This is why you're not getting better at Motion Design.

you've been practicing motion design wrong and it's preventing you from getting better so let's talk about some of the problems with the way most people practice let's talk about the solutions and then some actions you can take right now I've been thinking about what it means to practice motion design for a long time now I even made a program dedicated to the subject to help deal with the problems but what are the problems well I'm glad you asked let's start with problem number one watching tutorials is not practicing and they won't make you better at motion design let's let that sink in for a little bit let me ask you this how many times have you watched a tutorial without following along in After Effects and then felt like you learned something no you didn't learn anything because guaranteed when the opportunity to use that technique came up you had to rewatch the tutorial and then maybe you learn something and that's because theory is a waste of time without practical application one could even make the argument that in the case of tutorials even if we followed along we wouldn't get much better because all we've learned is how to make exactly what was instructed we just followed the steps one by one like a Mindless robot no wonder people are worried about AI taking our jobs and this is unhelpful because motion design in After Effects is about problem solving and I've said this before but I want you to think about what that means in After Effects if we want to create an animation there are many techniques and effects we can test out to get the result we're after that's why I talk about techniques as Tools in our motion tool it because you need to figure out the right tools for the job by problem solving let's look at an example to illustrate my point so let's say we wanted to create a wavy line well we can do that by starting with a stroke and then adding a wave warp and adjusting some settings and we get a wavy line but perhaps we don't like how the stroke gets distorted with this method well here is another method and it's something I learned from Marcus magneson let's make our path longer on both sides let's add a zigzag make it smooth and change the size size and ridges per segment now let's add in rulers by hitting crlr and then dragging rulers to either side of the stroke making sure we place them on the crest or truff of the wave on each side now let's drop in position key frames about 12 frames apart then let's move the layer for the second key frame so that it covers a full wavelength the shape should look the same at the start and end key frame now add a trim paths and add key frames for the start and end on both sides of the position animation now we just need to trim the start and end percentages so that the stroke fits within the rulers on each side this should be precise so even go into decimals if you need to now let's trim the preview area with n on the keyboard and then play the animation we've created something very similar to our previous animation but of course it is less distorted the point being that we have a similar outcome but we got there in completely different ways and we could use either technique depending on what we are trying to create and in a real world situation we would have done something similar where we problem solved using the techniques in our toolkit to get the result we're after and in the case of tutorials the person who created the tutorial has already done all of the problem solving for you which in my opinion is not ideal so am I telling you to stop watching tutorials no of course not in fact I'm telling you to watch every single one of my tutorials but it's what you do with the tutorial that's important so the solution to this problem is that when you watch a tutorial and learn a cool technique you should make an animation using that technique that is different from the tutorial let the possibilities of the technique Inspire your own animation this will not only allow you to problem solve using this new tool you've discovered but it'll also improve your creative skill set through ideation as you'll be forced to come up with your own idea for an animation now for the second problem motion design is multifaceted meaning that it is the combination of many different skills ideation or conceptualization sketching storyboarding illustration ation color style Etc all come before you've even stepped into after effects to start animating and these are all separate skills that need to be practiced your animation could be super smooth and exceptionally well executed but if the idea sucks or the style of color is bad it's not going to land with your viewer now these aspects of motion design are too broad to cover in detail in one video but as I go forward with this channel I'm going to cover all of these topics so subscribe now so you don't miss out on those videos for now the solution to this problem is to spend adequate time on each one of these steps every time you create an animation if you're a beginner you might have to spend more time than might be appropriate initially with each step but with every new animation you'll get faster and more skilled alternatively you can decide to focus on one at a time which brings us to story time when I was employed as a full-time motion designer one of the companies I worked for had their own graphic design team so while I was present for the the conceptualization for the most part I simply needed to animate already designed and storyboarded visuals there were also very short turn around times so what happened is that I turned out animation after animation and I was dealing with new animation specific problems almost every day and because of these circumstances I improved at a remarkable rate and a big reason for that was because I was focused on one aspect of the motion design process and I was able to get in hours and hours of practice