Synthetic Stop-Motion in After Effects

Quick and Easy Techniques for Hand-made Animations

I love stop-motion animation, or perhaps you call it stop-frame animation. I love it because it’s rich in character; because it looks hand-made; and because it drips with human-ness. Most of the time we aim for perfect designs and animations, but this course is about reversing that idea to deliberately create a hand-made and imperfect look.

The course covers creating a stop-motion look inside of After Effects – that means no cameras and no endless moving of elements frame by frame. Normal stop-motion takes a long time time, but inside After Effects it’s quick and easy if you know how.

By the end of this course you’ll be able to create your own synthetic stop-motion films quickly and easily, with a range of different techniques ranging from dead-simple to highly detailed.

We cover tools and effects you may never have heard of, expressions (pieces of JavaScript code in After Effects), time remapping, work flow, frame rate theory, and more. You’ll learn a lot about After Effects in the process and you’re bound to have heaps of fun. You’ll also be able to apply the principles and techniques you learn in whatever animation app you like.