Hello! In this article called Animate illuminated scenes in Clip Studio PAINT I will teach you how to create scenes full of lights ideal for the end of year parties.

What we will do:

We will start with this animation:

What we will be able to do:

Then I invite you to add lights to our animation with the tools that we can use in Clip Studio PAINT.

Animate illuminated scenes in Clip Studio PAINT (TUTORIAL)

Remember to activate the subtitles in your language, you will surely find it :)

What do you think about the video? We saw step by step how to add lights and create a bright atmosphere in our animation.

Step by step process:

Now we will see the entire process through images, so you will understand it even better.

1. Creation of the Animation project

Let's go to File - New. In project we choose the last option, the Animation option.

Size: 3840 x 2160.

600 dpi (You can do this however you want)

In Timeline: Frames per second at 8 and Duration at 12 frames.

Having all this ready, we click OK.

2. Timeline

Let's go to Window - Timeline.

Now it is visible so we can use it.

3. Save the project

Let's go to File - Save As.

We change the name and we must always have Type activated: CLIP STUDIO FORMAT

And we choose the folder where we want to save our project.

4. Animation folder with layers folder

Before starting the firework animation, we will delete the animation folder that is created by default. In the layers panel in the option: Delete layer.

And we create a new animation folder from the timeline.

We change the name and inside this animation folder we create a new layers folder.

And inside this layers folder we create 2 new raster layers, named Base and FXs.

In the timeline, in frame 1 of this animation folder we activate: Assign cel to frame. We choose the only cell we have created and click OK.

And we are ready to start animating our firework.

5. Firework animation

The truth is that this animation will be quite simple, very similar to an explosion. I will make this animation as simple as possible so that you can do it too.

 

In frame 1 we will make this drawing:

Once we have made the first drawing, we advance to frame 2 and create a new Animation cel.

And as you can see, the new animation cel has been created in the layers panel with the same layers created previously, even with the same names. That's the magic of creating an animation cel as a layer folder.

 

It will save us a lot of time!

Now we make the second drawing of the animation, without forgetting to activate the onion skin, so we can see the previous drawing and thus be able to guide ourselves.

Next we will draw frame 3, following the trajectory of the initial movement.

In frame 4 we will only draw a circle, because the firework has reached its peak and is preparing to explode. It will be the simplest drawing we will make.

In frame 5 we draw the shape where it already begins to explode.

In frame 6 the explosion begins to expand little by little.

In frame 7 the firework begins to explode with more force.

In frame 8 we begin to draw a speed line resulting from the explosion of the firework.

In frame 9 the firework begins to expand after exploding.

In frame 10 we draw some lines since the firework has exploded.

In frame 11 we draw just a few points, creating the trail left by the firework resulting from the explosion.

And finally, in frame 12 we create a new cel but it will be an empty cel.

6. Firework Animation Preview

This is the result we have achieved by making a very simple animation.

7. Effects of fireworks

We activate the Airbrush tool.

In Soft Sub Tool.

We are going to choose the FXs layer that we created previously, and we are going to blur the external part of the firework, in each of the animation drawings.

8. Firework animation with effects

Applying the above we can achieve the following result:

9. Fireworks

As you can see, with the same method we can vary the drawings and we can achieve different results.

10. Integrate fireworks into a scene

To use fireworks in a scene is quite simple, we have the fireworks project, we select the one we want to use, we will start with the one I showed previously.

Let's go to Edit - Copy

And we go to the other project, to the animation where we will integrate the firework.

And we go to Edit - Paste

With the Move Layer tool we can select the firework animation and move it within the scene.

At first it won't look very good because we made the animation black, but in Clip Studio PAINT we have a very useful tool, which we will use below.

 

We select the firework animation and activate: Change Layer Color.

By default it will paint the animation blue, but if we click on: Layer Color, we can change the color.

And for this first firework we will choose a light color, it can be white or yellow.

