Course Overview

Animation Bootcamp teaches you the art of creating beautiful movement. In this course, you’ll learn the principles behind great animation, and how to apply them in After Effects. By the end of this course, you’ll animate a variety of shots in multiple styles with professional assets and personalized feedback that can be added to your portfolio.

You Get:

12 Weeks of Video Training, Podcasts, and PDF Guides

Personalized Critique on your work

Access to our 24/7 online Community

Verified Credential upon Completion of the Coursework

 

Course syllabus.

Orientation Week

  • Animation Bootcamp is meant to be a challenge, so we’re starting off with an evaluation to see exactly where you’re starting out. Your TA will also help orient you to how the course will progress so you can prepare for the work ahead.

Steepness equals Speed

  • Learn how keyframes—and the space between them—affect your animation. You’ll gain an understanding of easing, which enables you to create animation that “feels right.”

Arcs and Oscillations

  • This week we’ll introduce the Speed Graph and work on curved motion. Once you have an understanding of both Speed and Value graphs, it’s time to put them to work on your first two Principles of Animation: Anticipation and Overshoot.

Bounces & Impacts

  • Now that you know the foundations of making a realistic animation, master a realistic ball bounce using: regular rubber, a golf ball, and a bowling ball. This exercise will have you really thinking about how animation should look and feel.

Follow-Through

  • You’ll also learn about the animation principles Follow-Through and Overlapping Animation, adding another level of realism with swaying, trailing, or secondary elements such as tails and feathers.

Squashes, Stretches, Smears

  • This week, you will add realism through Squash and Stretch. This important principle helps reinforce weight and volume in a mass as it moves and collides with other objects.

Blocking and Pacing

  • When it’s time to coordinate the animation of multiple interacting layers, where do you begin? That’s the question we answer with a series of lessons in the later part of bootcamp.

Reinforcing Motion

  • When your work begins to get complicated, you’ll need to start using some time-tested strategies, like reinforcing motion, to create compelling animation.

Eye Trace

  • Your job as an animator is to control your viewer’s eye in a deliberate manner. Eye trace is a concept that will help you do that in a smart way.

Breaking the Rules

  • Once you master the principles of animation, you can bend them to your will. During this final week, have some fun creating a non-traditional piece that mimics stop motion in After Effects.

Extended Critique Period

  • The final weeks of class are Extended Critique. You can use this time to catch up, complete your final project, then turn it in for critique.