I will show you how to make joints that work and create multiple parts for replacement animation. After that we will look at Newton's laws of motion and how those laws create the principles of animation such as Squash and Stretch, Overlap and Follow-through and also show you how to get a character walking and running.

Then we will move on to dialogue animation, including how to read soundtracks, rules for assigning mouth shapes and the basics of acting to dialogue. We will use both Flash and After Effects for creating character walks and lip sync animation in each of those applications. So, if you're ready, let's get started with 2D Character Animation.

Topics include:

• Creating character joints that really work
• Building with the Puppet tool in After Effects
• Understanding internal versus external forces in movement
• Reading tracks and assigning mouth shapes for dialogue
• Setting up a scene in both After Effects and Flash