Animated Butterfly in After Effects, Part 2

CATEGORIES: After Effects, Tutorials | J. Schuh | February 26, 2009

In this two-part tutorial, J. Schuh demonstrates how to animate a layered image of a butterfly using After Effects CS4.

Click here to download a Illustrator document of the butterfly used in this tutorial.

Click here to go to the first part of this two-part tutorial.

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Highly similar to the tutorial I did on After Effects 7 for Virtual Training Company a few years back. He forgot to set the butterfly to Auto-Orient on its path, which would force the butterfly to always look forward on its travel path.

Comment by Nathan Dickson | February 27, 2009 @ 8:14 am

First of all, the result looks pretty good. But I’m just wondering why you are keyframing a “random movement”. Wouldn’t it have been much easier to keyframe a straight path (with two or three keyframes), and then just add a wiggle expression on top to get the random movement? Seems like a lot less work, and it would be easier to change as well…

Comment by MGedde | February 28, 2009 @ 6:48 am

[...] Jay Schuch – Animating Butterfly in After Effects [...]

Pingback by Using Guides In InDesign | Contest Time | Layers Magazine | March 3, 2009 @ 9:43 am

that was exilerating im amazed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! elts put another shrimp on the bombayy!!!!!!

Comment by pasquale | March 3, 2009 @ 11:27 am

Great tutorial!!! I used this to create an animation of my own! The link to my animation is: http://www.ratemyanimations.com/animation/animals/5254.html

Comment by peepod | March 6, 2009 @ 10:38 pm

[...] Click here to watch the second part of this tutorial. [...]

Pingback by Free After Effects Tutorial | Animating a Flying Butterfly | Layers Magazine | March 10, 2009 @ 8:48 am

I have cs3 that i want do actualize per cs4 free, i am a student.

Comment by john hoyos | March 29, 2009 @ 4:17 pm

I animated next to an After Effects artist for seven months and was always mystified how he performed his magic. Your one After Effects tutorial in Layers Magazine took the mystery out of it. You are one hell of a teacher.

Comment by Gene Hamm | April 3, 2009 @ 10:56 pm

Keep up the good work on your tutorials. Very nice to have explicit details for us newbies! Thanks a bunch!

Comment by Gregg Payne | June 27, 2009 @ 12:45 pm

Thanks for the tutorial. Amazing what a difference motion blur makes! The comment by adam on part 1 using the loopOut expression works well (though I prefer your angles). I also added wiggle(3,45) to Body’s Y Rotation just to add a little more randomness.

Comment by Hari Karam Singh | August 23, 2009 @ 5:06 pm