After Effects: Animate Your Character's First Steps

After Effects: Animate Your Character's First Steps

“Now the time has come to create your own project. I would like to encourage you to think of a famous person, whether real or fictional, that you would like to cycle through walking or running. They can be actors, singers, athletes, video game or animation characters ... Let your creativity fly! They can also be one or several, that also depends on you. Next, we are going to review the key phases of the project. It would be great if you showed me an image or gif of each phase and added a brief explanation about what you have done in each one: Creation and design of the character Before we start, we have to choose the character we want to work with. Mine is inspired by Link, the protagonist of the Zelda saga video games. Later, it is time to carry out its design, taking into account what are the elements that make that character unique and recognizable. That will make it shine and let everyone know who it is as soon as they see it. Remember that we saw this whole process in Unit 3 of the course.

Character rig Once we have the design, we rig the character by connecting the parts of the body to each other as we have learned in Unit 3. Animation of the walk cycle and run cycle You already have your character rigid. It is time to animate it as we have seen in Unit 3 and Unit 4. We have worked on both the animation of the walking cycle and the animation of the running cycle. Creation of the fund If you want to give your animation an extra touch, you can create some element for the background that has something to do with the character and animate the background to give more reality to the sensation of movement. You can animate it by moving in and out of the screen to create the feeling that your character is moving forward. I have created a dungeon background for my character to walk through. Final result and export Export your animation in gif format as I have taught you in Unit 4 and share it so that we can enjoy its appearance and movements! Now share your final project with all of us by clicking on "Create your project". Remember to share both the final result of your animation and the steps that have led you to it. Before saying goodbye, remember that the forum is an open space for all students. Feel free to comment on the work of other colleagues and interact with them to foster the community of the course. I will try to spend as much as my assignments and projects allow me, I am looking forward to seeing how your character has come to life! See you on the forum!”

Partial transcription of the video

“Final project Thank you very much for having participated in the course and for getting here. Now the time has come to create your own project. Choose the character you want to work with. Make your design taking into account what are the elements that make your character unique and recognizable. Once you have finished your design, make the character rig as we have seen in the course. When you have finished connecting the body parts, your character will be ready to animate it. Finally, if you feel motivated, you can create a background for your character make it representative of yourself an...”

This transcript is automatically generated, so it may contain mistakes.

Course summary for: After Effects: Animate Your Character's First Steps

• Level: Beginner
• 100% positive reviews (59)
• 1748 students
• 5 units
• 20 lessons (3h 44m)
• 4 downloads

• Category

  3D & Animation

• Software

  Adobe After Effects

• Areas

  2D Animation, Animation, Character Animation, Character Design