Does ANIM8 require any special software to be installed before animations can be viewed?

No.  ANIM8 uses a flash player and also HTML5.  This means that the ANIM8 player will work on PCs and MACs wihich have the Adobe Flash player (more than 98% of desktops (PCs & MACs) have Adobe flash installed).  All new PCs have flash installed too. In the event that someone viewing your web page does not have flash installed, the player will display a message with a link to the Adobe website where they can install the flash player.  The Adobe flash player is free to download.

The ANIM8 player is also automatically switches to HTML5 playback.  This means that animations displayed through ANIM8 can be viewed on the iPad.