WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:00.299 --> 00:00:04.259 This tutorial shows different types of 2D shadows and how to animate them. 00:00:04.259 --> 00:00:07.580 It does not teach how to know where a shadow should be. 00:00:07.580 --> 00:00:11.960 For that, look up tutorials on light and shadow in 2d art. 00:00:11.960 --> 00:00:16.309 Before we start, you need to know that a cast shadow is the shadow that comes off of an 00:00:16.309 --> 00:00:20.779 object, and a form shadow is the shadow on the object itself. 00:00:20.779 --> 00:00:24.279 Let’s start with animating cast shadows. 00:00:24.279 --> 00:00:28.289 The easiest cast shadow to animate is a circle underneath your character. 00:00:28.289 --> 00:00:33.530 Make a black circle, set the opacity to about 15%, and make it follow your character. 00:00:33.530 --> 00:00:37.230 Some animators use hard edge circles, others use faded circles. 00:00:37.230 --> 00:00:39.000 It’s a style choice. 00:00:39.000 --> 00:00:43.510 If you want to be super fancy, you can animate the shadow size to match what the character 00:00:43.510 --> 00:00:44.510 is doing. 00:00:44.510 --> 00:00:48.329 Another type of cast shadow is a mirror of your character. 00:00:48.329 --> 00:00:53.800 Copy your character, turn it into a silhouette, set the opacity, flip, and position underneath 00:00:53.800 --> 00:00:56.960 your character. 00:00:56.960 --> 00:01:00.499 If you have Toon Boom, you simply set your layer to be a shadow. 00:01:00.499 --> 00:01:05.830 Due to the amount of detail in a mirror shadow, you may want to blur the edges with a filter 00:01:05.830 --> 00:01:10.980 to make it more believable. 00:01:10.980 --> 00:01:13.480 Most art programs have a drop shadow effect. 00:01:13.480 --> 00:01:18.740 A drop shadow is a good choice if your character is near a wall and you can’t see their feet. 00:01:18.740 --> 00:01:22.330 If you see the whole character, there needs to be a connection between the drop shadow 00:01:22.330 --> 00:01:25.100 and the character, because this doesn’t make sense. 00:01:25.100 --> 00:01:27.320 You can manually make a correct shadow. 00:01:27.320 --> 00:01:30.970 Copy the character to create the base shadow, then draw in the connection. 00:01:30.970 --> 00:01:37.320 At this point you’re getting into pure animated cast shadow, where you draw the shadows by 00:01:37.320 --> 00:01:38.370 hand. 00:01:38.370 --> 00:01:42.640 Because shadows are mirrors of objects, most of the time you can get away with copied and 00:01:42.640 --> 00:01:48.251 flipped images, but if you have a shadow cast over complex surfaces, you have to draw and 00:01:48.251 --> 00:01:49.251 animate it by hand. 00:01:49.251 --> 00:01:54.540 Stick to simple shapes for shadows you have to animate and you’ll save yourself a lot 00:01:54.540 --> 00:01:55.540 of time. 00:01:55.540 --> 00:01:57.940 That’s it for cast shadows. 00:01:57.940 --> 00:02:00.780 Form shadows are another matter entirely. 00:02:00.780 --> 00:02:06.170 Most animations avoid form shadows except for nighttime scenes, scenes that have dramatic 00:02:06.170 --> 00:02:07.890 effect, or closeups. 00:02:07.890 --> 00:02:10.930 The easiest way to add a form shadow is with an effect. 00:02:10.930 --> 00:02:14.030 For example, every program has Inner Glow. 00:02:14.030 --> 00:02:17.810 Depending on what program you have, you’ll have different effects to experiment with. 00:02:17.810 --> 00:02:22.080 One of my favorites in After Effects and Photoshop is Satin, since it allows you to change the 00:02:22.080 --> 00:02:27.240 angle of the light and give the cheap shadow a bit more nuance than inner glow. 00:02:27.240 --> 00:02:32.230 Unfortunately, other than effects, the only way to get form shadows is to draw them. 00:02:32.230 --> 00:02:35.920 If you are working with animation puppets, form shadows aren’t as bad because you can 00:02:35.920 --> 00:02:37.690 draw them on the puppet pieces. 00:02:37.690 --> 00:02:40.240 This also works for highlights. 00:02:40.240 --> 00:02:44.569 For frame-by-frame animators not using effects, you have no other option than to draw form 00:02:44.569 --> 00:02:46.760 shadows by hand every image. 00:02:46.760 --> 00:02:49.310 If you are a beginner with lighting, stay very simple. 00:02:49.310 --> 00:02:52.610 Perhaps only a shadow under the chin to start. 00:02:52.610 --> 00:02:57.280 The more shadows you add, the more you have to keep track of. 00:02:57.280 --> 00:03:01.510 If you are animating form shadows that cover a whole section of a character, a separate 00:03:01.510 --> 00:03:06.380 shadow layer masked to the character art is the best way to manage them. 00:03:06.380 --> 00:03:10.580 This way you don’t need to worry about coloring inside the lines. 00:03:10.580 --> 00:03:16.360 Unlike cast shadows that can be nonspecific circles, form shadows should accent the 3D 00:03:16.360 --> 00:03:17.480 shape of the character. 00:03:17.480 --> 00:03:21.900 For beginning animators it’s going to take a lot of drawing before form shadow placement 00:03:21.900 --> 00:03:26.350 makes sense and you know where to put them to accent your characters the best. 00:03:26.350 --> 00:03:31.240 If you’re struggling with shadows, make tons of 2D still art, study shadows in life, 00:03:31.240 --> 00:03:35.520 and (I highly recommend this last one) try to sculpt your characters, even if it’s 00:03:35.520 --> 00:03:37.220 rough shapes with playdough. 00:03:37.220 --> 00:03:42.040 You will get better at form shadows when you start to understand a 2D piece of art is actually 00:03:42.040 --> 00:03:46.560 3D, and you can imagine what things would look like in three dimensions. 00:03:46.560 --> 00:03:51.900 You will get better at cast shadows as you learn more about lighting and light sources. 00:03:51.900 --> 00:03:55.720 That’s all for this shadow tutorial. 00:03:55.720 --> 00:03:58.189 For more animation tutorials, click the link below.