Best Video Software for the Mac How To Run MacOS High Sierra or Another OS on Your Mac Best Graphic Design Software the Mac Stay Safe with Best Free. 2D CAD product to create, edit and view DWG. AutoCAD LT® 2D CAD software helps you create 2D drawings faster and with more precision. Available for Windows and Mac. Includes AutoCAD web and mobile apps.
Why use Mac home design software?
Mac home design software has all the tools you need to put your dream home down on paper, whether you want to build a brand-new house or renovate your existing one. This type of software can help you make detailed digital models of major landscaping projects and home remodels, and it lets you see how different wall coverings and upholstery look in new settings. You can arrange and rearrange furniture in your digital plan without breaking a sweat physically by moving the items around your home – just click and drag each piece to a new location to get a feel for what looks best.
The best home design software for Mac computers has a wealth of features, design tools, and customizable objects and materials to help you create your 3D floor model.
Best home design software overall
Home designer architectural
A great interior design software for beginners and veterans
Simple design
Virtual camera has a learning curve
Home Designer Architectural is a good program for beginner and veteran designers alike. Arguably the best feature for both groups is the Plan Assistant tool. It provides thousands of preprogrammed floor plans as a jumping-off point for your home design. It also contains a library of customizable house plans, another great way to get started. You also have the option to start a design from scratch or import scanned floor plans into the application.
The automatic roofing tool makes easy work of choosing the roof style for your design. The program automatically calculates and displays all your dimensions while your design is in progress. The program also calculates the materials needed to construct your design and gives you an estimate of the cost.
Walls, roofs and floor plans are just the beginning when designing a home. You can use this program’s pre-programmed library of 8,000 objects to populate your home design with everything from doors, windows and cabinets to furniture, appliances, fixtures and more. If you want something in your dream home, there’s a high likelihood this application has it.
Read the full review here: Home Designer Architectural
Best home and interior software for value
Home designer suite
A home designer software that offers a great value for price and content
Free hand drawing tool
If you want to design your fantasy home but don’t have a lot of cash, you can pick up this program for less than $100. It’s a great deal considering other programs we reviewed can cost twice that. There are programs that cost as little as $15, but there’s not much to them. This program is both affordable and gives you the tools to make an effective design.
Home Designer Suite comes with much of what’s included in Home Designer Architectural, such as a wide-ranging library of home objects. It’s not as comprehensive, but with 6,500 objects to choose from, you should be able to find what you’re looking for. You also get the cost estimator, so you’ll have a good idea how much it would cost to build your design.
One of the most useful tools in this home design software for Mac is the virtual walk-through. This allows you to plot a path through your home, and the computer will show you, in 3D, what your design will look like. This is a great way to see exactly what you can expect and provides a better idea where you can make improvements.
Read the full review here: Home Designer Suite
Best home design software for beginners
Punch home design studio complete
A great interior design software for beginners
Excellent landscape templates
Simple for beginners
Great customer service
Although the two previously mentioned products are simple to use and learn, Punch Home Design Studio Complete scored the highest in our ease-of-use tests. So, if you’re a greenhorn, this is a great program to start with. You can begin your design by choosing one of the sample room templates, complete with appliances and furniture, then customize it until it’s exactly what you want.
You can choose to start from scratch with the QuickStart tool, which allows you to drag and drop rooms and snap them together. This saves a lot of time and effort, because you don’t have to design the whole house at once. And it lets you shift your rooms around the house with ease until you figure out the layout that works best.
Punch Home Design Studio Complete comes with a library of 5,000 objects, including appliances and furniture, but far fewer choices than the best programs we reviewed. However, this program has more than 5,000 plants to place in your design. Other high-ranking products offer just 1,500 plant options. You can build custom fireplaces, cabinets, windows and doors. And the tools are all quite intuitive and easy-to-use.
Read the full review here: Punch Home Design Studio Complete
Interior design software: Mac vs Windows
These home and interior design programs work just as well as home design programs for Windows operating systems. The same tools and utilities are there and the functions are similar. In fact, many developers create programs that work on both operating systems.
What type of software do I need?
Home and interior design programs are all encompassing and typically used to creating new homes from the bottom up. However, if you have an existing home you want to update, either inside or outside, there are programs that are less cumbersome and have just the tools you need for a fraction of the cost of full Mac home design suites.
Interior design software focuses on the decorative aspects of your home. You can use it to simply change the curtains and rearrange the furniture or for a project as extreme as knocking out a wall and creating a more open floor plan.
