What to Learn After Adobe Animate

Animate is an Adobe animation application. If you already know how to use Adobe Animate, you might consider learninganother animation app like After Effects. You might also want to work on your soft skills or portfolio since improving these can help advance your animation career. We’ll cover some of these options below so you clearly understand what skill you want to tackle next. 

What is Adobe Animate?

Adobe Animate is an Adobe application used to create 2D animation. With it, Animators can produce animation and interactive vector graphics for a variety of media, including television, games, apps, and online video. They can export their work to multiple platforms, including Flash/Adobe AIR, WebGL, and HTML5 Canvas. Animate has been used to create a number of popular cartoons, including My Little Pony and The Amazing World of Gumball. It was previously known as Adobe Flash Professional, a top-rated program in the late 1990s and 2000s.

Animate has numerous tools that allow Animators to create complex and detailed animations. For instance, its virtual camera feature can pan, zoom, and rotate animations. Audio synching lets Animators sync the audio in their animations. Vector brushes make it possible to resize, move, color, and animate brush strokes. Animation apps like Animate give Animators the tools to create things that would be difficult to draw by hand.

Read more about what Adobe Animate is and why you should learn it.

What Can You Do with Adobe Animate?

People have been using animation for more than one hundred and fifty years to entertain and communicate a wide variety of content. Animation can grab an audience’s attention, tell stories, simplify complex content, and communicate ideas quickly. As a result of its versatility and universal appeal, animated content is used in many professions. Early animation featured hand-drawn content. However, today’s Animators use computers and animation applications such as Adobe Animate.

When people think about animation, many think of cartoons, which are indeed one thing many Animators create. Animation is in countless forms of media, and much of it develops from applications like Adobe Animate. Adobe Animate, in particular, is frequently used to generate cartoons and 2D animated television shows. The application can be used to create characters and add effects and audio, and it has developed many well-known shows and movies, including My Little Pony and The Amazing World of Gumball. However, cartoons are only one of the things that Animators create with animation apps. Apps also help to create video games for computers and mobile devices, educational content, and a wide variety of advertising and animated content for the internet.

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics explains that Animators typically choose a specific medium to work in, such as television or video gaming. In addition, they often specialize within that medium. For example, some video game designers specialize in creating characters, while others focus on scenery. Animators who specialize in this way are typically part of a larger team, with each team member working on one part of a project.

Another Animation App

The more apps an Animator knows how to use, the more tools they have to use in creating animations. After Effects is another popular animation app. Animate is popular for designing 2D animation, interactive content, and character animations. In contrast, After Effects is suitable for making motion and visual effects or compositing. 

Premiere Pro is another useful tool often used in combination with After Effects or Animate. While Animate and After Effects are for creating content, Premiere Pro is a video editing application that can be used to assemble that content into a finished video. Animators can use it to cut, enhance, and arrange the content they have already created in a program like Animate.

How to Build a Portfolio

Knowing how to use a computer animation app is valuable for an Animator. Still, in order to get work, Animators also need to have a strong portfolio or demo reel. A portfolio or demo reel is a selection of an Animator’s best work that potential employers can look at to understand better what that Animator can do. Building a good portfolio can take a long time, so the sooner a student starts, the better. In some animation classes, instructors help students work on their portfolios. For example, Noble Desktop’s Motion Graphics Certificate includes one-on-one mentoring sessions, where an expert instructor gives students portfolio advice.

Soft Skills

Animators need to be able to use computer apps like Animate, but they also need to know how to interact with other people in the workplace. Many Animators don’t work alone but are part of an animation team. Even those who do work alone usually need to interact with clients. Learning soft skills like communication and teamwork can be a good way for Animators to keep these interpersonal relationships running smoothly and make a good impression on potential clients.

Learn Animation & Motion Graphics with Hands-on Training at Noble Desktop

At Noble Desktop, students can learn animation and motion graphics with hands-on classes that fit many schedules and learning styles. Every class is small and interactive and led by expert instructors. In addition, Noble always provides a free retake option. The free retake allows students to retake the same class once within a year without paying for it again. Students can gain additional animation or motion graphics skills using the free retake without investing in another class.

The After Effects Bootcamp is a popular option among students who decide to study animation at Noble Desktop. Students in this bootcamp learn After Effects, a program that professional Animators commonly use, in just 18 hours. Bootcamps like this are popular because they provide quick, intensive training that gives students a good understanding of the subject matter over only a few days. Many pick a bootcamp when they want to add one skill like After Effects to their resume.

However, bootcamps are not the best option for everyone. Some students prefer more in-depth training and opt for a certificate program instead. Certificate programs take longer to complete, but they cover more subject matter. For instance, Nobel’s Motion Graphics Certificate takes two months full-time or four months part-time to finish. During that time, the curriculum covers animation programs, including After Effects, Cinema 4D Lite, and Premiere Pro, and how to use these programs to work on multiple animation projects.

Key Insights

• If you’ve already learned Adobe Animate and are looking for something else to learn, you have some options.
• If you learn how to use other animation apps like After Effects or Premiere Pro, you’ll have more tools to work with when creating and editing animation.
• In addition to learning new skills, you should spend time working on a portfolio or demo reel so that you can showcase your skills to potential clients.
• Soft skills are a valuable asset for any Animator.