in that one area there's also something to be said for my motivation to get better I saw employees who didn't get significantly better after years under the same circumstances and that's because a big part of improving is also challenging yourself which brings us to the third and last problem your ideas are limited by your skill set so what I saw in the company is that animators would stagnate they wouldn't get any better because when they received their storyboards they animated them using their current skill set they made no attempt to do something they didn't didn't already know how to do and because of that the problem solving required was very little and there was no need to discover new Solutions but imagine if you did the opposite of this where you tried things you didn't know how to do you would have to problem solve and in a lot of cases go out looking for tutorials that might help you have to think to yourself what would be the most awesome way to animate this so for example let's say we had to animate this Cube from here to here we already know how to do position animation so we could just drop in two position key frames move the cube over and add some easy ease and done or we could ask ourselves what is the most awesome way we could animate this so what if the cube jumped to its second position and perhaps we'd recently seen a tutorial on anticipation or squash and stretch that we obviously didn't apply and this might be the perfect time to put it into practice so now we can add more character by creating an anticipation and settle using some squash and stretch finish it off with some rotation and we've now made something much more interesting that also allowed us to practice something we hadn't tried before of course this assumes that this kind of Animation is appropriate for the product or context but I think you get my point let's bring this back to practicing animation and how your skill set limits your ideas imagine you're trying to come up with an idea for an animation you might come up with something really awesome like a character whose body turns into a ghost or Spectre and then passes through a wall or whatever something awesome but then the DTs come in you start thinking how would I do that can I even do that it sounds really difficult blah blah blah and you filter your ideas for something that is within your skill set and you stay within your comfort zone where self-improvement goes to die and we all do this I've done this you've done this it's hard to escape it but when we make the decision to be bold and attempt ideas we don't know how to do we set the stage for massive improvements in our motion design skills so every time I received a storyboard at the company I was working for I would think what is the most awesome way I could animate this and then I would find any tutorial I needed to execute it instead of defaulting to what was within my current skill set and so the solution to this problem is to attempt ideas and animations you don't know how to do so get outside of your comfort zone but before we get stuck in the theory of it I don't want this to be another video you watch and feel like you learned something but actually you really didn't so let's talk about some actionable steps because as we know theory is useless without practical application and theoretically you should click that like button so let's start with some practical application right now and send this to your motion design friends so you can all benefit now for some action firstly and we covered this earlier the next time you watch a tutorial and learn a new technique create your own animation that applies the technique this is good because you get in some practice but also this could be work that goes into your portfolio to attract more clients and of course more money and that's what it's all about that green that cheddar this guy knows what I'm talking about secondly and I think this is a really interesting idea for practicing which I've messed around with before in this video look at the ways that frame by frame animators practice and try them out in After Effects this video is a good reference you can also take a look at this list of 51 animation exercises and look at some of the examples that are appropriate and there are many more you can go out and find thirdly design your own creative briefs the goal with this is to guide your practice in a productive Direction and to create an animation you're interested in so you could imagine a client has just come to you with your dream brief and write that brief it could be an explainer video about how sexual innuendos make tutorials more fun or a social media post for a company that just launched a new banana flavored donut whatever it is that appeals to you and provides a starting point to guide your practice and lastly another step you can take is to sign up for the motion practice quest which I designed to solve all of the problems we've just talked about to make practicing motion design easier and more effective you can practice any individual steps in the motion design process or all of them at once provides you with pre-made creative briefs to guide your practice and get you outside of your comfort zone most importantly provides the Stepping Stones to massive Improvement and becoming a more confident and creative motion designer click the link on screen now to sign up for the motion practice [Music] Quest

Channel: MotionXP

Views: 101,473

Keywords: motion design practice, Learn motion design, motion design for beginners, learn motion graphics, after effects, MotionXP, animation course, motion design, motion design tutorial, how to after effects, after effects beginner, after effects tutorial, after effects tips, motion design tips, animation tips, animation tips for beginners, animation tips and tricks, Mograph

Id: RXPutNIl6bM

Length: 10min 43sec (643 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 07 2024