Tutorials

Creating mind-bending animation with Apple’s free Keynote app

Yup, Apple Keynote! Let’s push this “free” presentation software to the limit! Using Keynote for animation and creating motion graphics is unconventional but totally suits my illustration style, problem solving and process. Plus, I love a creative challenge.

I do know After Effects enough but find it convoluted and a lot of AE work looks the same. I’d rather not pay Adobe for the entire and mostly unused Creative Cloud suite and only get Illustrator and InDesign on a monthly basis. I’ve also purchased Procreate’s Dreams and Moho Animation but haven’t tried them yet. 

We’re going to explore drawing with simple shapes and the secret known as Magic Move that lets you move, magically (!!!), the same object from one slide to the next. This feature inspired me to experiment even more. With the ability to time slides, and export movies and gifs, the possibilities are endless. 

Everything seen here has been made entirely in Apple Keynote. 

The exploding cylinder 

To create the exploding cylinder, start a new Keynote document with either black or white theme. Under “Document”, in the top right, click on “Loop Slideshow.” Add a “blank” slide and delete the first slide. Change the background color to your liking. I tend to start with a middle gray.

With the slide selected, under “Animate”, in the top right, click “Add an effect” and select “Magic Move” from the pulldown menu. Experiment with the settings and consider faster and slower speeds and timing to avoid evenness. Here are my suggested settings:

Duration: 0.5 second

Fade Unmatched Objects: toggle off (This is quite handy but we’re not using this here since all our parts will be in both frames.)

Acceleration: Ease out (faster start and slower end)

Start Transition: 0.25 second. This delay holds the frame.

Let’s draw!

Draw a horizontal line that will serve as our reference point and horizon line.

Draw a vertical line as the axis for the cylinder’s movement.

If you’re feeling fancy, you can copy and paste these guide lines or draw actual guides, pulled from the rulers, in the Master Slide to avoid accidentally clicking them while you’re drawing or repositioning. To do that, select “Format” and “Edit Master slide.”

  1. Under “Shape”, select the square, resize it to a wide and short rectangle and move it above the horizon line.
  2. Draw an oval with the same width and approximately 10-20px tall. Anything lower than 10px gets glitchy and is difficult to grab.
  3. Position and snap the oval to the bottom and center of the rectangle.
  4. Copy, paste and snap the new oval to the top and center of the rectangle.
  5. Give the lower oval a darker color. (Keep this oval in front with “Bring Forward” or “Bring to Front” under Arrange in the menu bar. There is also an “Object List,” under “View,” similar to Photoshop layers. I’ve edited my toolbar with commonly used “Front,” “Back” and “Object List” buttons. Stay organized and perhaps name your objects because it can get complicated quickly! Shapes not in the same layer order get glitchy.) 
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FRAME 2 POSITIONING

Copy and paste or option-drag Frame 1 to create Frame 2

Select and move the three shapes up as high as you want while holding the shift key.

Increase both ovals’ heights. Hold down the option key (Alt on Windows) to resize from its center. They can match for simplicity.

To suggest perspective, imagine a transparent 5-gallon water bottle’s ridges from different angles. The farther you go from the horizon, the taller and more like a true circle the object will appear to be.

Hit the “Play” at the top center to view your floating cylinder! 

LOWER CYLINDER

Repeat these steps for the lower cylinder.

The lower oval will have the same color as the rectangle while the upper oval will have a lighter or contrasting color. A lighter color suggests a light source, but anything works as long as there’s contrast.

CHEAT: Since some ovals need to be in front of the rectangles, the rectangles don’t truly connect to form a complete and solid cylinder. In Frame 1, add two more rectangles to cover the ovals where the cylinders would touch. Make them the same main color and move them up or down to hide them in Frame 2. See screenshots with them in red and yellow.

Another example of how the cheat works

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Now we have two cylinders! You can export to a movie or gif by choosing “Export to…” under the “File” pulldown menu!

Creating the sushi and hamburger

The sushi roll and hamburger animation were breakthroughs on how to push software originally meant for presentations.

Groups: Inside the sushi roll is a white oval with parts that are grouped. The black rectangle and other oval are just like the cylinder you made. Groups can be animated only if they’re animated together. Unfortunately, individual moving shapes have to stay ungrouped. If I need to reposition several shapes or an entire object, group them to move and then ungroup so Magic Move doesn’t glitch.

Burger Time: Inspired by an 80s arcade game, an exploding burger was fun. Notice how the objects are barely touching. The lettuce, ketchup and mustard are just single ovals. The horizontal offset and background square gives the animation depth and interest.

Ketchup drip: It’s just a drop shape moving down from Frame 2 to 3. For the oval drop on the cheese from Frame 3 to 4, there’s no Magic Move or any transition at all, just straight up frame-by-frame animation.

Here’s an early version to show how simple it started.

Here’s another early test. Can you tell I love sushi?

Now that you’ve got the basics, the possibilities are endless!

Here’s another Apple Keynote tutorial if you want to go further down the rabbit hole. 

Martin Gee
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