Without a shadow of a doubt, animatics are of utmost importance for motion design projects. Without animatics, you are likely to run into a lot of poor com positions, timing issues, and dead ends. Hence, make the 2D animation process smooth by implementing animatics.

In short, the blueprint for your animation project is called animatics. They are a rough visual preview of the final product, timed to the voice-over or music, and the first step towards completing a successful project. You may think of it as a roadmap to your project that allows you to plan out the structure and go through the details, eventually saving you time

Now you may think that it’s the same as a storyboard. You are partially right as both present the timing, pacing, and frame compositions. However, a storyboard features a basic static idea, whereas an animatic is an animated sequence of sketches.

The Anatomy of Animatic

As already noted, an animatic contains a sequence of sketches timed to voice over and/ormusic. Further more, some animatics may use scratch VO and watermarked music, where as others may use final VO and licensed music.

Plus, some may even incorporate more colpex movements such as character animatons, which is ideal and typically done by professional motion studios, like MotionAlly. Using ananimatic allows the designer to test timings and check whether the intended message is conveyed and whether it visually flows.

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How Animatic Can Save Your Time?

It is true that you have to put some effort and time into creating an animatic as it is an added step to the process. But, contrary to popular belief, it actually saves you time. How? Since animatics give you an idea of what the final animation will look like, you can easily identify any issues before the time-consuming animation process takes place.

For example, if a sequence of shots doesn’t work, you can create some new storyboards and modify them quite fast. Similarly, you can see that an entire sequence isn’t unnecessary so you can seamlessly eliminate it. Or, you can decide that a simple frame change can increase the emotional effect of a scene.

Briefly put, an animatic allows you to quickly and effectively improve both the structure and the content before even beginning the animation process when it would be much more difficult and time-intensive to make alterations.

How to Make an Animatic?

In general, building an animatic isn’t a complicated process. Indeed, there are only two main stages to complete which you can repeat as many times as needed to refine and reiterate.

Stage 1 – Create a Storyboard

First things first, to start the animatic creation process you need to create a storyboard. Hence, get some paper and a pencil and start drawing. This step is crucial as it is the visual guide throughout the rest of the animation pipeline. What’s more, a storyboard is the first thing your clients see. And, after they get the general idea they should approve for the completion of the animated video.

During this stage, it’s important that you thoroughly think about the basic compositions of each frame. That said, you should determine which elements are visible, how they enter the frame, how they leave the frame, transitions, edits, text, etc. Also, make notes below each frame about any sound effects, VO, or key motion needed.

However, don’t go into specific details as the animatic should only provide you with the general idea of the final product. If you put a lot of detail into your sketches, it basically means that you’ve spent more time needlessly.

Stage 2 – Set the Timing

Once you’ve created a storyboard and both you and your client are satisfied with the result it’s time to do some work on the computer. Basically, what you have to do here is use After Effects or Adobe Animate and set the timing based on the voice-over. If there’s no overlapping, and everything fits together perfectly, your animatic is complete!

Animatic is Just the Starting Point

Finally, we must be aware of and acknowledge the fact that the production process is a lot more than creating a rough animatic. This especially applies to clients who haven’t seen an animatic before and aren’t sure what to expect.

Animatic creators must emphasize that animatics are only one part of the puzzle and that they help you get the basic idea of the final animation, easing the process of modification and alteration, as well as saving you some valuable time.

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Final Thoughts

An animatic provides you and your client with a basic look at the visuals. Without an animatic, you are very likely to end up making time-consuming and complex changes in the animation process itself. Hence, ensure you include this step in your animation creation, just like professional motion studios do – just like MotionAlly.

So, in need of a top-notch animation video, don’t hesitate and contact us!

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