Production

7) Key Animation

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A key animation may also be called “keyframing”. This refers to a character or object’s simplest position before its set in motion – also known as its key form. Every other transformation, action, or expression will then be coming from this key form.

Basically, this step involves making the skeleton of your animation or a rough sketch of your character’s actions. The step may also be considered a ‘rough animation’.

Thanks to its rough nature, this step saves you time and effort by creating the motions and expressions of your character and giving you the ability to easily apply any changes without worrying over little details.

Here, you can also add the rough dialogue, if there’s any, to serve as the basis for your character’s facial expressions and movements.

This step may take a little back and forth before reaching the final poses and movements as you’ll have to ensure both your team and your client are satisfied with what’s been done.

 

8) Animation Background Layout

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You will also have to sketch the layout of your animated scenes’ backgrounds, especially because they’re often affected by your animated character’s movements.

If you’re making the backgrounds of your animated video, you must have a high level of technical animation skills and possess a keen eye for detail.

Certain objects and movements may also change the composition of your background as a particular scene or event unfolds, so you must have a strong understanding of shape, form, texture, and color, and how all these elements come together in a scene.

You may also hire a background designer with prior experience to help animate your background. With that, you or your background designer must also add color to your animation backgrounds.

While your backgrounds are dependent on the art style you aim to achieve, one thing you can try when coloring your animated videos in a matte painting style.

Using Adobe Photoshop, matte painting adds a more realistic layer to the backgrounds of your animated videos. This step combines both the elements of art and live-action to create such an effect.

9.) Animation Lighting

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Good scenes are also dependent on good lighting, especially with certain kinds of animation styles like 2D, 3D, stop motion, and claymation.

This means more than simply adding shadows to your subjects or illuminating the entire scene; lighting offers stylistic freedom and the ability for you to explore with your animated scenes or videos.

This is a practical and realistic step in the production pipeline because the right lighting in every scene will effectively convey its mood, adding power and impact in character dialogues and movements.

Additionally, lighting improves the cinematography in an animated video and helps you highlight significant objects or events.

As written by the creative software and production industry website, Foundry, “Lighting in animation has become an art form in itself, not bound by physics or reality in the same way traditional filmmaking is”.

10) Animation Sound Design and Dialogue Recording

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Next up in the animation production pipeline is to add the audio of your animated video. This step consists of the musical score, the sound effects, and the voiceover narrations.

If you’ve recorded a draft voiceover narration earlier, now is the time for you to finalize the narration. You may hire a voiceover artist for this step or do it yourself, as long as the voice fits the video’s tone and clearly conveys the message of your client’s brief.

Regarding music, finding the right music for your animated videos can be tricky. To help you effectively choose the best music and sound effects, here are a few tips.

One, check the client brief or coordinate with your client on the music they want. Two, define the role of your music in the animated video. For example, if you’re creating explainer videos, your music should not distract the audience. It must be subtle and simply meant to clear any dead air.

Three, go back to your budget. Select the music that would stay within your budget or opt for royalty-free music. This will help by automatically crossing out those audio files that are too expensive for licensing.

Four, consider the genre that would best suit your animated video. Five, go back to your script or storyboard and try to imagine what kind of music would suit its scenes. You can also go through a music library and test some samples as you read your script.

Remember, the right music complements the mood of your scenes and the message of your animated video. It must enhance the experience of viewing the animated video and elicit a physical and/or emotional reaction in its intended audience. That way, you can satisfy your client’s intent for the animated video.

11) Animation Color Correction and Color Grading

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Like adding music, color correction and color grading create and/or maintain the overall atmosphere of your animated video to ensure it captures the objectives and the message of your client brief.

This step in the animation production pipeline adds to making a visually coherent story while improving the entire mood of your animated video. It involves manipulating the sharpness of colors, contrast, blackness depth, white balance, and the color overlays in the animated video’s every scene.

Color correction smoothes out the colors in every shot, allowing the audience to become more immersed and focused on the story while preventing any distracting and jarring aspects.

Meanwhile, color grading is more often used aesthetically. For instance, you may want a particular scene to be more emotional, so you apply dark blue hues.