If your only focus is updating your home kitchen, there are specific program dedicated to this type of project. Kitchen design software has advanced tools for creating custom cabinets and plumbing lines.
Why Trust Us?
We spent more than 160 hours using 12 home design programs to help you decide which is the best for you. We designed dozens of homes and hundreds of rooms. We carefully combed through all tools, and every program was subjected to a series of tests to measure utility, versatility, ease and user experience. Personal experience was also calculated into the scores. We took meticulous notes during our testing phase recording likes and dislikes. These were all weighed in reaching a final verdict for each product.
Every Mac home designer application we reviewed was either provided by the manufacturer or bought outright. Furthermore, the manufacturers were not provided with our testing methodologies, nor had any influence in our evaluations.
We also reached out to professional designers and asked their opinions about casual users designing plans. Trevor Broughton, lead designer of Mountain West Architecture, expressed some concerns about DIYers' abilities to make workable plans. “My biggest concern with anything brought to me is it scalable and accurate,” Broughton said, but he added that the products we reviewed can help.
“Consumer grade software could allow someone to really grasp how much space is absorbed by each architectural element,” Broughton said, while still cautioning that users need to understand how plans come together before trying to bring them into the real world. “From a bathroom to a stairwell, people struggle to understand the square footage required to make these elements function properly in any given plan,” Broughton said.
What to Look For
Home and interior design software has three main functions that we looked at closely during our review: construction design, interior decorating and landscape planning. Here is what we found helpful while using these programs.
Home and floor plan design
One of the main reasons to use a home design program is to create 2D floor plans that can easily be converted into blueprints. These plans include marks for windows and doors as well as separate levels with their own measurements.
Photo import features are really useful because they allow you to open one or more pictures of a home you like and save them to use as inspiration while constructing your own plans. These can be images you find online or pictures you snap with your camera when you see a home you like.
You can also use this feature to upload floor plans or copies of your current home’s blueprints. Programs like Live Home 3D include a tracer tool you can use to copy the images’ lines while the software automatically creates both a 2D image, or blueprint, and a 3D image to help you visualize how the two concepts mesh together. If you open a blueprint of your home in the program, the trace feature can help you attach a room addition that scales nicely to your existing home.
A cost estimator is another valuable tool. As you design your home, it provides you with a list of materials and the average cost of each, along with an estimation of the total project cost so you have an idea of what kind of funding you need to secure. Not all the programs in our review have this feature, but Punch Home Studio Design is one that does.
Other features we looked at closely while testing Mac home design software are roof wizards and electrical- and plumbing-planning tools. Most of the programs we tested included some variation of these tools, though some included extra feature that gave them an advantage over the rest.
For example, all the program we reviewed, except for Interiors Pro, have tools to place a roof over your home. However, most of the apps create a standard-looking gable roof over the entire structure. You must then use a cutaway tool to remove sections of the roof that overhang too much because of odd extensions, such as a garage, that aren’t exactly square with the rest of the house. Additional steps are required for more elaborate roof designs or to fuse several roofs over different home sections. Live Home 3D has a smart perimeter tool that instinctively knows if your home design has several different sections and places a perfect roof over your home so you don’t have to take extra steps to make it look perfect.
Electrical and plumbing planning tools also vary by program. Each interior Mac program we reviewed includes fixtures such as outlets, bathtubs, hanging lights and faucets. While this is helpful, especially when designing your home’s decor, more advanced tools let you indicate exactly where to place pipes or run electrical wires. If you are only using design software for interior decor updates, these advanced planning tools are not necessary. However, they are important if you need to make changes to a room, such as a bathroom or kitchen, where it may be necessary to move pipes and electrical wiring.
Interior and room design
Some interior design tools are used for structural changes – for example, when you want to open a room by knocking out a wall or to add or update stairs. However, most are fun tools that allow you to add custom-designed kitchen cabinets, textured walls or tiled hallways.
The object library houses 3D furniture and décor items you can set up to visualize what your new rooms will look like decorated in the latest craftsman, vintage or sleek stylings before you head out to the store. We really liked the object-placement and editing tools in MyFourWalls. They were the easiest to use and the most intuitive. With this software, you don’t have to highlight an object and then choose a resizing or rotating tool from the dashboard. Instead, you can grab the object, edit and rotate it freely in one step.
