2024-In-Review, Part 04: Tools, Techniques, and Training

As we get close to wrapping up the year in review, this is how we got BETTER last year.

Keys & Curves is here to unlock inspiration for all things animation, straight to your inbox, every Monday.

👋🏻 HOLD ON TO YOUR… LINKS! We’re dropping everything we watched, bought, used and learned from this year – or at least as much as we could until Substack said enough. Buckle up, there’s something for everyone here.

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Drawing and Storyboarding

• SPA Studios’ Borja Montoro takes you on a Character Design journey

• Modern Day James Figure Drawing For Animation and Cinematic Drawing For Animation were multiple must watches for me last year.

• Batman: Year One storytelling masterclass

• Andy Cung’s Storyboarding Fundamentals Workshop Bundle is a STEAL!

• There’s so much training out there on how to build environments in every app under the sun, but Framed Environmental Design is the best book to help you figure out what and why to build (and how to draw it too!)

  

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Animating

• Animating a Run Cycle in 90 Minutes with Lucas Ridley

• And Lucas Ridley’s TWO HOUR Appealing Animation For Beginners

• Animating in Layers is a lost art for many new animators (no, I don’t mean Shape Layers 🤣)

• Hands On Animation For Beginners is a great anime-centered beginner’s guide to hand-drawn animation (and it’s $10!)

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After Effects

• You know the look, now see how it’s made: Ravie Glowy Goodness

• Good Boy Ninja’s SKEW PRO gives you a turbocharged timeline in AE

• Callum Cannarella’s Flexin’ Those Keyframes AE Projects (big fan of number 09 and 10!)

• Cel-animated smoke puffs with native Ae effects? 👀

• Emanuele Colombo breaks down some bouncy beauties in After Effects

• Should I be using NEWTON?

• Use masks like C4D-style Fields in After Effects

• Building modular animations in After Effects isn’t just about MOGRT’s and Essential Properties, it’s being smart with WHERE you set your spacing/easing!

• How far have you pushed Fractal Noise in AE?

• Anime Post-Production in After Effects

• Studio Ghibli-style water in After Effects

• An explorer window made just for After Effects?

• Mind-blowing 2.5D Toucan Rig from Matt Jedrzejewski (get the rigg for free!)

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Blender and Cinema 4D

• While I’m waiting for the School of Motion Blender course, I’m watching this

• The handiest C4D quick tip ever when it comes to exporting cameras

• Use Absolute Shape Keys in Blender for Character Animation WITHOUT Rigs

• Andreas Gaschka wrote some helper tools to let you migrate over your C4D layouts, preferences, and plugins.

• Photoshop-style Layer Painting in Blender

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Assorted Other Tools

• Have you ever wanted to make a 2D game in Unreal?

• Have you played with Effect Texture Maker yet? (via Ciro Cardoso)

• Paint your normal maps?!?

• Smooth chocolate pour with LiquiGen

• Have you tried out animating with Signed Distance Fields yet?

• EXR compression tip

• Houdini Anime Run FX and Houdini Hero Powerup (on sale right now!)

• If you want to know why you should learn MOHO, this is the video to watch!

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Techniques | Behind the Scenes

• Anime-inspired motion design compositing process from Yat Fung Leung (project here)

• ILLO Studio shared their character illustration system for the YMCA

• Chad Ashley built out a Redshift Render Assistant!

• Rocking Rive characters with Emanuele Colombo

• Cub Studio animating a 3D Macho Man in AE with Joysticks N Sliders

• Ravie’s back on the loops with “Resolve”

• Tendril techniques for Oppo Reno 6

• James Isaaks and his Olympic-sized toolkits

• Steelworks Soda Can run through

• Adam Maurer makes it look easy

• Hyperspeed Blurry Sphere BTS

• Olov Burman continues to amaze with this breakdown on their bonkers character rigging approach

• Little After Effects Preview trick from me

• You use Super Zoom Mode™ in the After Effects Curve Editor, right?

• The power of fractals

• If there was one person that consistently blew my mind last year, it had to be François Lefebvre’s magical path modifier manipulations in AE 🤯

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That’s a wrap for today – next week will be the year end wrap-up: our 2024 Fun Faves. Until then, keep on slinging those keys and riding the curves! 🤩