Procreate is a fantastic app for creating digital art. It has many features for all styles of drawing, alongside the capability to create graphic design elements. Alongside the wide variety of features for these projects, the app also has a function which we can use to make animations.
Procreate’s animation tools aren’t spoken about that often, they feel like a bit of a hidden feature! However, using these tools to create gifs, videos, and simple animated images, is super easy and way more simple than you might imagine.
Keep reading for a quick-start guide to Procreate’s animation tools and an overview of the capabilities included.
Our first step is to create a new canvas, to do this, tap on the + in the top right-hand corner of the gallery screen.
Depending on what animation project you’re looking to create, you may want to consider your canvas size. You’ll probably be aware that Procreate limits the number of layers you can use, so for more complex projects this needs to be taken into account.
With animation in Procreate, each layer also doubles up as a frame. So we can say that our maximum layer amount, is the same as our maximum frame amount. For the standard screen size canvas, our maximum number of layers or frames is 60. This is more than enough for what you’ll ever need for a simple project, but if you move on to more complex work, this is a point worth bearing in mind.
Our next step is to tap on the settings tool, the first option on the top left-hand menu, which looks like a wrench.
Once this menu opens, tap on the option for canvas.
You’ll then see an item in the list named animation assist. Toggle this switch to on, so that it turns blue.
When you’ve switched animation assist on, you’ll see a small menu appear along the bottom of the screen.
Now you’re able to build animations! We’re going to check out a few of the settings now, to see what we can do.
On the animation assist menu, tap settings, on the right-hand side.
You’ll now see another menu pop up.
Let’s take a look at what some of these settings mean.
In the top part of the menu, you’ll see three options; loop, ping-pong, and one shot. These three options denote how your animation will play.
Loop means that your project will run on a continuous loop, i.e. it repeats itself over and over. In the example below, you can see that the heart keeps flashing from left to right.
Ping-pong is a really cool setting and it means that your animation will run backward and forwards. In the below, you can see the heart bouncing from side to side.
One-shot will play your animation once and then end, like a video, stopping on the last frame of your project.
Our next option, which is really important for any animation, is frames per second. You might have heard this phrase mentioned before and abbreviated to FPS. This option sets how fast the animation moves. So, the fewer number of frames per second, the slower your animation will be – the more frames per second, the faster it’ll go.
The average number of frames per second for general animators is 12, but for cartoons for television or film, it’s around 24.
Sometimes it’s hard to decide how many frames per second we should use before we have our animation elements created, so it’s fine to leave this option for now and return later.
The next option which we have is onion skin frames. This is a funny term, but it totally does what it says on the tin! “Onion skin” refers to the visibility of other frames, whilst working on another one. So, it basically is asking if we want to see all frames whilst adding/amending others. We’d advise leaving this setting on max, as it’s really helpful to see where we’ve been and where we’re going. You can lower the number and this will dictate how many previous frames you’re shown.
If the onion skin frames get in the way, you can adjust their opacity using the onion skin opacity slider, or even switch them off if you prefer to work without them.
As we briefly mentioned earlier, each frame within Procreate is also a layer. So by adding a new layer through the layers panel, you’re effectively adding a frame.
To save going into the layers panel though, you can select add frame from the animation menu.
So, next, we need to create our animation. To do this, each element has to be on a separate frame (or layer). Anything which is on one layer, will not animate away from other elements on the same layer.
Place your elements or draw on each frame, you can use as many frames as you want, up to the Procreate maximum which is generally 60 for the larger canvases.
As you add frames, you’ll see that small previews of these appear in the menu along the bottom of the canvas.
The frames will also appear in the layers panel, so to edit these, you can either tap into the frames from the animation menu or use the layers as you would with a solid piece of digital art.
Whilst you add elements, you can view your work so far by tapping play on the left-hand side of the animation menu.
Take some time to perfect your artwork, and play around with the settings, for example, loop, ping-pong, or one-shot. I personally love ping-pong!
At this point you may also want to experiment with the frames per second, so you’ll need to work out how fast you would like your animation to move.
Once you’ve decided on these settings, you’re almost finished!
To save your work and export to your iPad or another device, tap on the actions menu in the top left-hand corner, and then tap on the share option.
As this is an animation, we need to save it as an animated file type. Scroll down the list and either save your work as an animated GIF or an animated PNG. You can also save as an animated MP4 but this will save in video format, so you’d probably only use this for longer items.
Animated GIF is the most common file type, however, sometimes the image quality is better with animated PNG, so experiment with these to find your fit.
Once you’ve selected your file type, you’ll see the option again to amend your frames per second. If you’re already happy with your FPS, just hit export in the top right-hand corner.
Now, you’ll see the option to save your file. In the menu, select save image, to save your artwork to your iPad! You can also AirDrop your work to another device or share to your social media platforms directly.
We hope that you enjoyed this intro to animation in Procreate, it’s a really fun tool that makes creating animated artwork so easy and accessible.
Let us know what you’ve created using Procreate’s animation tools in the comments!
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