Requirements: Sufficient knowledge of PhotoShop and AfterEffects, understanding the principles of animation and different animation techniques. Timing.

1. Preparing your cut-out character file in Photoshop.
Create a PSD file that contains ALL the body parts and all the different facial expressions that you will need for your animation. Name the layers neatly and with reasonable names. Arrange them in the right order from bottom to top. Delete the background layer if you have such - you don't need it. [click on the image below to open a larger version]

2. Import the file in AfterEffects
Start AfterEffects. Go FILE>IMPORT>FILE… Point to the PSD and be sure to import it AS A COMPOSITION

In the project window double-click the composition icon and the new composition is opened. Its resolution is the resolution of the PSD file and the layers are arranged and named the way they were saved in PhotoShop. Now (or later) you can change the dimensions of the stage, if you like.

3. Create a hierarchy and adjust the pivot points
Common sense and experience should lead you in deciding which object should be the PARENT to which all the others are linked. In our sample file it will be the body. All the others will be "children" of the body, but some of them will be also "children" of other children - we can call them grandchildren.

The principle of parent/child interactions is that all the transformations (scaling, rotation, position) you apply to the parent affect the children, grand children, etc, but you can transform them independently from the parents and this rule works in only one direction - from the older to the younger generations.

Using the chain tool, link the layers in a logical hierarchy.

Like this:

Now we have to adjust the pivot points, so that the rotations are predictable.
To move the pivot points, use the proper tool:

Slide the center points to their proper positions like that:

4. Time to animate
Select ALL the layers, go to the last frame of the timeline and press ctrl+]

Rotate, reposition, scale, using AfterEffects' tools or the numerical values for the layers and you will see how everything behaves quite predictably.

Here is the timeline for a simple walk cycle [click on the image below to open a larger version]:

And this is the animation:	Below is one more which I did while working at Konami

jump to > top of the page :: tutorial 2