Technical Animation Tutorial

Overview

This tutorial is about how to make wings flap in after effects from a side perspective. This helps make the animation of something flying look more realistic. If the wings don't flap on a flying animal it would just look like the animal was being dragged across the screen. This would be helpful to beginner animators.

Steps 

The first steep is to create the animal you want to animate, I chose a bee, and create it by drawing it or by vectoring it in illustrator.



Next open adobe after effects and make a new composition. Once you do that import all your files one layer at a time (body, top wing, bottom wing) and drag them into the composition. Position everything where you want.




Click the arrow by the top wing layer and set key frames for position and rotation.





Next move forward 10 frames, set a new key frame for rotation by clicking the 0.0° and type -20 to rotate the wing 20° counter clockwise. The wing should look something like this!!!.




Make sure you have the top wing layer selected and drag the wing so the tip is about where it was in the first key frame. Now it should look something like this.




Select the key frames and copy them, move the slider to frame 20 and then paste the key frames. Continue pasting the key frames every 10 more frames until the end of the time you want the wings to move.




Next copy ALL the key frames then click the bottom wing layer and move the slider and back to 0 frames and paste the key frames.




Then, select every other key frame for the position and add 20 pixels to the second number on the position key frame to move the wing down 20 pixels. Next, select all the other key frames for position and more the position for them down 10 pixels as well.


Next create a null object by left clicking underneath the layers and clicking new and then null object. Then set a key frame at 0 on one side of the screen and a key frame at the end of your time line at the other side of the screen. Next parent the body to the null so that it will move across the screen.



Render your animation and watch it fly across the screen!





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