Have you ever tried to make a short “simple” animation all by yourself? I did. I tried using Adobe After Effects then Adobe Animate then Adobe After Effects then back to Adobe Animate. The result, I know a job I will not be doing in the future, animation…
Adobe After Effects Cons:
- Difficult to zoom in/out on the canvas as a whole, only scaling objects on the canvas which is NOT what I wanted
- The puppet pin tool sounds like a great feature for someone wanting to create simple animations involving people or animals, but it is complex and not for beginners
- Lip syncing…
Adobe Animate Cons:
- Hidden layers that only appear when you double click on the objects in that layer in the view panel
- Lip syncing that requires loud, well-enunciated sounds for proper syncing
- Lip syncing that requires various lip shapes to take place in separate layers within the layer for the mouth (see above point about hidden layers)
- Audio files not necessarily appearing when attempting to lip-sync a layer
- Only wav files are supported for certain types of projects
- Moving multiple keyframes around is difficult as you cannot see where the keyframe is currently at as you move it which minimizes accurate placing when dragging/dropping frames
My animation dream went from a fully animated two-character scene to a two-character scene with only their mouths moving in time to the audio, to an image with zoom in/out but no other animation.
The Takeaway
Animation is a very complex, time-consuming thing and not for the faint of heart. The next time I watch any animation I will appreciate the creators’ work so much more.
0 Comments