Key-frames break up the animation into short intervals, which help us calculate the position and number drawings we’ll need to complete each movement within the animation. Before we can start animating we need to determine where our key-frames will be. The colored arrows are meant to indicate the path your ball will travel along as it bounces.ĥ. Here’s an example screenshot of how your motion path might look. Since the motion path is just for reference, it doesn’t have to look perfect. You can adjust the brush size by using the keys on the Mac keyboard. Draw the motion path using a simple red brush so the line shows up underneath the balls you’re going to draw. You can use a mouse or track pad for all of these tutorials, but if you’re really going for a hand-drawn look then using a tablet and stylus is going to be much easier and give you the most organic results. If you have a Wacom tablet installed, use the stylus and draw a rough motion path for the bouncing ball to travel along. Make sure you have the new layer selected and click the brush tool. Go to Layer – New – Layer or Command Shift N on the Mac.Ĥ. Plus, it has action safe and title safe guidelines, which can be useful for creating titles and credits.ģ. The main reason I use this preset is because it yields a 1920 x 1080 pixel canvas that will match any of the HDTV 1080 composition presets in After Effects. NOTE: The 29.97 refers to a video frame rate, but since we’re going to be using the Export Layers to Files Script in Photoshop, we can bring the layers into After Effects as image sequences and interpret the frame rate there. This will give us a 1920×1080 pixel canvas that will match the HDTV 1080 composition preset we’ll be working with in After Effects.

And, since we’re going to be working in HD, change the preset to Film & Video and set the size to HDTV 1080p/29.97. Change the name to Hand_Drawn_Bouncing_Ball. Open Photoshop and go to – File – New or Command N on the Mac.Ģ.

Here’s a tutorial for doing a hand-drawn looping animation of a bouncing ball in Photoshop and exporting it for use in After Effects.ġ. HOW TO CREATE A HAND-DRAWN ANIMATION IN PHOTOSHOP CS6: Digital hand-drawn bouncing ball loop done in Photoshop and After Effects with a frame randomizing expression on the background loop, courtesy of Dan Ebberts.

Animation photoshop cs6