How to animate fire - After Effects Tutorial

You can get the project files here. 👉 / fire-animation-52871673
In this after effects tutorial, we'll teach you how to animate fire purely in after effects. And we'll make the fire animation that looks like it was done frame by frame or hand-drawn minus the actual frame by frame process.
========== After Effects Course =============
48 lessons (total of 28 hours) 👉 101.gg/marvinte
========== Skillshare classes that we teach =============
Animating Liquid Trails in Adobe Animate 👉 skl.sh/2SwTKVY
Frame by frame for beginners 👉 skl.sh/2yW6BDo
Animate a walk cycle 👉 skl.sh/344LXl4
Drawing the head from any angle 👉 skl.sh/3cJdoFs

[@df1938]

Brilliant tutorial. I really appreciate how you include your thought process as you go through things.

[@plainlysimple]

Glad it was helpful! 😊 We see lots of tutorials explaining the how already that we thought adding our thought process would add to the overall learning of the people who would watch this. Glad to know it was effective 😊

[@alextusiachna3476]

was looking for an easy way to simulate hand-drawn animation in a similar style. the tips you gave in this vid helped me a lot! thank you for sharing :)

[@plainlysimple]

Great! Glad this helped! Do you have an IG? Tag us we’d love to see what you came up with 😊

[@johncorbitt4112]

Excellent!

[@hylkjebekkema467]

You're a great teacher! Thank you for this tutorial :)

[@plainlysimple]

Thanks!! And you're welcome 😊

[@stanislavkan9495]

Man this is awesome! Waiting for the next tutorials.

[@plainlysimple]

Thanks! More to come! 😁

[@AmeenDoesStuff]

such an informative video, your process guiding in understanding why fire looks the way it does makes this tutorial so incredible!

[@plainlysimple]

Hi! Glad to know you liked this tutorial! 😊

[@jacissapitaart4704]

That's a VERY SMART way of using wave warp!! Thanks for the tutorial! :D

[@plainlysimple]

You're welcome! 😊 Glad you like it!

[@mrjuicejar_yvk]

This is one of my favourite 2D flame effects in after effects, thankyou

[@plainlysimple]

Thanks for the kind words! Glad you liked it. :)

[@megascopsasio2015]

This was very helpful and clear to follow! Thank you!

[@plainlysimple]

You're welcome!

[@neelpatil1492]

thanks! not just the tutorial but the perspective is gonna help a lot!!

[@plainlysimple]

Glad it helped! Keep at it! Take care! 👋

[@psychod74]

best tuto about fire aep i have seen ! thanks you

[@plainlysimple]

Thanks! Glad you liked it 😊

[@Itsjustra]

So cool! I animate in after effects all the time and never think to use my knowledge of frame by frame animation to improve my animations!

[@plainlysimple]

Thanks! Yes this is what we advocate, that you can use knowledge from other fields interchangeably. What we learn in 3d can by applied in 2d, frame by frame in AE and vice versa. 😊

[@styxely]

this is amazing. much appreciated!

[@plainlysimple]

Thanks! And much appreciated for watching the video. Take care 👋

[@user-ru1gw4ts9m]

The greatest tutorial i have ever seen

[@plainlysimple]

Thanks! 😄

[@laurabarda6121]

Fantastic tutorial!

[@plainlysimple]

Glad you liked it! 😊

[@blackmirror9573]

Great job..Thank you for this type of video

[@plainlysimple]

Thanks and you're welcome :)

[@imzaahid]

Best video ever on fire animation. You are a genius. Thanks.

[@plainlysimple]

Wow, thanks! Glad you liked it! 👍

[@miyukiwhite]

Thank you for this amazing tutorials! I made cool fire!

[@plainlysimple]

You're so welcome! Once you're done let us have a look :D

[@emirdarman7560]

Very impressive! Thanks!

[@plainlysimple]

Thanks! 😊

[@TheSivapandian]

great explained thanks

[@plainlysimple]

You're welcome! 😊

[@annaxferrer]

Niiice. I really appreciate the discussion from the frame by frame perspective. Animating the wave is still challenging for me, I'm not sure how to make it loop without glitches. Now I know...just use Ae hahaha jk! This was awesome! 🔥

[@plainlysimple]

Thanks, Anna! Glad you liked it! For a more dynamic animation of fire, frame by frame is still the best way. This could be the second 😄

[@JasmeetKaur-wm8ji]

That's an ossum tutorial 💯💯💯👍

[@plainlysimple]

Glad you liked it 🙌

[@yana_porsina]

Thanks! It looks simple than frame by frame animation. I will try it 😁

[@plainlysimple]

Yes it's really simple. If you finished it let us know or tag us on IG: @plainlysimplestudios We would love to see it 😄

[@yana_porsina]

@@plainlysimple оk)

[@enamvictor]

Awesomeness

[@plainlysimple]

Thanks!! 😄

[@MicahBuzanANIMATION]

I animate frame by frame in TVPaint, but I still found this insightful and interesting to watch!

