Anime Compositing in After Effects 

I worked as a compositor in a western anime style TV show (Pantheon) and I need to say that what I did at my job and what you showed in your video is pretty much EXACTLY the same. I remember using the same plug-ins, the OLM Smoother to give anti-aliasing to the lines, the magenta shadow masks I had to color key and recolour... It's crazy! Hahaha

I would absolutely be down for another compositing vid from you. There’s a severe lack of comprehensive videos regarding the topic; especially when it comes to animation.

I've been casually animating for years and have been watching videos on the production pipeline for a similar amount of time, but this is the first I've seen to detail how to do compositing really well! Thanks Dong Chang, we're lucky to have you!

I swear you can learn anything on youtube man

I’ve been waiting for someone to make this specific kind of video for 5 years so this is very much appreciated.

I never thought of how anime is composited but this is actually so cool to see.

Colud you do interviews with your colleagues and their experience s in the anime industry, nothing big five to 8 toos. Ps: really love your channel

Yes. More compositing videos. This is a subject I am very interesting in learning more. My goodness, all that work just to add a subtle touch, yet it makes all the difference. This is amazing.

holy shit man i've been looking for this for eternity, despite of how anime became so popular there's almost to nothing about actual japanese compositing tips you can find seriously i can't thank you enough

What I love about this is that I've not seen many videos on RU-vid explaining this as well as you have, sir. Thank you so much! As someone who is exploring this technique in my own personal use, I have made a few videos on TikTok and Instagram Reels of how I replicated this type of compositing in other software such as Clip Studio Paint or HitFilm Pro. HOWEVER, one of my TikTok videos went viral because hundreds of people started to comment that "the anime industry does not use aliased lines!" These were commenters that were not animators, nor did they show any proof disproving my video. I even got angry comments from people who say they've "graduated from a (western) animation college, and this information is incorrect!" That, or people saying "That is NOT the industry standard for animation". This was DESPITE me sharing actual videos from anime studios showing the aliased lines being used when coloring in the cels during the process, and many Japanese animators coming to my aid and assuring commenters that I was correct in my fact-finding. So finding this video is extremely reassuring and I'm grateful that this topic is being shared more and more. I would 100% take a masterclass of you simply teaching your entire animation process from start to finish. I may reference/show your video as further reference that this compositing process IS INDEED used in the anime industry. Again, thank you for creating this, and I look forward to more videos!

Omg my brain just overloaded lol Thanks for this... digital applications really has made so many things possible with just clicks, it's insane

As from the comments here, there is interests in exploring more compositing content so YES PLEASE! and Thanks Dong Chang you're really a Chad!

All your videos are so interesting and informative of actual step by step processes in actual professional environments. I don't think there's any english speaking channel that goes this indepth *Also yes, I would love if you could go further into the topic

As a compositor (of traditional and 3D footage) I found this incredibly fascinating! It's so different, I didn't know anime was done this way

I would really love to do anime-style compositing like this, but I can't afford an After Effects subscription. Are there any good, affordable alternatives that anyone can recommend for compositing similar to this?

THIS IS SO HELPFUL DONG!! you really are helping me BIG TIME with every content you put!

Is there an OLM smoother you can use just in Clip Studio if you are just doing 1 drawing and don't want to use After Effects?

Love your channel

More videos on this would be insane. There is such a lack of good anime style compositing guides in English so please keep making more of these.

I've never seen this stuff before so this was a pretty interesting video.

Wow! Amazing! I learned some stuff. Also, I never knew they used pixeled line work! It makes so much sense and makes things a lot easier! I need to practice and learn pixeled linework because I only used the regular stuff.

Very cool process, thanks for shedding light on it for me!

damn i always wonder how they created or animating animation/anime in the real industry. and finally i have the answer, thank you very much for this video. i think im gonna try it tho

Lmao, I'm not a compositor but an editor and I work with coloring, lighting, and compositing a lot. I figured out these filters that you did at the end of the video myself and I was surprised by how similar what I learned by myself compared to what people used in the industry. Also thank you for a very interesting and useful video. You earned 1 more subscriber.

RU-vid randomly recommended me this video, and I'm glad it did! I've seen a ton of Anime behind the scenes videos where they show them working in After Effects, but I never understood how it all came together. This is the first video I've seen to really explain it well in a short and concise format. Would definitely love to see more of these kinds of videos!