Each app comes with a set number of objects in its library, but you can add additional programs to increase it to an unlimited number of items. Most of these objects are found through Google’s SketchUp and the Trimble 3D Warehouse programs. In these third-party databases, you simply download and save an object file to your desktop, then import it using the home design software’s import feature. We note which home design software accepts objects from which database. Most only work with images from one or the other, though Home Designer Architectural is compatible with both.
Landscape and garden design
Landscape tools help you design the gardens and lawn surrounding your home. Look for a program that has a plant encyclopedia. This tool lists plants that thrive in your specific growing area to ensure you have a beautiful, healthy yard all year long. It is important to note that while each of the programs we reviewed has some plant objects available, not all of them are outdoor plants. You can always increase the plant object library by uploading additional items from various third-party object databases and creating an outdoor plant list.
Price of landscaping software
The best home and interior design software for Mac can cost as much as $200. And if you’re going to use the application regularly, we recommend getting the best product you can afford. However, if you’re planning on tooling around with a design from time-to-time or simply want to see what your dream home may look like, you don’t have to go with the top-of-the-line software. The cheapest program we reviewed, MyFourWalls, costs less than $30 and has a surprisingly large feature set for the price. If your ambitions are small, it may fit your needs.
We found that it took a long time to download the Mac design programs we tested because they contain thousands of objects and components. Some programs took only a couple of hours, while others took five or more. Once installed, though, there weren’t any issues with lag or function during testing.
Saving and sharing your designs
As you look at floor plan software for your Mac computer, you should try to find one that is easy to use but also renders your designs in a format you can share with professionals. Architects and contractors typically use professional Computer Aided Design (CAD) programs that create official blueprints. These blueprints are used to secure permits and licenses and also serve as the official instructions for building your dream home. The best 3D floor plan software for Mac computers lets you have fun creating designs and shows a good visual representation of what your dream home will look like as well as creates a 2D design that includes measurements for contractors to refer to.
Something to be aware of when choosing a program is the file types the finished designs can be saved as, especially if you intend to export and share your ideas with an architect, general contractor or interior decorator. Professional software is compatible with only a few types of files, and even then, it depends on the program. If you know the format your builder uses, you can look at our comparison chart to ensure the program you purchase creates a compatible file. Typically, CAD software accept DXF and DWG file formats.
Our final thoughts
Don’t let your lack of interior design experience keep you from undertaking a remodeling project. Even with minimal experience, you can plan kitchen renovations, bathroom makeovers, bedroom refreshes and color-scheme changes throughout your home using one of the packages we reviewed. You can even design landscapes, potentially changing the look and feel of your outdoor space and the exterior of your house. Using one of these programs, you can turn your digital designs into reality.
Contributing Reviewers: Renee Shipley, Noel Case, Linda Thompson, Danny Chadwick
Related Product Reviews
-->Sep 04,2019• Proven solutions
In your search for quality animation software, you may have found that many of the programs cost a lot of money.
It is not ideal if you need to pay so much for animated application, and price should not be the reason that stops you from making animation video.
The good news is that you can choose free animation tools to start the journey in the market.
That is why we created a list of the best animation software on both Mac and Windows. Some of them are excellent to use, even compared with some paid package.
Whether you are a professional editor or just a beginner to start making animation, you will find the tools listed below are easy to use without watermark and won't cost money to improve your skills.
The best part is you will find these free animation programs are also very useful for content creation on Mac and Windows. Besides, we have listed the pros and cons of each software. Keep reading!
Best Animation Software on Mac and Windows - FilmoraPro
Looking for some simple while powerful video editing tools? We recommend using Wondershare FilmoraPro. You can use it to create 2D/3D animated texts, shapes or anything you like for YouTube video.
The keyframing features will help you make animation effects smooth and precise. When exporting, you can also make it transparent.
Besides, various title templates and transitions are also available for you. Download it now to have a try!
Simple steps to make animation easily
- Create various shapes that you like
- Add keyframing to make it move
- Fine-tuning to make it smooth
- Add visual effects/text/color before export it
Here we have listed 10 free animation software without watermark on Windows and macOS.
- Synfig Studio
- Pencil2D Animation
- Tupi
- Blender
- DAZ Studio
- Terragen
- Anim8or
- Seamless3d
- OpenToonz
- Stykz
Part 1: Best Free Animation Software for Mac
Listed below are free animation software on Mac. Take a look.
1.Synfig Studio - Mac software to animate video
Difficulty Level: Easy
Pro: You can create many layers once a time and sync audio for your animation.
Con: This one needs much time to learn, especially for beginners.
