Easy After Effect tutorial for beginners – How to animate the rising sun?

In the post this time, I will show you how to animate the rising sun using After Effect in Motion Graphic style.

Below is the video on how to do it so you can open up your After Effect and we can do it together – or I also have the written texts below so you can also follow my instructions.

1. First of all, create a new project by going to Files => New Project…
2. After the project is created, we will need to create a compotition (if we don’t have any external files to import in), go to Composition => New Composition, a small window will be shown to you asking the nameand the dimension of the composition, in this tutorial, I will go with HDTV 24 (1920×1080)
3. In the Sequence’s Files Area, right click => new => shape layer… ( this can also be done by going to Layer => New => Shape Layer… ).
4. On the tool bar, click on the rectangle, then Alt + right click a few time to find circle, then draw it on the composition. Now by default we will have the circle filled with color and no stroke, change to no fill and increase the stroke width.
5. In the Sequence’s Files Area, in this shape layer, click on the little arrow to show all the option, click on the Add => Trim Paths, move the timeline further a bit, subsequently, put a clock on both Start & End, then move the timeline to the the start point (0:00), adjust the value of End to 0%.
6. Next is the sun beams, create another shape layer, this time, use the Pen Tool to draw the single line, now, we will also trim paths for it. Add => Trim Paths. Move the timeline a bit further, then put a clock on both Start & End, then move back the timeline, adjust the end back to 0%.
7. Now, apparently we need more than just one sun beams, animating each will be a non-effective and time-consuming work, click on Add => Repeater, change the number of repeater (optional, I will change from 3 to 5 in this tutorial), change the rotation value, then the x and y of position, play around with it to see what best for you.
8. And off you go!

That’s it! You have completed your first animation, I hope to see you again in my next post – so stay tune!

Please tell me below what do you think about this tutorial.