It really completes the look and makes it feel more professional. I've often found when I've seen indie animation online, the biggest thing that makes it feel "unprofessional" for lack of a better word, is the compositing. I tried to look into it a few years ago but i didn't know what I was looking for, so this video has been really informative.

Please do other videos about that, this was awesome! ✨🙏🏻

OMG THANK YOU I BEEN WAITTING FOR THIS FOR SO LONG XD UGH I'M SO HAPPY I CANT WAIT TO STEP UP MY ANIMATION

I really wanted to know more about the effects animator uses mostly for action scenes and vfx, can you make a tutorial on them

I wanted to join the military and become a soldier for the USA spec ops. it’s kinda odd but since came across this channel I been in love whit animation. I know you might not read this but Im supper great-full you changed my pad in life.

why did I watch this? I dont animate, have After Effects, or draw. Good video though.

I've always wanted to do compositing and was really curious how anime compositing worked so this was an awesome breakdown!! I'd love to see more videos on this ty for your hardwork!

Excellent tutorial brother. Keep on and looking forward. Thanks for sharing! Subscribed and liked!

I did compositing work for American cartoons (Disney Channel) and it was nothing like this at all. This is shockingly more work.

He estado esperando un video como este, gracias ✨

Man if regular anime Compositing is this complex I don't even want to know what Kentaro waki Compositing process looks like lol

I just want to say You are great.

Really awesome content my reaction unbelievable

Wow, there's a lot of work behind that 4 sec. Awesome and thanks 🙌

can u make a video on what is the art level u wan to be in anime industry

Yes Mr Chang I’d love to! Might be good as well to explain differences of compositing pipelines (if there’s any) between several animation studios or industries for the future videos!

Hi, i got a question!! about that toggle effect at 8:21, do you really go each frame by each everytime? :o what about animations that have more than 6 frames?? is there any way to do this faster? still processing the video, tyvm!!

You don’t understand how much I appreciate this channel as someone who wants to learn Japanese animation because of my art style and I didn’t really know how to do it but after stumbling upon this channel on how anime is produced I have to say that holy shit where was this channel?

Finally a video for which i have been waiting for so long your tutorials have helped me a lot ❤

Yes there is interest. Let's explore it further.

It is the best video about anime compositing on youtube so far.

This is quite informative, been compositing for a while so i found this quite useful knowledge. Question though, is there a reason the f color key is preferred to the Keylight plugin? also is there a particular reason the composition size is different from the actual render size

I am in awe of how the colors can be softened without going out of bounds into areas you don't want. I had no idea that was possible! In my defense though, I am not very bright and I am used to the different approaches of illustration versus animation lol.

Wow. I had no idea that After Effects is used for anime. Thanks for this video.

Interesting that so many animation companies use After Effects and VFX use Nuke. I know which one I prefer.

This totally lost me but it was so cool! Do you do CSP for drawing/coloring and then composite the animation in AfterEffects? Am just kind of confused about what program you use when as I'm a beginner at this stuff. Thanks!

Thank you brother 🙏🏻 That is top quality content 💕 Please go on!

Anyone know any alternatives for OLM plugins on mac? They stopped supporting mac a while ago and I really need the Color Keep plugin !

Thank you for sharing Dong 先生！

We need more

Every time I excited for your new videos sir, thank you for teaching me a lot of things about anime and their techniques

Dude there is absolutely zero good tutorials in English about satsuei/anime compositing! This is super appreciated! Would you mind going through different scenes of popular anime and give some guides as to how they might have been composited? OR just more anime scene compositing tips in general?

Does anyone know of Mac compatible alternatives to F's Plugins?

I love this, anime compositing is so cool!

Can i ask how did you see the trg files immediately from the file explorer? i need to know!!! (the tutorial is very awesome and super helpful by the way thank you!!)

you have no idea how helpful this video is thank you so much

Please more composition video! Go in depth on different scenes please❤

Thanks for the lesson. Nice content!

Waiting for part two! So eager to learn. I never knew compositing could be so much fun =)

Hey Dong, I’ve been loving your animation tutorials. Have you ever used Davinci Resolve?

This was cool. Way above my skill level. Gonna bookmark and watch it again in a few months to see if some things make more sense

Thanks for making this video! But I can't understand why should we have to make [2_Camera]'s Frame size smaller than [1_Render]'s one.