An open-source 2D animation software that works on Macs, Synfig Studio delivers multiple players while you are creating content. Whether you want to add geometric, filters, distortions or transformations, it is all possible! And thanks to the high-end bone system, you can create cut out videos using bitmap images!
The thoughtful part is there are two download version on the homepage: stable version and development version. If you want to enjoy a stable and smooth animation editing experience, choose the stable one. However, the development package give you access to use the latest features.
For a novice, you can learn Synfig from step by step guide in Wikipeida and video tutorials. Four languages are available including English, Russian, Dutch and French for video course. https://ameblo.jp/atathizbi1973/entry-12639765542.html.
Features:
- It offers support for many layers within the animation.
- The program’s bone system means that you can easily create animations with bitmap images or vector artwork.
- It allows you to sync your creative work with any sound that you want. Has a full-featured audio editor.
2.Pencil2D Animation - Animation program for 2D pencil lover
Difficulty Level: Easiest
Pro: Easy to start and make animation as the interface is user-friendly for many people.
Con: You need to set your preference every time to open it up, so it takes up some time
Pencil2D Animation is one of the simplest 2D hand-drawn tools available. It will work flawlessly on Mac computers. It is ideal for beginners, as the commands and interface are very easy to understand.
Whether you want to create a simple one, or you want something with many layers for videos on YouTube, you can use Pencil2D animation to get it done. Its time is easy to use at the first glance. You can add and duplicate different frames on different track.
The frequency of releasing new version is very fast as Pencil2D is committed to bring the lasted features to each users. The newest version is v0.6.4 (as of August, 2019). Its user guide is informative with video tutorial, FAQ and manual material.
Features:
- Lightweight and minimalistic design that makes it very easy for beginners.
- Features raster and vector workflows, with easy switching between them. You can paint and sketch as you want!
- Will run on all platforms - Mac, Windows and Linux.
- Completely free and open source.
3.Tupi - free animation application for mac users
Difficulty Level: Middle
Pro: It supports vector illustrations. Besides, various formats are available.
![Drafting Drafting](/uploads/1/3/3/8/133894568/408944711.jpg)
Con: If you want to make 3D animation, it will fail. You can only make 2D effects.
A free software application for YouTube, Tupi will allow you to create 2D animations to your heart’s content. The tool was started by animators who wanted to create something that others could use.
It is an open-source tool, which means that users can make their tweaks to the program if they have some interesting ideas. The program works on both Windows and Mac. You need to use Tupi and Papagayo to make lip-sync animation with different mouth shape.
It offers solution for schools with related features including academic license, technical support and ads-free, so many schools choose use this one to teach kids on how to make an animation video.
Features:
- Support for vector illustrations. You can add rectangles, lines, polygons, and other shapes as you please. To fill areas, just use the paint bucket.
- You can import raster images using this program.
- You can export all your finished images into different file formats.
- Support for tweeting positions, scale, shear and rotations.
4.Blender - need some time to learn this animation tool
Difficulty Level: Difficult
Pro: Really powerful software that you can make for professional users.
Con: It is not easy to make image animation as it focuses on 3D.
Mac mini i5 2.3/8/500/hd3000 m-11 manual. Blender is an open-source 3D animation creation suite without watermark. If you find that 2D is a little bit limiting, we think that you will be very happy with what this free program offers. You can take your projects to a whole new level when you can use this program on your Mac.
You can use Blender to make video game, modeling and high quality animation. However, it involves steep learning curve. Luckily, there are many tutorial to guide you through the journey. You can also ask for help in Blender community that millions of talented people like you are there.
Features:
- Creating renders is no problem with this program.
- Modeling, such as sculpting, retopology and creating curves is not an issue either.
- VFX and animation features are better than any option on the market.
- It offers powerful simulation tools.
- Integration with pipeline tools is easy.
Part 2: Best Free Animation Software for Windows
Below are free animation software on Windows. Keep reading.
5.DAZ Studio - free software for 3D lovers
Difficulty Level: Difficult
Pro: You can make game animation for fun. It also supports GPU accelerated real-time rendering.
Drafting Software
Con: It has high demand for the device, but owns a steep learning curve.
Daz 3d is a powerful and completely free 3D creation tool that will let you create the short videos that you want. Whether you are using this for business or pleasure, you will find the program is very easy to understand. Within a day, you will be completely used to its interface.
3D effects is the core focus of DAZ Studio. You can build model, render and pose animation within skin texture level. It has a high requirement for device. For Windows 64 bits, its recommended RAM is 3G.
