AI Motion Graphics Course

AI Storyboarding and Creative Strategy

• Creating Foundational Content for Motion Graphics

• Build commercially safe mood boards and style frames using AI

• AI-Assisted Storyboarding

• Rapidly iterate on compositions and camera angles within the Adobe ecosystem.

• Ethics and Business Considerations

• Indemnity and Licensing: Understand practical guidance on indemnity and licensing, including Firefly versus open models.
• Approval Language: Learn how to present AI-assisted work to clients and document source material.
• Workflow Selection: Determine when to choose AI-native versus hybrid-AI workflows based on project budget and legal risk.

Designing Assets for Motion

• Composing for Camera Moves: Use prompt strategies that build in safe margins (overscan) for virtual pans, tilts, and zooms.
• Creating Depth Planes: Design for 2.5D animation by generating foreground, midground, and background elements separately.
• Managing Baked-In Artifacts: Avoid lighting and shadow choices that can break physical logic during compositing.
• Loopable Elements: Generate textures and environmental elements—such as clouds and particles—intended for seamless looping.

Preparing Assets for the Timeline

• Anatomy of a Motion-Ready Asset

• Layer Separation: Prepare stills for Photoshop cut-outs before they reach After Effects or Runway.
• Edge Cleanup and In-painting: Use Generative Fill to fix edges on isolated assets for cleaner masks.
• Negative Space and Parallax: Ensure background assets contain enough hidden information to support 3D camera movement.
• Revision-Safe Exports: Apply naming conventions and layering strategies that make it easier to swap AI assets when clients request changes.

AI Animation and the Decision Framework

• Image-to-Video Precision

• Use Runway and Luma to animate the motion-ready assets created on Day 1.

• The AI Decision Matrix: When to Use AI vs. Manual Techniques

• Use AI for: atmospheric motion, concept spots, social loops, and complex environmental plates.
• Avoid AI for: precise brand physics, typography, UI interaction, and frame-accurate character performance.

• Directed Motion

• Master Motion Brush techniques to isolate movement from static geometry.

Brand Systems and Typography Control

• The Typography Firewall: Understand why text, logos, and legal marks must be handled separately from AI generation.
• Vector Integration: Use Firefly-powered text-to-vector tools in Illustrator to create brand assets that remain infinitely scalable in After Effects.
• Logo Preservation: Replace or match-move high-resolution brand logos onto AI-generated surfaces to maintain brand guidelines.

After Effects Integration—The Professional Pipeline

• Building the 2.5D Scene: Import generated depth planes into After Effects 3D space.
• Hybrid Blending: Combine AI-generated video with traditional shape layers, particles, and 3D camera trackers.
• AI as Utility: Use AI outputs as style frames, texture passes, or displacement maps rather than only as final shots.
• Match-Moving: Stabilize and track AI clips into existing live-action or 3D environments.

Quality Control and Final Polish

• The Inspection Checklist

• Detect and resolve temporal inconsistency, anatomy drift, and perspective errors before client review.

• AI Post-Render Support

• Stabilization and De-blur: Correct micro-jitter in AI video outputs.
• Frame Interpolation: Convert 24 fps AI renders into fluid 60 fps video or high-speed slow motion.

• Upscaling and Dithering: Ensure 1080p AI renders meet 4K delivery standards without a plastic or over-processed look.

AI Motion Graphics Final Project

Produce a short, professional sequence that demonstrates an understanding across the full course workflow. The final project should include:

• Intentional Reveal: A deliberate camera move or asset reveal that communicates a clear creative decision.
• Depth: 2.5D parallax or 3D camera tracking that adds dimensionality to the scene.
• Brand Integration: Sharp, non-AI typography and a precisely placed logo that meets brand standards.
• Finish: A polished, high-resolution render processed through AI.