By far the best thing you can get for the buck, is pro-motion. You can animate frame by frame or using the keyframer. Outputs avi, gif, mosaic sequence and more.
If you are on a budget, use the gif animator from microsoft, or other gif animators you can look for on the internet.
Theoretically, you could draw frame by frame and get a sequence, but things like alignment, compression and other issues eat precious time.
I recall seeing somewhere (like freeware) the old version of autodesk animator, that outputs fli format, but promotion is the reborn of that magnificent program.
If you had macromedia flash, even an old version, you could also draw frame by frame or keyframed. That is a quite good tool that outputs the formats you require.
May the 3d force B with U
