How To Create 2D Animation WITHOUT SKILLS Easily & Quickly
Want to create 2D animation without learning any drawing and animating skills? Don’t have days or weeks just to create 2 minute animated video? Want to show your skills through animation but don’t have a good drawing(like me 😁)??
Then this short guide will help you learn animation saving both your Time and Brain. But how it will save your Brain?? The logic is simple: You won’t need to learn drawing skills which require both your patience and hard work. So saving both.
Now before getting into the main content let’s see what actually animation is?
This article was originally published on Penalon.
WHAT IS ANIMATION?
Basically, Animation is a method in which drawn images are presented continuously one after another creating an illusion of a video. It is an art that brings inanimate objects or illustrated/3D generated characters into life.
There are many ways to bring our imagination to life.
- It could be by Drawing.
- It could be by moving character Rigs in 2D/3D Softwares.
- It could be by moving Puppets, Cut-out Characters, or Figures.
This was a short detail about the Animation. You don’t need to go in-depth about this if you don’t want to be an animator. You just need to know about the basic stuff (which you have already read above).
Now which method we will use to create animation without skills?
So, we will be using the method of moving character Rigs in 2D/3D Softwares, especially 2D software.
You must now be thinking about Blender, Maya, Cinema 4D, etc., etc. But don’t worry this is not the stuff we will be digging into as these can be way too hard for the beginners.
Then which software we will use??
The answer is Adobe Character Animator.
INTRODUCTION: ADOBE CHARACTER ANIMATOR
Originally introduced in 2015, Adobe Character Animator is a paid software that combines live motion-capture with a multi-track recording system to control layered 2D puppets. This software lets you animate in real-time. You just need to create a puppet in Photoshop or Illustrator(both are Adobe software) and then animate it just by your facial gestures. Yes, just by facial gestures!!!
You don’t need any drawing pad to create animation. It tracks your face movements and animates your puppet’s face.
You can download Free Trial or Buy the full version of Adobe Character Animator from the Official Site of Adobe. Just click on the below button.
HOW TO ANIMATE IN ADOBE CHARACTER ANIMATOR
Animation in Adobe Character Animator is very easy. You just need to open it and select the sample puppet or character. Then you will land on the main interface of the software where you do all the stuff like recording, rigging, animating, etc.
But to create a fully animated character, you first need to import a drawing from Photoshop or Illustrator with multi-layered creations, or by importing a finished drawing. Your character creation need not have to be realistic, or even to have fully-featured face features. Adobe Character Animator can recognize both facial features in drawings and full-body structures and rig them to be ready for real-time motion capture. This motion capture can be done directly on your PC with a laptop or standalone webcam. Simply point a camera on your face or body, and Adobe Character Animator will be able to detect your most important face/body points, track them, and animate 2D characters in real-time. The entire process is so streamlined, fast, and resource-light that creators Livestream their works through this software. And yes, it has a Livestream option.
Adobe Character Animator’s interface is very easy and does not require any high software knowledge but still, you want to do more stuff with this software then you can watch these tutorials to know more about the software.
Tutorial in the English Language:
Tutorial in the Hindi Language:
Tutorial On Adobe Character Animator by GFXMentor
ALTERNATIVES OF ADOBE CHARACTER ANIMATOR
Most people(mostly students) can not afford to buy Character Animator because it is a bit expensive for them. So then are there alternatives to Adobe Character Animator?
Yes. There are two free Open-source alternatives of Adobe Character Animator which I personally have NOT tested because I have this software😁.
Synfig Studio and Enve are two Open-source 2D animation software that is not the same as Adobe Character Animator as they don’t support live motion capture but they do help you to reduce the amount of work that is needed in most of the animation software.
If you don’t want to pay, then try these two free software once.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Con Of Adobe Character Animator: This software is hard to use if you want to create animations other than live motion capture for the main character like creating an environment with more than one subject or environment having objects only.
But if you have got imagination and a bit of brain, then you can use this software for great purposes, even for objects also.
You can create explanatory videos(my favorite), short 2D movies, stream with your own build characters, etc.
You just should have ideas…
Originally published at https://penalon.blogspot.com on January 8, 2021.