Typical flow for animation
Ideation and drawing phase
- Research
- Thumbnails
- Story boards
- Story board in motion, proof of concept
Question to ask yourself – How will you be building with animation?
- Will you be making a frame by frame animation?
- Will you be create shape layers and then use motion tweening for those shape layers
Frame by frame vs. motion tween
Understanding the difference between frame by frame and motion tween | video
Frame by frame:
Drawing the entire animation, a single frame at a time. Has been around since the first animations
Advantages:
- You have a high level of control over each frame,
- easier to more spontaneous animations
Disadvantages:
- takes longer
- lots of drawing, especially if you want a very fluid looking animations
Motion tween:
You have item A on one side of a page and item B on the other and the computer will do all of the in between frames for you
Advantages: Saves times, valuable skill set for junior level designers
Disadvantages: Steeper learning curve, especially in the beginning, as you have to learn the development process as well as software applications
Can make for a more mechanical looking animation, which is why the programs use things like easing and the graph editor to make actions look more natural
Decide how you want to work for this project
Creating a rough pass
Creating a rough pass of your animation will help you understand both the layer breakdown and also the physics of the piece. This might be the “proof of concept” animation that you made or you might choose to make a second more refined one
Some applications to create this rough pass could be fire alpaca, procreate, rough animator for ipads or photoshop. 24 frames per second is what will give you the most fluid animation. Some people prefer to draw their rough outlines on 2s, meaning that they draw it every other frame
Find the logic in what you draw first. For example, if you are animating a body, first draw the torso, then the limbs. Next add the motion of the head and then any additional items that are in the animation. Since the torso is at the core of the figure, it makes sense to animate that first
Frame by frame animation can be done in either Adobe Animate or After Effects. The advantages of Animate is that the user interface is more simple and there tends to be less steep of a learning curve. Some students prefer to begin in Animate and move to After Effects for the second assignment.
Prework in Adobe Illustrator
- Import sketches to illustrator
- Create an artboard for each one of your shots
- Work very intentionally with layers. How will you be breaking up the motion? What objects will need to be on different layers? Refer to your rough pass animation
- Select a digital color palette, can start with a site like coolors.co
- In illustrator, use the “recolor artwork” option to quickly work through multiple color ways
Frame by Frame animation
Adobe After Effects
Frame by Frame animation in Adobe After Effects
Adobe Animate
Frame by Animation in Adobe Animate
Motion tween
Adobe After Effects
Motion tween animation in Adobe After Effects – working with shape layers tutorial