[@plainlysimple]

Thank you Micah! 🙏

[@manarart2316]

Thankssss

[@plainlysimple]

you're welcome

[@uliwoo8807]

like it sooooo much thx u

[@plainlysimple]

You're welcome 😊 Glad you liked it.

[@overflowid0]

oh thanks a lot!

[@plainlysimple]

You're welcome!

[@HaruEquinox]

For the windows the vertex tool start with shift + alt incase you get mixed up doing this practice

[@plainlysimple]

I'm not that familiar with windows anymore. Thanks for sharing :)

[@AR-nr2ix]

Nice

[@plainlysimple]

Thanks 😊

[@akigatoz]

14:00

[@cartoonox9635]

What softwares do u teach in your skillshare class ? And also do u teach to use that software or u teach to make animations etc

[@plainlysimple]

For our animation classes, we use Adobe animate and for drawing classes we use Photoshop. In those classes, we teach you how to use those software but even if you choose to use different software you can still follow along. The main focus of those classes is the principles. 😊

[@zambritavo]

i cant put the point with the tool vertex, help!!!! i use Ae 2024

[@Octorock48]

i cant seem to be able to use the add vertex tool on my shape layers, any suggestions?

[@plainlysimple]

If you hold click the pen tool icon on your menu bar, there should be a pop up that would allow you choose different pen tool options. Choose the one with the + sign

[@luicandeias8471]

Track matte doesn't give me the option of alpha matte inverted, so I'm blocked from following along with this for now. Thoughts?

[@plainlysimple]

Just beside the track matte, you'll see two boxes, you can toggle the matte inverted by clicking the second box. Hope that helps 😊

[@ThiagoFerreira-zt8zv]

This is awesome! Do you have any tips to make it a perfect loop? It usually loops in a cycle with Wave Warp, but for some reason, it's not looping at the end... Do you know why?

[@plainlysimple]

Glad you liked it! For making this a perfect loop, that would be difficult. It's because your controls here is the wave warp, in which you would need to set the speed etc. It is possible but you have to compute, for the speed, the length of the animation, and other parameters. But it's possible to arrive to a loop, it's just hard esp. if you don't know the math and all 😅 And we're not that good with math 😅 Whenever I use this technique, I don't use it for loop but I just set a long duration like 8 - 10 seconds. But you can always do trial and error, play around with the values until you arrive at a perfect loop.

[@ThiagoFerreira-zt8zv]

@@plainlysimple Thanks for the reply and help, man! Yeah, the main problem is the speed difference you talk about at 14:35 in the video. It does give a lot more realism, but the difference makes it impossible to loop at the end. One solution I found was to apply the posterize time effect in an adjustment layer as you said, precompose everything, and then slice the precomp in half. Drag the first half to the end, and the last half to the beginning (this will make the loop perfect at the end, and now the problem is in the middle). Now you just have to drag the sliced precomps around a little and find a common ground between them, where the frame at the end of one precomp kinda looks like the frame at the beginning of the other (it doesn't need to be exactly the same of course, just similar). You may want to tweak the wave warp effect a little until you manage to find a similar frame. Now, because we have applied the posterize time effect, any little difference between those frames will look like part of the animation, and will go unnoticed, making it a perfect loop. Another easier solution is of course to just leave both wave warp effects at the same speed. (You can see the loop at 14:24 in your video). It loops perfectly and still looks good, sacrificing a little realism in the benefit of sanity. 😅

[@keixsy]

​@@ThiagoFerreira-zt8zvyour comment really helped me, thank you

[@divannkocharles]

hi friend, I'm in Vietnam, I just approached Adobe and want to become an animator and youtuber :>, so in the process of using adobe I encountered many problems. Can you help me answer some questions? Thank you very much.

[@aravindvv2276]

What device you use for drawing?

[@plainlysimple]

My current drawing tablet is a huion kamvas

[@noordesign9873]

Please give me the tree and the girl file