the contest. They will then be judged by the GoAnimate staff. We will choose one Grand Prize winner and three first place winners. Once the results are in from both parts, we will announce the winners on October 28th.

Eligibility:

Each contest entry must be a Ghost Story. You can make it funny, mysterious, or just down right scary! It can be whatever your creative mind can come up with! However if you think your entry may be extremely frightening, you might want to add a warning. We wouldn’t want to give anyone a heart attack! Ha Ha!

1. Entries must be between 1:30 minutes – 2:00 minutes long. We don’t want super short ones, but don’t want to hassle with long load times either.

2. Animations without music and/or sound effects will not be considered.

3. The winning animations will be based on General Conditions listed above.

4. You can use any theme or combination of themes for your entry.

5. All entries must be tagged with “spooktacular” in order to be eligible. Make sure that you add the tag when you publish it, so that we will not Staff Pick it. Staff Picked animations will not be eligible.

6. NO CUSTOM CHARACTERS THAT WERE CREATED DURING THE BETA TEST CAN BE INCLUDED, as they and any animations they appear in will also be deleted. The CC will be released in a few days, if you want to add one then, it will be ok

Prizes
Grand Prize Winner - 10 Custom Character Creator Credits and a $10 Amazon Gift Card
Three First Place Winners - 3 Custom Character Creator Credits each

Yayy! It's Chat Time on GoAnimate With Meebo!

Hello GoAnimators!

We have just introduced a new feature that you guys have been wanting for quite a while! It took us a bit, but we think we found a good one that will work well with the site. Meebo is easy to use and alot of fun. Now, you can chat with your fans and friends right on the GoAnimate site! If you only plan to use Meebo to chat with your GoAnimate friends then you will not even need to register for an account. The feature is fully integrated with the site.

Meebo lets their users gather their friends and form a single "Buddy" list where you guys can communicate in real time across different IM platforms, communities, and other social networks. Users can keep in touch with friends across dozens of IM platforms, including AIM, Yahoo!, MSN, Google Talk, MySpace IM, Facebook Chat, and more. If you would like to import your friends list from other platforms, you will need to sign up for an account. For more information or support you can visit Meebo.

You will notice that there is now a Meebo Chat bar that sits at the bottom of the page. Below you will see what it will look like when you log into GoAnimate now.

To get started, you will need to become a Fan of the person/people that you wish to chat with. Then you can click Add Friend from their profile page. But it works both ways in order to start chatting. They will also need to Fan you and click to add you as a Friend in order for them to show up on your Meebo Friends list. Once you have your friends list set up, you will be able to see when they are online and available to chat.

Another pretty cool thing about Meebo is you can easily share content with each other while you chat. If you notice in my picture above, there is an arrow on the bottom left that points to a link to "Share Page". So, if you are talking to someone and want them to check out an animation or maybe a specific thread in the forum, click this link and drag it into your chat box.

Now if for some reason you wish to no longer be chat buddies with someone, you can simply go to their profile page and click Remove Friend. Hopefully, you guys will have lots of fun and put this new feature to good use!

Interactive Animation Showdown - Winners Announced!!

Hi Everyone,

A big thank you to all of you that participated in our Interactive Animation Showdown! The contest was a lot of fun and we got to see some very creative uses for our new Interactive Feature. We really did enjoy watching all of your contest entries and congratulations to all the winners! You guys really did an outstanding job!

So, without hesitation I present to you the Official Winners!

Grand Prize Winner - 2,000 Gobucks & $20 Amazon.com Gift Card

T-Roll's How to Lose Fans and Infuriating People by Coady



Three First Place Winners - 1,000 Gobucks

H I T M A N-The Interactive Game by vp1234567




Find the Red Dot Interactive animation entry by Stevie wonder




PLAY!!! Survival interactiveanimation by thebest creator


Congratulations again to all the winners and thank you to all of those that participated and made the contest a big success! Stay tuned for an announcement about our next contest and your next shot at GoAnimate fame and prizes! In the meantime, have fun animating! :-)