I've experimented with Anime Studio before, and I really don't think it's what I'm looking for. The learning curve for it seems very steep, and though it makes animating very easy in some areas, it does have its limits. The amount of effort required to do something as simple as turning a character's head makes doing such an action the old-fashioned way much more inviting, at least for me.

There also doesn't seem to be any way of editing raster images once they've been imported into Anime Studio (e.g., changing the color of a part of the image, changing the shape of it, etc.).

While I do appreciate the new suggestions, I think there has been some confusion as to exactly what sort of animation program I'm looking for. I decided that the best way to explain myself further would be with this little picture that I've attached above.

The picture is a transparent PNG, with the pixellized figure on one layer, while the fuzzy, glowing orb in his hand is on another layer. What I'm looking for is a program that enabled me to create something like this (pixel-based images on two or more seperate, transparent layers), then animate it in the same program -- something like Flash only using pixels instead of vectors and none of the extra tools like ActionScript. So far, I've found programs that have layers but are only capable of importing pixellized art, and programs that allow the creation of pixel art but have very limited sets of tools. ULEAD GIF animator looks promising, though like Pencil, there are still one or two areas where I find it a little bit lacking.

I thought that something like a simple combination of Paint Shop Pro and Animation Shop Pro would exist in one form or another, but so far, none of the programs I've tried have been quite like this. I may have to just fall back on the tried-and-true (yet somewhat tedious) method of copying merged frames from PSP to ASP one by one and hoping the animation looks smooth when it's played, since I'm starting to feel that I may not find another option.

Still, thanks again for the tips, everyone.

Thank you very much for all the info.

I tried Pencil, and I think it might be just what I'm looking for. Even though the latest version is still in the beta stage, it allows gif and png sequences to be imported and exported and allows layered animations as well. Unless I come across a better program, I think I'll stick with Pencil for the time being (I mean, it's free -- how can I say "no" to that?).

Thanks again, staigermanus!

I mentioned Dogwaffle in my initial post. I've played with the free version and a trial of a newer version per your suggestion, but I couldn't seem to find any simple way to create an animation with layers. The closest thing I could find was the alpha composite feature, but I kept running into error messages whenever I tried merging two BMP sequences. Dogwaffle is a nice program, but I don't think it's what I'm looking for in this particular case.

I'll try looking around on thebest3d.com to see if there's anything promising there. (And to answer your question, my sprites are definitely going to be considerably larger than 30 pixels across.)

I see. That's pretty much what I was expecting, but thank you for confirming what I suspected.

Well, I've got Poser, so I think I might get Mimic. I just wanted to get a second opinion. Thanks. Akril

Also, can files be saved as transparent GIFs in Mimic?

I see. Well, from what I've heard about Mimic, I'm not entirely sure I should get it. Are there any similar (and more reliable) programs? Akril

I'm a little interested in the same thing, but this sounds like Poser 5 you're talking about here, and I just have 4. And I'm only looking for webbed fingers for the default male model. Any tips on where to hunt for something like this? Akril

I found the "Box tutorial" but didn't find it as anything more than a more complicated way to animate what was already a difficult maneuver. I guess there's no way to animate the movements as a seamless AVI, then (meaning, I don't have to paste it together), So I guess I'll just try a method similar to the tutorial, since I don't really have any other choice. Akril

Never mind, I finally found a way that works! I modified the dragon's texture in Bryce and in the alpha image, I made the wings gray instead of black, and that made them transparent! Thank you for your help, though. It got me on the right track. Now I'll just have to see how animation works out in Bryce... Akril

Maybe I'd better explain my problem more clearly, since it is rather complicated. My dragon's wings are attached to its arms, but can be edited seperately in Poser. However, in Bryce, they can only be selected in combination with the arms, same with the ears (which are like fish fins, it's the skin between that I want to be transparent). Is there any way to export the "ear flaps" and the wing membrane into Bryce as meshes seperate from the main part? If I could do that, I could probably take it from there (I need to do an animation in Bryce, and doing the adjusting frame by frame would be a terrible pain). Akril

I'm sorry, but I don't have Bryce 5, and hence, I don't have the Tree Lab. And I'm still unclear about all these alpha channels and how to set them and so forth. Sorry if I'm being difficult, but I'm still bew to Bryce. Akril

I'm having trouble visualizing how to do this. Maybe if you posted a wireframe so I knew what to aim for? Also, they aren't just going to have straight "streams" going out in all directions. They are also going to trail downwards as well, and elongated spheres might look awkward. Also, what sort of material should I use that would look convincing? Akril

I got it! Thanks a lot! Akril