Simple vector icons animation

[Vijay5E9D]

Hi Guys,

I am trying to animate some simple icons in After Effects. I have created them in Illustrator and have them in layers. I am trying to achieve something like this:

https://youtu.be/6Az_xkULRXs 

I will be very thankful if someone can point me towards some tutorials / youtube videos or even a sample AE file.

Thanks,

Vijay.

[Mylenium]

This is not a specific tutorial thing, this is simply about keyframing properties and understanding basic animation principles like anticipation, delay, overshoot, exaggeration and so on. Of course you can find tutorials on this or even proper courses on commercial education sites like Gnomon School, but this isn't something that can be squeezed into a step-by-step tutorial as you may have hoped. You really have to learn the tools and techniques. I'm sure if you search YouTube for keywords liek "bouncy logo animation" something will turn up.

Mylenium

[Rick Gerard · Accepted solution]

You have a couple of options. Both require a little homework. You should also own,  study, and implement the "The Illusion of Life" principles perfected, used, and taught by Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas. Everyone animating anything should have that book and read it.

There are basically 3 ways to implement those principles of animation. The first just requires you to set some keyframes and then adjust the easing, timing, and placement of those keyframes in the timeline. The graph editor will help a lot if you take the time to learn how to use it. Editing the Speed graph is most useful for animating the Position, Scale, and Rotation. The value graph is really only useful for animation rotation. If you need skew or distortion there are other effects you can add to the layer. The keyframe/graph editor approach works just fine, requires the most time and the most practice to get right. Here is a tutorial I created that shows how to control timing with the speed graph and position with the pen tool.

Another option is to learn expressions and create a bunch of animation presets that will automate this process for you once you develop the skills to write the expressions. If you include expressions then keyframing becomes a lot easier.

The third option and the one that I use the most often is to buy a 3rd party tool that simplifies the process. My preferred tool is Squash and Stretch Pro from AE Scripts.com, created by my friend Mathias Möhl. Mathias is so generous that he even offers a free version that will do a lot of what I see in the video you posted.

Follow @mamoworld

It is always a good idea to learn how to do things by hand so you fully understand the principles, but any good carpenter knows that buying a good power saw will help finish the job in less time. 

Just one more thing:  The "Drag & Drop here..." area is buggy and should not be used to share images. Please use the toolbar or just drag your images to the reply field.

[Vijay5E9D]

Thanks a lot Rick and Mylenium, will try to get hold of the book. Special thanks to Rick for taking all the time to explain in detail. 

Regards,

Vijay.