How to create a simple animation in illustrator and photoshop - Part 1

This is a small guide on how to make small animations in AI and PS!
It should be said that I am still experimenting and learning. This is just one of the ways it can be done, and probably not the best way either. I hope it is of some use to people out there wanting to try out some simple animations and need a starting point.

Onward to the guide!

Part 1:
Setting up your animation material in illustrator:

In this guide I will show how I did the spinning pencil animation for my portfolio. It's pretty simple and easy to make! An obvious start is making the object you are animating:

Ta-da! My pencil! As you can see it's shapes are merged and expanded compared to the "sketch" version where the shapes are unexpanded. Note: If you're making a more complex shape, it's a pretty good idea to keep one version where you have not expanded your shapes or merged them. Just so if you decide to change something you have a back-up.

My goal is to spin the pencil so I use the rotate tool, hold ALT (WIN) and click on the center of the pencil marked with a blue cross!

This is where you decide:
Do I want a smooth animation or a more choppy one?
Less movement per frame = smoother animation, larger file size.
More movement per frame = choppier animation, smaller file size.

For the pencil, I've decided I wanted a smooth animation, so I choose 10° and check preview to make sure the movement isn't too large.

Phew! 

Click on copy and the first movement is finished. To complete the movement and make the pencil continue around, hold CTRL+D (WIN) and watch it go!

Copy the whole collection of movements into a new file- The reason for this is that I am exporting it to a PSD file. Select all of the movements, go to the layer options and click Release to Layers (Sequence).

Now only one thing left to do: File -> Export -> PSD
Keep it CMYK to allow the option Write Layers.

Additional info:

• If you are making a more complex shape where parts of the shape is grouped but not merged with the other they will get separate layers. This makes animating it a little more work, but not impossible. For this tutorial I will not get into it, but if you have a question please e-mail me or comment!

Ready to animate!
On to part 2!

Need any help?

Comment below!

x AnneM