I find this to be especially interesting and I would personally like it if you made a few more compositing-related videos in the future. The sorta glowy effect you showed is typically called bloom, it's common in video games, though the way it's achieved is slightly different here. Really interesting.

do these plugins work for Blackmagic fusion?

As storage is relatively cheap and the render time hit would be minimal. I do wonder why Anime productions are still using those blotchy pixel-aliased formats that makes it necessary to do the anti-aliasing workaround in post. It's like, there's so much time and effort going into getting great linework during animation. But as soon as it gets conformed for compositing it gets a pixelation filter and a no-bitrate compression that makes it look like a SNES cutscene that then has to be revived in After Effects with several iterations of OLM Smoother. Also, looking back, I am not that sure that I miss working in After Effects... after moving to node based compositing in Davinci and Fusion. :D But this video did prompt me to do some tests of my own to test out a few theories with my own workflows.

Ok Im ultra confused why use different resolution in different composiitons? Then upscaling that to HD at the end..

Anyone know why they didn't just export the character animation image sequence with alpha channel or just export it as video?

All of this just to see a MF using capcut and doing it better and in 2 minutes. * crying *

Hey, Dong Chang! Can you please create a video tutorial of the walk cycle of a girl as big as this? I don't know how to use the adobe animate canvas (stage) to create a bold character walk cycle.

Thank you brother 🙏🏻 That is top quality content 💕 Please go on!

I have a question that might be dumb, do we have to use Adobe after effect? can't we do all of these effects with Clip studio paint? Like for example, the smoothening of the aliased lines and the camera movement? From what I understand, the reason is that different people will be working on it. Edit: Ok, I have read more about the subject, it seems that some effects will be extremely tedious to animate and keyframe.

Track matte option for the shape layer doesn't come up unless its below the layer u are gonna set to trackmatte as for me, so I can't create the gradient effect

hey dong, i love your video, i have a suggestion to make, maybe you could incorporate zoom in or zoom out in your video, sometime things like setting (like you are showing a lot here) are hard to see (for me at least), love your video, also a question if i may, if i apply to a studio in japan (or any place) as a complete beginner (fresh grad), do the studio gonna give some kind of training first or straight into a project? thank you

wow this was super informative. thanks for telling us about this. Look, I dont want to come across as weird or anything, but im also an animator as well. I know I don't have anything posted yet, but I haven't found the inspiration yet, but I think this might be the boost I need. Will you please let me ont o your show sometime? I bet I can give really interesting perspective on the anime industry as I have watched it since I was 13 years old! xoxo

Hello ter Don, are the plugins can be used on after effect on mac? Can you us how to install it on mac. Thank you!

How do you drop in the girl anime frames into After Effects?

this is so cool! im wondering though, is there a way to automate the process of time remapping the keys instead of having to do it individually?

1:53 is this the reason why Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood have those jaggy diagonal lines even in their blu-ray releases, in which they forgot to smooth them out in the composition process?

So much helpful as I am starting to dive deeper into the freelance animation industry!

Can you maybe put in a word so anime studio stop licensing dubs of anime to Crunchyroll and do the dubs themselves, that why the anime English script will be a better quality

what happen if a shot give to many guys to compositting, or just one guy do entire scene ?

Is it standard to work in ae within the anime industry? I feel like if this was done in nuke you could make scripts and gizmos that would cut your compositing time in half.

🥲thank you sooo so much there's not enough guides on comp for 2d

@@ oh, i didnt know that anime compositting was done in after effect ^^ very informative even i dont know what i could use it for

This will help me for my next animation! thanks a lot, -from ph!💙❤

Nah man trying to learn to composite rn would be like putting my brain in a microwave, I’ll come back later

This is such a weird way to do things, with the aliased lines and color key shadow. You'd think it's easier to use a format that can store an alpha layer and just export without the background. But I guess that's tradition.

Interesting to see why anime cels are often blurry, even at 1080p

it took me 3 min to start auto watch mode , but great video thanks for sharing i will watch multiple time to get the whole picture

I wanted to change a background of certain scene but its already composited and edited , now i don't know how to change background do i have to erase it frame by frame

Can someone tell me the difference between the clip at the beginning and at the end? It looks the same smh

I never knew NF's plugins existed until now. You really need to dig down the internet to get the treasure.

Is it common for cells to be blurred aliased pixels? Bruh.

Lineart smoothing looks bad and pixelated! What i need to do to fix that?

Can you make tutorial videos about lip sync how to animate lips on dialogues