Complete Animation Workflow from A-Z

[VladThePainter]

I guess, treat me like a complete noobie in my asking of this question, but I have been working with PS and AE for a long time, but took a long break and coming back, I feel I need my training wheels back on. So, I am seeking a hopeful response to restarting my hobby correctly, becuz I feel I am doing everything wrong with so many failures. Its about the best choices. Where to start and where to finish for an example, for a 20 minute animation short.

My characters are made in Photoshop. Where to go from here to put together the animation? I'll most likely use the puppet tool or a bone tool for animations here and there (in AE or...?), but I'll mostly treat this like a motion book. Very simple animation. 

After PS, I bring the scene designs into AE (backgrounds, charcaters, etc) I usually create the various scenes in After Effects, but let's say this is as mentioned, a 20 minute short. Do I create short scenes, then render out, and place then the several created scene videos together and re-render out?  I have just created the scenes, back to back in AE (last scene was only 3 minutes) and tried to render out with much difficulty).  Or should I use Animate CC or Character Animator to create my scenes or...?  I heard Unity is a good bone animation program, but Adobe's Char Anim worked well for me years before. But what is the best way to approach creating setting up, designing - animating scenes -  and scenes that add up to 20 minutes or more?

Finally - the render and export is the real issue to. I MAY have solved the problem with possibly having one of the files not in its proper folder, but what program is best to render out the Full, or Half of the video, or what is the best procedure? Scene by scene, or...?  I did try that ProRes HQ render out of AE but each time it crashed, but since it may have been a folder misplaced issue, I'll try again. But is Premier Pro better, and if so, where am I creating the animations and how to get them into whatever render program?

Well, like I said, I'm treating myself like a noobie and maybe I am. You don't have to answer, but I appreciate it very much if you've read this so  far and laughed at me so far. A full tutorial on YouTube that explains every step is appreciated if one is available that points out each step. Just really want to be sure this time before I start all over again and get this right!!  MANY THANKS for any help!!!

[Mylenium]

The answer to all your questions simply is "Whatever works!". You can ask a hundred people and get a hundred different answer and the truth is that everyone has different workflow preferences and/ or will tackle individual projects based on the requirements and one's own experience. In the end there can never be an exhaustive A to Z tutorial covering all bases. There's just too many ways to do the same thing in AE. Locking yourself into a specific workflow would be just as terrible. What works for one type of project can be a nightmare for others.

Mylenium 

[VladThePainter]

Then if I may ask, as I am most comfortable in my previous animations using AE, would you just do a few 20-30 second scenes, render them out as video, then place those videos back and render out as a full movie (or into Premier) once all the scenes are created - in AE?  Then, what is the output best to choose - as I know you helped and guided me to AEM-ProResHQ - which I believe may be a higher and better quality that the basic render que, which seemed rather soft in appearance.  Thank you --

[Mylenium]

Again, it doesn't really matter. We used to render stuff all the time in the olden days and assembled it in Premiere and Avid, but that was more a matter of restricted resources than actually creatively driven. In my own work I always try to work with "live" projects for as long as it's possible and yes, that can mean stitching together a timeline in a parent comp as well. However, I almost never exceed 10 "shots"/ distinct sequences and try to avoid adding more than those. Things get confusing due to AE's concept of fluid time and different in-points, time-stretching and time-remapping can be a pain to deal and of course there's always performance considerations, especially when heavy effects or expressions are involved. So there's a definitive cut-off point somewhere and perhaps you should follow this concept as well and treat your projects as "scenes" like in classic filmmaking (a sequence of shots that narratively belong together).

Mylenium 

[Rick Gerard]

If Pixar and Disney assign a shot to an animation team, they run what is called pencil tests first to make sure that the action, audio, and framing work, then they finalize the color and details and render that shot to be edited by an editor using an NLE, you should probably do the same thing. 

If you shoot a live-action movie that's 20 minutes long, you shoot a few takes from a few different angles; then you edit the movie in an NLE. The same process applies to animated movies. Animation, live-action films, and even projects as short as TV commercials produced by industry leaders are always polished in an NLE. 

After Effects is not a video editing app, it is an animation, compositing, and motion graphics app designed to create shots. You edit the shots you create in an NLE. If you want a really good finished product, you will probably create more shots and more frames that you use in the final edit. 

My normal animation project involves storyboards, sometimes even edited in Premiere Pro with a scratch track, Which is followed by Pencil Tests 0r basic shots to block out the movement and framing of the shots. The pencil tests are evaluated with scratch audio to ensure the shot works. More complex shots are cut into scenes in Premiere Pro to ensure the scene works. If the shots and scenes work, I will finalize the shots in AE to fill in the backgrounds and polish each shot to the final quality.

All that sounds like more work than just starting with the first shot and then adding the second until you have a finished movie, but it actually takes less time, and you end up with a better product. 

I hope this helps. The pencil test (rough first pass) and then Ink And Paint (final quality image) have been the standard animation workflow since animated movies were invented. 

[VladThePainter]

This is very helpful and how I usually approach it. As a film student and animation student, and working in independent films, I always created storyboards, and for animations, basic motion pencil tests and tested audio with as well. Appreciate that!  I'm just wondering if there is a better workflow other than AE, such as Blender, Unity, Aniamte, CharAnim, where I can create the scenes, then find a place to render it out that is more user friendly and easy go betweens. But as you say and Mil, that its just up to me. But I was hoping for some advice I guess on the other programs and their workflow back into AE or Premiere or...?  True, I guess I just have to figure it out...  THANKS!!

[Rick Gerard]

For simple character animation, look at Adobe Animate. For 3D stuff, Blender is extremely powerful. The right tool depends entirely on the style. I have done a lot in Blender, rendered image sequences, finished the compositing polish in AE or Davinci Resolve, then edited the final movie in an NLE. 

My only hard and fast rule is that AE comps should be as simple as they can be and if you can cut between shots instead of using a fancy transition of some kind, all AE comps should be one shot. 

If the comps are very simple, like in a dynamic text animation or a simple explainer or demo video, I'll nest a few comps in a Master comp, but like Mylenium, 10 shots is about the limit. It's just too easy to load things up and get a render failure and too hard to make changes in an AE timeline that is longer than a few seconds. 

One more rule I follow. If the shot takes longer than a second per frame to render, I almost always render image sequences. I often create visual effects composites that take a couple of minutes a frame to render. If something breaks at frame 50 or the client wants to change frames 24 through 40, and you are rendering image sequences, you only have to re-render the missing or changed frames. That saves a lot of production time.