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! :-)

New Web Based Audio Recording/Editing Tool!

Hi Everyone!


GoAnimate has been very active lately with the contest and we're getting some really great entries so far! Love to see all the creative uses for the new "Interactive" feature!


We wanted to tell you all about this really great site that we found http://aviary.com/tools/myna.
It is a web based application for audio recording and editing. You can also mix music tracks and add effects! There is no need to download anything or worry about installing a codec, like you would need to do with Audacity.

Here is a screenshot of what the audio studio looks like. It's very easy to use and the site has a great help section if you have any questions.

The site also has several other tools that you can use to create props and effects.

All of the different tools have great tutorial videos you can easily access from the main http://aviary.com page. We hope that you will find this site useful and in the meantime, Have Fun Animating!!

It's Time For a Showdown! You Could Win Big!!

Interactive Animation Showdown!!

Are you guys ready to get active? Or better yet, Interactive? Well now is the time! Create an animation using our new Interactive Speech Bubbles and you could be a winner!!

DATES -

The contest dates are 12:01 AM September 14, through 11:59 PM (EST) September 27. Any animations PUBLISHED before or after these dates will be considered ineligible. When the view counting period begins, all contest entries will have their views reset back to 0.

**REMEMBER, WHEN WORKING ON YOUR ANIMATION, TO SAVE YOUR ENTRY AS A DRAFT UNTIL THE CONTEST PERIOD HAS STARTED.**

RULES -

Each contest entry must include our new Interactive Speech bubbles. You can make it a game, a mystery; it can be whatever your creative mind can come up with!

1. Entries must contain a minimum of at least five Interactive Speech Bubbles used throughout the complete animation. However, there is no maximum number you can use, so the sky is the limit!

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

3. The winning animations will be based on highest number of views. Views will only count during the contest period. Any views received after 11:59 PM (EST) September 27 will not be considered in the determination of the winners.

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

5. All entries must be tagged with "interactiveanimation" in order to be eligible, however only the first or main animation needs to be tagged. This is the one that will be used to keep track of view counts.

PRIZES -

~ One Grand Prize Winner will receive 2,000 Gobucks and a $20(USD) Amazon.com Virtual Gift Card

~ Three First Place Winners will each receive 1,000 Gobucks