Features:
- Options for 3D morphing, animation, and rendering.
- GPU accelerated real-time rendering, which delivers the best results.
- Interactive tutorials to help you become a better 3D artist.
- Everything you make is yours, royalty-free!
6.Terragen - use it to make CG animation
Difficulty Level: Middle
Pro: The recently updated version is the best one. Ray-traced preview is a great function to help us making animation.
Con: The interface looks complicated, but it gets easy to know after you are familiar with it.
A completely free program that you can download and install on all Windows computers and tablets, Terragen is the ideal program for you to create the 3D animations and environments that you want. If you want a photo-realistic CG environment, using Terragen is the best way to do it!
Releasing imagination instantly, Terragen Creative is the one tool you'd like to consider. You can use it to make beautiful scenery.
For advanced tools, you can choose FBX to make animation quickly. The featured image gallery on its homepage will give you a deep understanding about the final outcome you can achieve with Terragen.
Features:
- Ray-traced preview. Without watermark after exporting
- Photo-realistic clouds and ozone simulation
- Rendering is twice as fast as the previous version of the program.
- Adding terrain, objects and shader to your final product is very easy with the intuitive interface.
7.Anim8or - free tool to make 3D modeling
Difficulty Level: Difficult
Pro: Anim8or supports 3D modeler and TrueType fonts to meet advanced needs.
Con: Beginners will find it difficult to learn.
Anim8or is a free 3D modeling program that will let you create the unique work that you want. It is a personal project from an animator, but the program does get regular updates and troubleshooting.
It is not going to give you the same features as something like Studio Max or Maya, but you will get the basics. Beginners who are getting into animations will love this program.
Anim8or is a great tool to step into 3D animation ff you think other software is too different to start. In some way, it means you need to give up some advanced features. But all in all, it's still recommended for you.
Features:
- A full 3D modeler that allows you to create spheres, cylinders, platonic solids and any other objects that you want.
- Features support for TrueType fonts.
- Easy to create 3D scenes and output them as video files or images.
8.Seamless3d - open-source free software
Difficulty Level: Easy
Pro: It is an open-source 3D modeling package. The good thing is the handy infinite Undo/Redo operation.
Con: Some advanced features are missing like drawing.
Seamless3d, an open-source 3D modeling software that you can download, is among the best animation worktable if you want to create specialized images, animated videos or 3D characters.
It supports FFmpeg video format, so you can use AVI, MP4 and more. Besides, the forum is not active compared with before, but you still can find answers from many tutorials.
Features:
- It comes with infinite undo and redo options for complete flexibility to correct mistakes.
- It allows for partitioned and seamless texture mapping for YouTube videos.
- Has a specialized tree view interface.
9.OpenToonz - support plug in to make animation freely
Difficulty Level: Middle
Pro: It is an open source software, so you can change the code freely.
Con: The plug-in effects are limited.
This animation program is made for beginners on Windows. It is among the best 2D animation software in the market. You can use plug-in effects to change image style, add lights and distort details. It supports Windows 7/8/10 only for 64 bit.
Features:
- You can add provisional colors to make your animation more colorful.
- Smooth correction without frame losing.
- Compatible with black-and-white, colored, or without binarization scanning.
10.Stykz - Simple to use animation program for beginners
Difficulty Level: Easy
Free Drafting Software For Mac
Pro: It is the best stick figure animation if you want to make this kind of video.
Con: The UI is not modern to use and needs time to adapt to using it.
Stykz is completely free to use and without watermark. If you have used Pivot StickFigure Animator, then you will find Stykz is similar to it, but you can import the previous .stk files to animate it again. You can use it to make animation smooth frame by frame.
With its frame based feature, Stykz is easy to cutomize each frame. You can change previous and current frames to get what you want. You can download it to have a try considering its easy to use features.
Best 2d Drafting Software For Mac
Features: https://emailpowerup887.weebly.com/free-download-lectra-system-modaris-v6-software-download.html.
- There is some animes file on this website, so you can have a reference.
- Edit animation in the software without using another editing window.
- You can share the final work with others including information.
Conclusion
With any of these free animation maker programs on Mac and Windows, you will have an easy time creating your next 2D or 3D video. Ensure you choose the program that has the features and compatibility that you desire. Then it is up to your creative mind to come up with stunning animations! If you want to make animation easily, download FilmoraPro to have a try.
Easy-to-use and powerful video editor for all creators.
Bring up your video to a professional level with straightforward tools.
- Choosing Video Editing Software
- Video Editing Tips