And we can make it look like this:

Now we are going to use the second firework, we go back to the fireworks animations project, we select the animation, we copy it.

And we paste it in the animation scene. Don't forget to activate: Activate layer color.

And we change the color to a lighter blue.

Finally we will use the last animation, we select it, we copy it.

And we go to the animation scene. We paste it and activate: Change layer color.

This time we will choose a red color.

And for the moment we manage to have the following animation:

11. Animation Timing

Now we are going to move the fireworks animations so that they appear at different times during the course of the animation, we can do this by taking the animation on the timeline and moving them to different positions.

We managed to make it look much more natural and not so mechanical.

12. Duplicates of Fireworks

We create a new layers folder above the fireworks animations.

We take the 3 animations and incorporate them inside this new created layers folder.

We select this folder and right click: Duplicate Layer. We duplicate this folder.

And we have the fireworks duplicated, now we have 6 in total.

Now we will select each of the fireworks animations and we will edit them, both their size and their position on the timeline.

 

We will start with the red one.

Then the blue.

And we finish with yellow.

Achieving the following result:

13. Color with Gradients

Another way we can paint our fireworks is through gradients, which I show you below.

 

We start by creating a new raster layer above the first folder containing the original fireworks.

We change the name to Color and activate: Adjust to bottom layer. So everything we do on this layer will only affect the folder with the original fireworks.

We select the Gradient tool.

We select the Sky Gradient, to achieve a blue color.

And we create a new layer above the duplicate fireworks folder and we will apply a more intense color, yellow and red. Achieving a great contrast between the fireworks.

14. Animated Mood Lights

Now we are going to make some flashes of light throughout the scene, so that we can achieve an impact to best integrate the lights of the fireworks.

 

We'll start by creating a new animation folder in the timeline.

Then in the layers panel we will create a new layers folder inside this new animation folder.

It automatically acquires the name: 1

Now we will use the same gradients created previously, to do this with the right button we activate: Duplicate layer.

We have both gradients inside this new animation.

We activate Assign Cel to Frame in frame 1 of this animation, to make the gradients visible.

And for this new animation folder we will change the combination mode to: Overlay

Making the first frame look like this, in my case, I deactivated the blue gradient, leaving only the red one.

Now I'm going to duplicate the animation cel that contains the gradients, in the layers panel with right click: Duplicate Layer.

In this second cel I am going to make both gradients visible, the blue one and the yellow one.

And in the timeline we go to frame 2 and activate: Specify cels.

And we select Animation Cel number 2.

And I will duplicate both cels again, but I will lower the opacity of the new ones to 50%. I will be adding them every 1 frame in the timeline, achieving a simple animation but that will have an impact due to the change in lights produced.

The result is as follows:

15. Animated lights on the characters

Finally, and to better integrate the characters into the animation, we will make a simple light animation on both characters, you will see that the animation will look even better.

 

We'll start by creating a new animation folder from the timeline.

This new animation folder will be called Lights. Next we will create a New Animation cel.

We choose the Pen tool and change the color to a lighter tone.

And we painted certain areas of our characters.

Now we select the animation folder in the layers panel and change the blending mode to: Overlay.

Making it integrate much better.

And we animate certain areas of the characters' bodies where light is projected by the fireworks. Once we animate 3 or 4 drawings, we will duplicate that animation on the timeline to extend it.

 

It is important that this simple light animation is an animated loop.

We copy and paste this animation until we fill the entire space of the timeline.

And that's it, we have finished with all the details of our animation.

Achieving this simple but great result:

16. Export your Animation

Let's File - Export Animation - Movie

We change the name and choose the MP4 format

In the movie export settings window we leave it at 4K. 3840 x 2160. At 24 frames per second.

And our animation will be exported.

Final Animation

This is the result that we managed to achieve with our illuminated scene, I hope all the TIPS that I taught you during the tutorial and article have helped you.

See you in the next TIP.