Save Time in Character Animation for After Effects

Learn to animate rigged characters quickly in After Effects with simple techniques that cut your animation time in half. Enroll now for free lessons!

  • Overview
  • Curriculum
  • Instructor
  • Review

Brief Summary

This course teaches you how to animate characters faster using rigged animations and expressions in After Effects. With just a few clicks and drags, you’ll discover techniques to save time and enhance your animation skills. Start with an hour of free lessons!

Key Points

  • Learn to animate rigged characters quickly
  • Utilize expressions in After Effects
  • Techniques for faster animation
  • 1 hour of free lessons available
  • Suitable for both beginners and experienced users

Learning Outcomes

  • Be able to rig characters easily in After Effects
  • Understand how to use expressions for animation
  • Learn to animate with fewer clicks and drags
  • Speed up your animation workflow significantly
  • Gain confidence in your animation abilities

About This Course

Animation can be a fast process if you know the secret: Do Animation with rigged characters, with a few clicks and drags

Stop your “I don’t have time for this” and animate quickly, using a powerful technique that helps you animate with just a few clicks and drags.

The most common reason why people neglect to pursue something in their lives is because the lack of time. Lots of work, lots of things to do.

That’s the very reason why millions of people love to learn how to do things faster and easier.

But how can you do something if there is no such way yet?

Frustration hurts, but I had to overcome it. And better yet, help others to avoid it.

When I started to take a bit of my sleep time to start a project in animation, I just knew it was going to take me forever, and after the frustration of dropping the project for a couple of months, I came back for revenge! (Not in the negative way, more like in an EPIC WAY!)

It was after watching a couple of tutorials for After Effects on Video Copilot that I learned the power of expressions. Got me inspired. There could actually be a way to solve this!

As you know, there is no spoiler in saying this, but yes, I found a way. HOORAY!

Finally, a solution!

That solution is what this course is about. Teaching you how to speed up your animation time with an advanced technique: Rigged Characters.

Rigging characters has been used since a couple of years ago, but what I teach you here is how to automate the movements by using expressions (Java code and lots math) inside After Effects to give you the ability to move your characters with just clicks and drags.

Just check 1 hour of free lessons to see if you find the techniques interesting.

“What options do I have for animating a character?”

Picture this. You have a project in your mind, let’s say, a 2 minute animation. You have the plot in your mind, it’s a good story and you even have the main characters drawn and ready.

You know how to use After Effects, because you went to Video Copilot and learned the basics for free.

Option 1: Puppet tool

You could put your drawings inside After Effects and put a couple of puppet pins, so you can move the character by changing the position of the pins. Right? Well that takes a lot of time to animate, it’s faster than drawing frame-by-frame, but still takes a lot of time.

Option 2: Cut out animation

Maybe you don’t know about the puppet tool technique and you just split the character into the different parts of the body. The arms, the legs, the body and the head. Everything in a separate layer. Animating that “rig” takes a lot of time too. Maybe it’s faster than classical animation but it won't be as fast as a few clicks and drags to change the position.

What can you do to make it super fast?

Option 3: Advanced Rigging

Using a powerful rig that calculates everything for you so you only have to make a few clicks and drags to change the position of your character.

It’s so easy that you will remember when you played with toys

Have you ever played with toys? If you wanted to raise the hand of your Action Figure or your Barbie, all you had to do was to take the hand and raise it right? Imagine if animating was that simple.

Well, this is what this course is going to teach you. How to change body positions in a snap.

When you find a solution, everybody wants to know it

After I came up with this technique, I brought it to the studio I work for (I do motion graphics for commercials), and they went crazy. They started to ask me for lots of tips because I knew that the secret to be faster in animation was by using expressions.

Anybody who knows how to use After Effects knows that the secret to speed up your work is by automating with expressions. And the only way I could help everybody, was by organizing the process and create a couple of videos.

That’s when the idea for this course was born.

