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Participating Frequently
Mar 28, 2025 5:12 PM UTC
Question

How to Make WeatherSTAR XL 1998-2006 Icons (UPDATED)

I honestly but here's a tutorial of how to make WeatherSTAR XL from January 1998 to December 2006 icons on The Weather Channel. You can make a weather icon (sun, clouds, rain, snow, etc.) but you can animate in After Effects and use the shapes to make weather icons. but I draw icons on Illustrator. But how can we do this?

14 replies

Participating Frequently
Mar 30, 2025 7:38 PM UTC

How to find HEX colors?

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Anubhav M
Community Manager
Community Manager
Apr 2, 2025 9:39 PM UTC

Hello @tristan_7446,

Please try the suggestions in this video tutorial on using HEX colors in Illustrator (https://adobe.ly/4cmG18G) and let us know if it helps.

Anubhav

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Participating Frequently
Mar 29, 2025 9:08 PM UTC

Can I have a colors please?

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Monika Gause
Community Expert
Community Expert
Mar 29, 2025 10:53 PM UTC

Just pick the colors from the templates you are posting.

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Participating Frequently
Mar 30, 2025 12:09 AM UTC

What is the color of the sunny icon?

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Participating Frequently
Mar 29, 2025 11:32 AM UTC

 

I need to use the Sunny icon please

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Monika Gause
Community Expert
Community Expert
Mar 29, 2025 4:24 PM UTC

A circle with a radial gradient, surrounded by some triangles with linear gradients. And then some outer glow perhaps.

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Conrad_C
Community Expert
Community Expert
Mar 29, 2025 4:19 AM UTC

If you want them to be resolution-independent (no jaggies at any size, rotation, or other transformation) then you should draw them in Illustrator. If you want them to look painterly as in the Cloudy.png example you attached, use advanced Illustrator shading techniques like the gradient meshes suggested by Monika Gause. After you import them into After Effects, if you want to make sure they are always full resolution regardless of how you transform them when animating, be sure to enable Continuous Rasterization for those Illustrator layers.

 

You can also draw them in Photoshop, as layers. But you may want to draw them at 2x or 3x of the typical pixel height and width you would show them on screen, to allow some extra resolution to help avoid visible pixelation during transformations.

 

I would prefer the Illustrator way, to keep them vector. It will give you a lot more flexibility in After Effects.

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Participating Frequently
Mar 28, 2025 7:41 PM UTC
Cloudy.png
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Monika Gause
Community Expert
Community Expert
Mar 28, 2025 11:14 PM UTC

Would be best to use Photoshop for that kind of images.

 

If you insist in creating them vector based, you will have to use gradient meshes.

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Monika Gause
Community Expert
Community Expert
Mar 28, 2025 6:11 PM UTC

Probably you can post some sample images? 

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Participant
Oct 2, 2026 12:20 PM UTC
Clear
Snow

it’s easy to make the icons in 1998-2006 style

 

GIMP is kinda easier to make 1998-2006 style icons

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Participant
Oct 2, 2026 12:21 PM UTC

Note the icon examples above reply and below my text

Sleet


 

Strong Thunderstorms

 

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