Make It Move in Blender: Animation Fundamentals (5.2 LTS)

CG Cookie in Video Tutorials

CORE Fundamentals
Course 06 of 11Created for 5.2 LTS33 lessons, 4h 24m
Animation, with Chris Bailey
Make it move. Make it feel alive.

33 lessons on keyframes, the Graph Editor, the twelve principles of animation, and rigged character exercises, from a bouncing blob to a full walk cycle. Rebuilt for Blender 5.2 LTS.

Blob character knocking over encyclopedia volumes
Your animation moves.
It doesn't act.

You set two keyframes. The thing gets from A to B. Technically, that's animation. It also looks like a spreadsheet cell sliding into place, not like something that's alive.

More keyframes won't fix it. What matters is what happens between them: how motion eases in and out, what overshoots, what drags a beat behind, what anticipates before it commits. None of that shows up by setting poses and walking away.

This course is the technical foundation underneath all of that: the editors, the curves, and the principles that turn correct motion into motion that reads as alive.

Get those right and your animation starts to act instead of just moving.

What you'll build
Reading and editing what you have keyframed
01 / KEYS & THE DOPE SHEET
Reading and editing what you have keyframed
One of the twelve animation principles, applied
02 / EXAGGERATION
One of the twelve animation principles, applied
Markers, cuts, and moving the eye
03 / CAMERA ANIMATION
Markers, cuts, and moving the eye
Procedural noise for a handheld camera shake
04 / F-CURVE MODIFIERS
Procedural noise for a handheld camera shake

Then Chapter 03's exercises: bounce the blob, jump the blob, and animate a full walk cycle.

Rig provided. So is the reason your first walk cycle will look wrong before it looks right.

See it in motion
Keyframes in Motion
Keyframes in Motion
A pose, another pose, and Blender building everything in between.
 Procedural Camera Shake
Procedural Camera Shake
A Noise modifier added directly to an F-curve. No handheld keyframing required.
What you'll learn
What a key actually is. A pose. Two poses, and Blender builds the motion between them. Everything else is refinement.
The Timeline, Dope Sheet, and Graph Editor. Three editors that work together, each showing you a different resolution of the same animation data.
The twelve principles of animation. Ease in and out, squash and stretch, anticipation, arcs, exaggeration, overlapping action, and more. Disney studied this so you don't have to guess.
Rigs, IK and FK, and quaternion rotations. Enough rigging literacy to animate a character without fighting the rig.
A full walk cycle. The exercise every animator eventually has to do, done with guidance instead of guesswork.
Actions, constraints, and the NLA editor. How animation data is organized, reused, and blended once a project gets past one simple clip.
Animating cameras, with markers and cuts. Blocking out shots, not just objects.
F-Curve modifiers for procedural motion. Add believable handheld camera shake without keyframing a single wobble by hand.
Curriculum

33 lessons across 5 chapters.

01
THE EDITORS
5 lessons
Keys, the Timeline, the Dope Sheet, and the Graph Editor. The tools you'll live in for the rest of the course.
02
PRINCIPLES OF ANIMATION
8 lessons
Ease in and out with handles, squash and stretch, anticipation, arcs, exaggeration, overlapping action, additional principles, and pose-to-pose workflow.
03
RIGS & EXERCISES
8 lessons
Intro to rigs, the blobby bounce exercise, blending keys, the blobby jump exercise, walk cycles, extrapolating channels, quaternion rotations, and IK/FK.
04
ACTIONS & ORGANIZATION
7 lessons
Actions, a picking-up-a-box exercise, constraints, swapping actions, actions as reusable assets, the NLA editor, and a hero action workflow.
05
CAMERAS & OUTPUT
5 lessons
Animating cameras, camera markers, F-curve modifiers, playblasts, and the final challenge.
Watch Ease In & Ease Out free

Almost eight minutes on the single principle with the biggest visible impact on your animation, and the fastest to actually apply. If your motion currently looks robotic, this is why. No signup.

Watch the lesson free
Chris Bailey
Your instructor
CHRIS BAILEY

Chris teaches the modeling, sculpting, materials, texturing, animation, and geometry nodes track across CORE. This course builds the technical foundation, so a follow-on animation bootcamp can spend its time on artistry instead of the software.

Animation rewards repetition more than any other CORE course. Chris says it himself: finish it once, take a break, then come back and do the exercises again.
What's included
Blender version 5.2 LTS (works in 4.2 LTS)
Lessons 33 videos, 4h 24m
Quality 1080p, stream or download
Captions English and Spanish
Project files Included, basic rig plus every exercise scene
Platforms Windows, macOS, Linux
Access Yours to keep, no subscription
Also available in The CORE bundle, all 11 courses

This course teaches the software side of animation, so a later, principles-focused course can spend its time on the craft.

Questions
Do I need rigging experience first?
No. A basic rig is provided for every exercise. Fundamentals of Rigging goes deeper if you want to build your own later.
Is this course about animation principles or animation software?
Both, but weighted toward the technical side: keyframes, editors, curves, rigs, actions. The twelve principles chapter gives you the artistic vocabulary, but this is fundamentally the how, not the theory.
Will this work in Blender 4.2 LTS?
Mostly. Blender 5.0 introduced Slotted Actions, which changed how the Dope Sheet and Animation Data lessons look under the hood. The concepts transfer, the exact UI in a couple of lessons won't match 4.2 pixel for pixel.
Is this the same as the version I already own?
No. This is rebuilt for 5.2 LTS with new recordings and updated coverage. If you own the CORE 4.2 bundle, check your loyalty pricing.
Do I need a character rig to follow along?
No. A basic ball rig and blend files are provided for every exercise in the course.
What's the difference between the Dope Sheet and the Graph Editor?
The Dope Sheet shows when keys happen. The Graph Editor shows how the motion moves between them. You'll use both, for different questions.
I want more than one course. Is there a bundle?
Yes. CORE is all 11 courses as a single one-time purchase. Buy up to four courses individually and you come out ahead. Past that, the bundle costs less, and all eleven bought one at a time run to more than twice the bundle price. CORE is also included with an annual CG Cookie membership if you'd rather stream than own.
What if I get stuck?
Post in the CG Cookie community. Instructors are active there and questions get answered.
Course 06 of 11
CORE continues.

Animation is course six of eleven. CORE is the whole path: modeling, sculpting, lighting, materials, texturing, animation, rigging, physics, compositing, grease pencil, and geometry nodes, in the order that actually builds on itself.

Past four courses, the bundle is the cheaper buy. One purchase, and you keep it.

CG Cookie
Teaching Blender since 2008. We're old and stuff.
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Details
Sales 10
Published 3 months ago
Blender Version 5.2
Render Engine Used Cycles, Eevee
License Royalty Free

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