How To Use Simple Shapes and Masks to Make an Entire Animation


Can’t see the video? Go to GreyscaleGorilla.com

In one of my most asked for tutorials for After Effects, I go though the process of making my personal project from 2005, Conform Non Conform. I go though the process of using masks to animate simple shapes. Then, using precomping and simple plugins, we warp and distort the simple shapes into our final animation. I purposely kept this tutorial loose and unfinished so that you could use the techniques involved to make your own short project. Post yours in the comments! I would love to see examples on what you would make with simple shapes and pre-comping. We have all seen exact copies of tutorials… try to make it your own so you can put it in your reel will ya?



Also, what do you think about this type of tutorial? Again, I purposely made it as “in the moment” as I could. I just went through the process of how I would make something. Nothing was pre-made or scripted. I make mistakes and try different ways of doing things. I want to know what you think about it. Is it annoying or is it insightful to see me problem solve on the fly? Leave your feedback in the comments please. Enjoy!

232 people have commented on this post. You should too!

  1. Josh Stolz says:

    Hey I was gonna put that you should use the radial wipe in the part where you were havin some problems with the orange solid, but as soon as I was gonna make this comment you figured it out. Another way that you could do it is have circles with a stroke instead of solids with masks, and then animate the strokes from 0 to 100. Great tut, love the site.

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