Your Instructor:

Lucas Ridley
I’ve been a professional
animator for over 10 years
and I’ve helped teach over
40,000 students a variety of
animation tools and
concepts. Here’s a slice of my
professional animation work.
Free + Paid Animation Software
Free Online 2D Animation Tools
● Brush Ninja
● Syncsketch
● PixilArt
● FlipAnim
"I think al
l directors
should be
Free iPad/iPhone/Android Animation Apps
●
●
Stop Motion Studio (Apple + Android)
FlipaClip (Apple + Android)
animators
Paid Software
first."
-Steven Sp
● Procreate (for iPad)
ielberg
● Adobe After Effects
(Watch He
○ Also see Character Animator and Animate re)
● Advanced Software not taught in this course:
○ 2D: TV Paint and Toon Boom Harmony
○ Stop Motion: Dragonframe Stop Motion Software

○ 3D: Autodesk Maya is what I use at work (Blender is a free 3D software alternative)
 History Lesson Assignment
Watch and compare these two short films to notice the progress
the principles made in animation (Click the titles below).

Disney’s Silly Symphony Fleischer Studios

“The Skeleton Dance” Superman - “The Mad Scientist”
1929 1941
 The Science of Animation
References

Test and compare different frame rates here.

More history on the Thaumatrope here and other kinds

of -tropes can be found here.

● Posterize Time was the name of the After Effects effect used to change
framerate to 12 fps or ‘twos’ in the lesson
Random Things
● 100 years of Animation compilation (1 second per year) here

● Timing Charts from the movie Klaus here

“You can’t
● People can only focus on one thing at a time hence, the do what
Selective Attention Test (staging principle) here you want
till you
know wha
● Compare stop motion movies The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) t you’re
and Missing Link (2019) doing.”
-Dr. M oshe Felde
nkrais
● Planning is important! See how Disney planned this animation
sequence with real actors here

● Extra reading: The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation

● Try Pixilation - stop motion with your own body! Made famous in this old music video and more recently here
and here

● You can buy premade flip books with a small light table from this guy if you want to go beyond the post-it
notes :) - he has a fun take on animating a line here
Software Shortcuts & Hotkeys
After Effects
● v = select tool
● g = pen tool
Procreate
● Hold spacebar = hand tool (also h)
u = see all keyframes ● Undo = Ta
● p two finge
rs
● m = see layer’s mask (tap twice to see all attributes)
● Hold pen d
F9 = easy ease selected keyframe (slow in/out) own after
● drawing to
make a cir
● p, r, s, t = see layer’s position, rotation, scale, and opacity arc, or line cle,
○ After one is up, hold shift with these to see them together
● Shift + ? = fit and center composition in window
● Cntrl + +/- = zoom in and out of composition
● -/+ = zoom in and out of timeline
● Cntrl + left/right arrows = frame by frame navigate timeline
● Cntrl + m = add composition to render queue
 Next Steps: Click Here
After Effects Maya Courses
Courses ● Maya for Beginners course series
● Advanced 3D Logo Animation in
● After Effects for Beginners:
Autodesk Maya
Mastering The Basics
● Animate 3D Text in Autodesk Maya
● After Effects for Beginners:
● 3D Animation & Data Visualization
Mastering Typography
in Autodesk Maya
● Animate a Logo in Adobe
● 3D Medical Animation in Autodesk
After Effects
Maya
● Animate an Explainer Video in
Adobe After Effects
● Break Into The Animation Industry:
● 3D Animated Lip Sync: Made Simple
Strategies for Kickstarting Your
with After Effects
Career