Important Rules & Submission Guidelines
ANIMATE 2026 — AI & Software Usage Policy
1. General Rules
- •A participant may register and participate in only one team. If a participant is found participating in more than one team, all teams involved will be disqualified.
- •Each team must nominate one Team Lead, who will be the sole point of contact with the organizers.
- •Any form of malpractice, plagiarism, misrepresentation, or violation of the hackathon rules will result in immediate disqualification.
- •Participants must submit original work created specifically for ANIMATE 2026. Previously submitted or copyrighted work may not be submitted without appropriate permission.
- •Participants may narrate their animation in English or any of the 22 scheduled Indian languages: Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Bodo, Santhali, Maithili, and Dogri.
- •The decision of the Review Committee and Organizers regarding eligibility, evaluation, disqualification, and final results shall be final.
- •Submission of an entry constitutes acceptance of these rules and regulations.
AI Usage Policy
"AI may assist. Humans must create."
- •AI tools may be used for story development, brainstorming, scripting, research, translation, planning, concept art, voice, or minor texture generation.
- •AI may be used as a creative assistant, but it must not create the complete final animation. Core animation, rigging, and storytelling must be manually created.
- •AI-generated video or complete AI-generated animation may not be submitted as the final work.
- •The actual animation must be created by the participant using Synfig Studio for 2D animation and/or Blender for 2D/3D animation.
- •Participants must disclose any AI tools used and explain their purpose in the AI Usage Declaration submitted with the project form.
- •Failure to disclose significant AI use or submitting substantially AI-generated animation as participant-created work may result in disqualification.
Open Source Software Policy
Only Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) may be used to create the animation and its supporting content.
- •Participants must not use proprietary software for any part of the creative production workflow.
- •Use of proprietary software where it materially contributes to the submitted work may result in disqualification.
- •Participants should provide source/project files to verify the software and production workflow.
Helpful Resources
The following resources will help you learn the required open-source software and prepare your submission for ANIMATE 2026.
🎓 Spoken Tutorials
Learn Blender and Synfig Studio through
Spoken Tutorials
.
Available in: English, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Malayalam, Tamil, and Telugu.
🛠 Supporting Open-Source Tools
Spoken Tutorials for these tools are also available in multiple Indian languages.
💻 Primary Software Downloads