Bats For Ghost Animation

For my ghost animation, the inclusion of bats would provide variety as well as be an interesting visual piece for the viewer to see. The bat images are in a PNG format in order for its background to be transparent, if the image was in any other format there would be an annoying plain colour background behind the bat. By, alternating between the two bat images (open/closed wings) it simulates the movement of a bat flapping its wings.

Shortly after finding out that the static movement of the bat work, it was then imported onto a new composition in after effects, for me to change the length of how long a layer should play on the timeline. After finding the optimal amount of time of how fast the bat should be flapping his wings, it was then taken into my main composition for duplication to create a flock of bats from varying sizes. Rather than having to individually animate every bat within the group, they were grouped together into a single layer, key frames were then placed throughout the timeline and at each key frame I will change the position of the flock, this process was repeat multiple times until I saw the bats went to my desired destination. By scrubbing over the timeline I could see the bats were smoothly moving across the screen as expected.