Rigged Characters are the common way to speed your animation, everybody knows that

Rigged Characters are what most professionals under a schedule use. I’m talking about Nickelodeon, Disney TV. They all use techniques to rig characters and animate faster.

But until now, there was no way you could achieve all this in After Effects, you had to do your animation in Toon Boom, or Animate Studio. What about us? The After Effects Community?

Well, this is my contribution. An Advanced Rig that helps you control your character easily and quickly, all inside After Effects.

If you haven’t checked yet, take a look at 1 hour of free lessons and see for yourself how easy you can achieve this rig, and how it can help you to animate faster.

“It all sounds great, but, What level of knowledge do I need?”

Because I know there is a lot of people who doesn’t know how to use After Effects, I made an update and included a tour of the software. Everyone is getting it now. And if you are a veteran user, you might discover some advanced little tips that can help you cut your work time in half.

Check the reviews.

Animating faster is not only something people with little time need, but also big studios who work under a schedule. This course will help you achieve faster times, deliver work earlier and stay ahead of schedule.

“What if I don’t understand something? What if I need help?”

If you have a question, just ask me and I try to reach as fast as possible. I answer all questions, mostly on the same day. I check my inbox twice a day.

And just so you know, this course has had tons of modifications thanks to the many questions I received. Many lessons have been re recorded so anyone can understand the concepts. Really, any doubt you have is actually a way to help improve this course.

Check the free lessons now!

What are you waiting for? Preview the free hour of video lessons and if you believe this course is what you were looking for, enroll for the complete 4.5 hour course and discover the secret techniques that can help you cut your working time in half.

Inside you will find the project files to follow along and easy to follow instructions to achieve this powerful technique.

Enroll today!

  • Rig a Character in After Effects

  • Animate your cartoon characters faster with just a few clicks and drags

Course Curriculum

2 Lectures

2 Lectures

Instructor

Profile photo of 2D Animation 101 Courses
2D Animation 101 Courses

With a background of 10 years in the film industry at Autumn Leave Films, and with over 30 short films produced to this date, we are a group of animators who love to share everything we know about animation, from pre-production, animation, to post production. Our aim is to equip future animators with all the necessary techniques and tips to...

Review
4.9 course rating
4K ratings
ui-avatar of Donna Hunt
Donna H.
5.0
1 year ago

I'm not good with comp. so it took me along time for figure out to down load Winrar, but I think I'm on track now I'll see

  • Helpful
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ui-avatar of Aras Saeed
Aras S.
5.0
4 years ago

This is amazing so far but sometimes I feel like I'm lost because of the many steps that need to be taken

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ui-avatar of Saptak
Saptak
5.0
4 years ago

Hands down the best course to learn everything about character animation in After Effects. Also, it's in great detail and every step is very easy to follow. +1000

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ui-avatar of Ng Hong Thye
Ng H. T.
5.0
4 years ago

The pace is right when going through the steps to up the character. Definitely learn a lot from this lesson.

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ui-avatar of Karen Newsome
Karen N.
5.0
4 years ago

The instructors sense of humor. He makes the character come alive. And, he demonstrates different poses and how the character might be feeling with the change of positioning of the body. Also, he is very detailed oriented and he shows his creativeness in how he is teaching the class.

  • Helpful
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ui-avatar of HAMZA BENKACEM
Hamza B.
4.0
5 years ago

drawing another anime

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ui-avatar of Paul Storm
Paul S.
5.0
5 years ago

A very fun and informative course. Really enjoyed following along and the tutor has a great sense of humour, making it a blast to learn from him. Totally recommend this course for anybody interested in the subject.

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ui-avatar of Fadly Wychowvski Hussin
Fadly W. H.
4.5
5 years ago

Very informative. And the presenter is precise yet funny

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ui-avatar of Matthew Reeves
Matthew R.
5.0
5 years ago

Over half way and it's pretty damn good! Recommend.

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ui-avatar of Tanay Basak
Tanay B.
2.5
5 years ago

I want to learn real cartoon character where character's have hand, foot etc all real,but this character have no hand or palm.

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