Animation
Online Animation courses from independent instructors.
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Animation courses teach you to bring drawings, shapes and models to life through movement. They cover traditional and digital 2D animation, 3D animation, and motion graphics for video, apps and marketing, for hobbyists, aspiring animators and designers adding motion skills.
Nearly every course starts with the principles of animation: squash and stretch, anticipation, staging, straight-ahead and pose-to-pose, follow-through and overlapping action, slow in and slow out, arcs, secondary action, timing, exaggeration, solid drawing and appeal. Classic exercises include the bouncing ball, pendulum, walk cycle and run cycle.
2D courses cover keyframes and in-betweens, onion skinning, frame rates, cut-out and rigged character animation, and lip sync. 3D courses cover the graph editor, rigs and controls, blocking and polishing, body mechanics and acting, plus modeling, texturing, lighting and rendering basics. Motion graphics courses teach kinetic typography, shape animation, easing curves, transitions and compositing. Pre-production lessons cover storyboarding and animatics.
Choose a course built on software you can access, and make sure your computer can handle it, especially for 3D. Courses with downloadable rigs and project files let you practice exactly what's shown.
Choosing an animation course
- Decide between 2D, 3D and motion graphics based on the work you want to make.
- Make sure the principles of animation are taught with practical exercises.
- Check software requirements and whether your computer meets them.
- Look for downloadable rigs and project files.
- Courses that end with a short animated piece give you something to show.
Questions about animation
Do I need to draw well to learn animation?
For hand-drawn 2D animation, drawing helps a lot. 3D animation and motion graphics rely less on drawing and more on timing, posing and design.
What's the difference between animation and motion graphics?
Character animation focuses on performance and storytelling. Motion graphics animate text, shapes and graphic elements, often for explainer videos, ads and interfaces.
Is there free software for learning animation?
Yes, free and open-source tools exist for 2D and 3D animation, and many courses use them. Check the course requirements.