Tools for Creating Motion Graphics

Takeaways

• I use After Effects for animation, and compositing music & sound effects
• I use Illustrator for creating vector graphics
• I use photoshop and Wacom tablet for storyboards
• I use these plugins in After Effect: Ease and Wizz, Newton 2, Gif Gun, and Keysmith
• I’m going to start using Photoshop to do hand-drawn animation
• I’m starting to use Premiere Pro to start implementing sound effects

Imagine you want to be the best sketch artist. As you start to learn and see others making these amazing sketches, you naturally ask, what kind of pen are you using. When you do your research you find there are hundreds of options to choose from. All of the pens have good reviews and great examples of people using them. You think “if I have this tool, it will accelerate my capability”. In reality, it takes time and consistent practice to use any tool well. Find the right pen, is like finding the right program.

My Story

In high school I played around with a lot of different programs. I used flash to create cheesy animations, photoshop to create giant rideable cats, and premiere to edit videos that me and my friends created. In my spare time, I would learn from after effects tutorials to create important things, like explosions. After high school I left to live in Brazil for 2 years for volunteer work without knowing what I would exactly do when I came back. I didn’t keep up with the programs, but when I did come back, it was like riding a bike.

When I returned to the US I didn’t know exactly what I was going to do, but started picking up photoshop again. When I switched my major to animation, I started using more video editing programs and learning maya. I am a pretty good knowledge of a quite of few different programs. I can tell you one extremely important tip. It really doesn’t matter the tool you use, as long as you have a foundational knowledge of a particular skill

The Tools

I’m a huge fan of experimentation. Whenever possible, I like exploring new options. That being said, I do have my go-to tools:

After Effects: All animation, compositing, music, and sound effects

Illustrator: All graphic creation

Photoshop and Wacom tablet: for drawing storyboards

As you can see, I use after effects for almost everything. I am most comfortable there and feel I have so many options when executing. The program is so robust, it can feel overwhelming when you first arrive in this program. My guess is that I use 5–10% of the possible tools in After Effects. That’s comforting because if I ever come into a problem I’m not sure how to execute from my storyboards, I know I can find some tutorial online that will help me execute it. I also use a handful of plugins that are essential.

The plugin I use the most is Ease and Wizz. Essentially, it will help you create specific animation curves. Instead of going into every single animation and editing the curve on its own, I can automatically create a smooth animation from common curves. Understanding how each curve works is important, and will have an impact on your animations. I will have to go into more detail in another article about using curves. This plugin I use all the time, it sped up the time to create animations, as well as made them more consistent and effective.

The only downside to using this plugin off the bat without experimenting with the animation curves yourself (in other words the fundamentals), is when you need to create a custom curve for a specific animation. This happens at least once in every piece i’ve worked on. So make sure you’re familiar with curves. Here is a great articles on the different types of curves (link). If you have any questions, feel free to reach out.

I won’t get into too much detail, but the other tool I use is called Newton 2. I don’t use it in every project, but it is an extremely powerful plugin that creates realistic physics in your piece. I plan on experimenting more with this plugin.

My other go-to tool is Illustrator. It’s a vector based graphic creation tool. WIth it, I create all the needed work for a motion graphics piece, including: icons, landscapes, type (depending on the animation, I create the type in after effects), and logos. In a later article I will explain how I organize my illustrator file for easy to import into after effects. There are so many tutorials out there about illustrator, pick anything you’re interested in. I’ve recently heard of an animator who creates everything in after effects, this means one less program to open and edit with. I am definitely going to explore this option more.

The other tool I use on every single project is photoshop with a wacom tablet. I don’t use it for the actual execution, but for the storyboards. This tool could easily be replaced by a pen and paper. I like the flexibility photoshop offers when creating storyboards.

Experimenting

I’m still relatively new to including sound effects into my projects. I haven’t found a great resource into how other people design sound into their motion graphic. On my last project I used Premiere Pro based on some articles I read online. But because of my lack of knowledge, it took a little longer than it would have in After Effects. I think I am going to stick with Premiere Pro for sound for a couple reasons. First, is because the playback is faster than the RAM preview of after effects. Second, because the output when exporting from Premiere Pro, has a more manageable size than straight from After Effects. (note: I still use the voice and music in after effects to make sure all the animation is lined up with the key words and music, etc)

Conclusion

It doesn’t matter what you use, as long as you are learning about that skill. Whether you execute motion graphics using After Effects or hand draw on paper, the most important thing is that you understand the basic principles. Practice with any tool, experiment and find what you like the most. If you have a solid understanding of the foundation, you can execute in any program

This principle is important for when completing storyboards, which I will share in my next post.