talk about low budget flights !

• “to learn is to bullshit around” - me it really helps if you just experiment (more like play around) with effects, graphs, keyframes ect. I would sometimes just bullshit around w my am and that leads me to finding out new techniques and new ways to edit and new effects and other stuff!

• tutorials..? Okay personally I don’t watch tutorials I just figure it out myself but if you’re absolutely helpless I suggest searching them up,, my friends reported that they’re very helpful ! All the good tutorials are on tiktok tho haha

• references, If your aiming for a specific animation then you should probably use references like a ref animation! Like how you said you take inspiration off by animations (eheheksjdh) you can also use it as a reference!

• references part two, okay this is specifically for tweening- if you want ‘realistic movements’ then please don’t hesitate to use your own body as a reference I do it alot it helps a lot ! It helps u figure out what limb goes where and how move what yk? Okay sureeee it’s kinda cringe to admit that I act out the animation memes irl 😭 but um.. to be cringe is to be free?? Haha? Also it helps like ALOT!

• note of the thing I said earlier: ok I know I said “realistic movements” but like it actually doesn’t have to be realistic at all! Well- if your aiming for more to a cartoony tween style then yea but also it doesn’t have to realistic at all all!

• don’t use the same graph for everything—ok um depends on what ur doing though, if your tweening it would be nice if you use the same graph for all the keyframes but if you use different types of graphs you get a more expressive(?) type of animation! So test out your graphs

• don’t forget about overshoots existence. The overshoot graph is useful asf pls don’t forget about it, you can access it by clicking the graph button and pressing the 3 dots in the corner. In the last select you will see “enable overshoot”, I don’t know how to explain overshoot um figure it out haha- tbh for overshoot i just do anything till I get it right,, Anywyas! To disable press the same button, but the graph will have to stay in its original lane for it to disable so don’t forget to do that

• keyframe placement. (for tweening) okayso this depends on what kind of graph your using. Like. It would be mostly preferred if you just line them all up but that’s mostly if you’re using ease in ease out and overshoot and the repeat graph whatever it’s called,, however! If your using the elastic graph (the bouncy one my favorite ever) then keyframes placement.. doesn’t matter ! Ok it kinda does but you can set two keyframes (from different layers) they can be really far away from the other and it willl look perfectly fine! If not better!! I totally encourage doing this when u use elastic graph eheh

• don’t let premium discourage you. Okay um this kinda doesn’t apply to me bc Im a chud who payer for am premium butttt. Sometimes id see people avoid using premium effects because of the ads you’ll need to watch after. DONT DO THIS!!!! Sure the ads are annoying asf but the premium effects are the best thing you got ! It’s worth watching a short ad over :p

• null is your best friend. Abuse it as much as you can. That’s all I gotta say- ok but anyways but for some reason the null makes the layer it’s patented to tweak out if you try to move it or add effects. So. When you wanna parent a layer to a null make sure you already added the moving keyframes or whatever it’s called and only add the effects AFTER you parent it to the null

• speaking of parenting! Parenting is your second best friend ever, while tweening it is VERY recommended you use it !

• the lag. Alight motion is LAGGY ASF. For everyone- no one can escape the am lag! Unless u have a really good device I guess.. but to reduce the lag avoid making the whole edit/animation on one project! It will cause insane lag- ok um let’s say your making a tweening video so what I suggest if you do the tweening in one project then export it to the other one with the editing + effects nd whatever ! It helps reduce the lag by a lot

• green screening okay this is kinda related to the one above but usually when people finish a tween to export to the other project they add a green screen and then remove it (using chroma key) on the other project,, while this is a good method is not really that good bc sometimes you’ll like see green outline remains or whatever so what I prefer to do is 1, set the backround to a transparent one 2, press on the export button, then the little arrow > next to” video” then switch it from Codec H.264/AVC. To H.265/HEVC and it will then automatically export without a backround! :D

• many hidden features for some reason am has just a bunch of features it doesn’t really tell u about- like. If you go to move and transform then click on the scale thijg then click on the chain looking thing on the top you will be able to separate the x scale and y scale! And if you go to color and fill and press “select media” you will be able to replace the image layer you put which is like super helpful when needing to replace like let’s say faces. Also the ui like idk why it took me forever to figure out that you can stretch the layers thing to give you a more clear view of them also there’s a little button next to the screen in the right side where if I drag it down ur screen becomes bigger and more clear haha(this is on ipad tho idk abt yall phone users)

• shapes do NOT overlook the shapes they can be actualy really helpful you can morph them into stuff and whatever- this can be helpful when learning how to use vector and or for backrounds/transitions and whatever

• backup copies okay um sometimes while ur editing there could be a moment where you test something or do something risky that your half sure ur gonna undo later if it fails. When you feel like u wanna do that I recommend making a backup copy of the original project- like just in case let’s say you wanna undo but it crashes before you do and then u cant undo yea um that’s not rlly ideal so backup copies would be really helpful just in case things go wrong!

• practice, yes I know everyone hates hearing this one like ok whatever but it’s trueee! With practice u become better overtime- like I started using alight motion sincee 2022 and practiced a lot ever since then so don’t say “I can’t do it!:(“ when u only have like a total of 1 hour screentime on am. It gets better overtime!