Help with understanding objects to rotate and turn in one motion

[pauldermen]

I am new to Animation and I am seeking advice on what adobe tools to use. I would like an object to animate in turns and rotations. For example a plane flying around a building where you will see the planes nose to back of the wing and back to the nose. The animation will show all sides of the plane in one clip. My initial thought is doesn't the object need to be drawn or created in a 3D model so that you can have it twist and turn in Animate CC? I understand what tweening is but that is more for flat objects that are not rotating.

[kglad]

you  can rotate 2d objects in 3d space easily with animate.  it's not clear that's what you want, but if it is, it's easy to do.

using true 3d requires a frame-by-frame 3d animation usually imported from some other program or drawn.

[pauldermen]

Yes, basically I want it to rotate on all axis, z x y. Like when a plane is flying I want it to go around and flip all in one scene.

Is this basically how it is done? The making of... head rotation. in Adobe Animate - YouTube

Looks like it is a drawing, adjust, another drawing, adjust, and tween it all together?

Is there a feature in Animate I should be using in addition?

[kglad]

that's not a 2d object (the man).  it's different 2d objects (fronts, sides and backs).

[pauldermen]

So is that the way to do it? have different 2d objects drawn?

[kglad]

if you want to achieve the same effect (ie, you have one or more front, side and back views of an object), you'll probably want frame-by-frame animation.

[pauldermen]

ok so basically each rotation needs to be drawn and use the 3D Rotation tool, tween, and seems like Affect Effects is another tool that I can use. Is this the right direction for me to learn?

[kglad]

you should experiment with the 3d rotation tool because if it’s good enough, you can save a lot of work and time.

[Myra Ferguson]

If you want to do 3D and use After Effects, check out Cinema 4D Lite that downloads with After Effects. Create Cinema 4D and Cineware files in After Effects

[pauldermen]

Thank you Myra. After Effects and Cinema 4D looks like that right way to go. But one question I have is in all the tutorials they are only showing an object moving on two axis. Id like the object to actually rotate on all three, for example a airplane. All faces of a airplane are completely different when turning around or twisting in the air.

So my question is do I draw all the different faces for the object in Illustrator and then use After effects to tie it all together?

I like what Adobe CC has to offer and just want to stay within Adobe CC. I was thinking there would have been a 3D model app so that the objects and be turned around and rotated to show all the different faces of an object in Animate. I don't want to get involved with a 3rd party app or anything. So just trying to make sure I start in the right app when creating my objects.

[Myra Ferguson · Accepted solution]

What you choose depends on how you want to approach the animation and how you want the final result to look. If you want the look to be more cartoony and you want to draw the representations of the various perspectives, then you want 2D. If you want it to be more of an accurate/realistic representation of a plane, then you want 3D. That's a huge generalization. In other words, it is possible to do very technical drawings in 2D or use effects to make a 3D rendering look cartoonish.

More specifically for which apps to use--

If you want to draw in 2 dimensions to simulate 3D, you can use Animate to do the drawings and the animation, which would be the recommended workflow for 2D. You can also use Illustrator to do some of the drawings and bring those into Animate, but you'll need lots of frames. So an image in Illustrator would be more like a starting point that you could modify in Animate (see character sheet link below). If you made all of your frames in Illustrator and put them all into After Effects, it would be tedious and not recommended, but you could do it.

Here are some examples of simulating 3D in Animate with the camera Camera in Animate or using tweens to simulate a 3D head turn 2.5D Head Turn - YouTube . However what you're describing sounds like more of a frame-by-frame animation where you'd need to draw the various perspectives of the plane. It would sort of be like this character sheet of this girl Young girl character set for animation - Buy this stock vector and explore similar vectors at Adobe ... The software doesn't make her rotate. You draw the different perspectives of the plane and tell Animate which one to show.

If you want to model a 3D object to capture the various faces of the object, then you should use a 3D app. I mentioned Cinema 4D Lite because it comes with After Effects. So if you're a Creative Cloud all apps subscriber, then you have access to that app. It is a lite version of the Maxon app Cinema 4D, but it would give you an idea of whether or not you want to work in 3D. The workflow for 3D would be making your object (plane), animating the object, and rendering it. That render becomes a 2D representation of the 3D space.

Here's an example of a Cinema 4D Lite/After Effects 3D CUBE ANIMATION MADE OF | After Effects + CINEMA 4D - YouTube

Hope that helps

[pauldermen]

Yes! Thank you so much, this is exactly what I been looking for.