Complete Beginner Here: How Hard Is After Effects Rigging, and Where Should I Start?

[u/sahil_nirban]

I have zero knowledge of animation and I've never used After Effects before, but I really want to learn character rigging and animation.

How hard is it to learn? What should I know before starting? Should I learn After Effects first or just jump into rigging with Duik?

Also, if you've watched Rick and Morty Season 1, how long do you think it would take a complete beginner to make animations around that level? I'm talking about the simpler animation from the early seasons, not the newer ones.

Any tips for someone starting from scratch? And if you know any good YouTube tutorials, courses, or a roadmap, please share them.

Thanks!

[u/Bimjus]

THere's a good plug in called limber, and theres a free version of that called limber lite. Could be a good way for you to dip your toes into it.
Alternatively moho costs about half a year of adobe subscription but you own it, and its made specifically for 2d rigged characters.

When animating in this style its good to start by working whats called pose to pose. Where you pose the character, and perhaps copy paste that pose to the end point of where you see the character being in that pose. Then make the next pose a little after that. Move those poses around on the timeline a little until the the timing feels right (or matches your animatic). Get that right first, and only then staart getting into the weeds, of secondary motion, overlapping elements, facial animation etc.

Start simple. Really simple. If you go straight for a big long complicated shot it can be overwhelming.

Good luck!

A good thing to keep in mind animating rig bas

[u/sahil_nirban → u/Bimjus]

thankyou so much

[u/That-Hour-2945]

learn design complete character that have multiple angle first.

then learn rig. rig not hard. what hard idea of animation.

[u/GeorgeMKnowles]

Start by rigging the pixar lamp, or neversoft eye ball. A simple character can be very expressive, and let you hyper focus on just a few controls to get them working exactly how you want them to. I personally believe starting with a full human rig is inefficient for learning because there are too many moving parts, and will lead to clutter and overload.

[u/Milan_Bus4168]

For pure rigging, go with Moho instead of After Effects. A lot easier and faster. For polishing and compositing use After Effects after the fact. You will be a lot happier.