Creating Frame By Frame Animation With After Effects and Photoshop

It’s no doubt that the popularity of the flat animation style is reaching its peak with the hand drawn loose and crafted frame by frame look. In the last little while we have had the opportunity to see quite a few tutorials that show how to create this frame by frame animation with After Effects.

Add to this another addition from CreativMotion who takes a bit of a unique spin on the technique of creating frame by frame animation with After Effects by also using Photoshop to assist in the workflow. Using Photoshop’s timeline for animation to create the basis of the animation,

Breaking Down the Workflow

CreativMotion mentions that the workflow for creating frame by frame animation in After Effects and Photoshop van be more beneficial than working with either application alone.

In Photoshop you can easily draw on individual frames that can be contained in a single video layer. When that gets brought in to After Effects, Ae will read it as its own single layer. The link to the original Photoshop file still works as it would with any other PS file, where you can easily go back into Photoshop and make edits and changes, and After Effects will respect and see those changes instantly.

 

More Resources for Creating Frame By Frame Animation With After Effects

Mt. Mograph’s Matt Jylkka covered the same workflow much earlier than this post, and had a great tutorial looking at creating the hand animated frame by frame animation look with After Effects in the post Animating Typography in Photoshop and After Effects.

Mikey Borup posts a look at how to create a hand drawn animation look without really hand drawing it, with the post Create Motion Streaks With a Hand Drawn Look Dynamically in After Effects.

Animator Alex Grigg with a fantastic look at creating animations in Photoshop with a primer for Using Photoshop for Creating Frame by Frame Animations.

Within the same vein in creating frame by frame art, Tips for Creating Pixel Art Animation in Photoshop shows how to tackle pixel art animation.

Evan Abrams has a look at creating the “liquid look” or animated blobs, creating the frame by frame animation look with the post Exploring Path Animation in After Effects for Creating Animated Blobs.

Lastly, we have a unique and novel approach, where Casey Latiolais breaks down his method for creating a hand drawn animation look by using Cinema 4D renders as a reference base in After Effects- with the post Hand Creating a Hand Drawn Animated Look Using Cinema 4D Renders as Reference.