How to make an animated sticker in Telegram

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

You will need a couple of Adobe programs and some imagination.

Not so long ago, animated stickers appeared on Telegram. These funny moving pictures perfectly convey emotions and are a good alternative to gifs and familiar stickers. But if creating a regular sticker pack is quite simple, then you have to tinker with animated images.

Preparing tools

You will need an Adobe Illustrator vector graphics editor, an Adobe After Effects animation editor, and minimal skills.

In addition, you need to connect the Bodymovin-TG plugin to Adobe After Effects. It exports animations to the. TGS format supported by Telegram. To do this, close Adobe After Effects if it is open. Download and install the app. It is compatible with both Windows and macOS. Download the plugin (the file you need is called bodymovin-tg.zxp).

Now start ZXPInstaller and click on its window. Select the downloaded plugin and wait while the app installs it.

Open Adobe After Effects. Then do the following:

• On Windows, open Edit → Preferences → Scripts and Expressions…. Check the "Allow scripts to write files and access the Network" option. Click OK.
• On macOS, open Adobe After Effects → Preferences → Scripts And Expressions …. Check the "Allow scripts to write files and access the Network" option. Click OK.

Click Window → Extensions. If you did everything correctly, then in the list of extensions you will see Bodymovin for Telegram Stickers.

That's it, the instruments are set up. Now it's time to get creative.

Draw vector graphics

Create a new project in Adobe Illustrator. The canvas size should be exactly 512 × 512 pixels - this is important. The project should not have a background. Objects cannot go outside the artboard.

For example, we will draw a face. It can be made up of shapes in the Illustrator toolbar. Each part that is significant for animation (arm, leg, eye) should be placed on a separate layer. It is better to immediately sign what is where, so as not to get confused.

When your graphics are ready, save them in AI format.

Importing graphics into After Effects

Open After Effects and compose. Its dimensions should be exactly 512 × 512 pixels. The number of frames per second is 30 or 60 (for a simple animation like ours, 30 is suitable). The duration of the composition should not exceed 3 seconds.

Then click File → Import → File and find your AI graphics. In the drop-down list "Import as:" select "Composition - keep layer sizes" and click "Import".

Your graphics are imported along with all layers. Select them (they will be in AI format) and drag them to the Create New Composition icon.

The program will ask you for confirmation. Click OK.

The order of the layers may be slightly out of order. Drag and drop them in the panel at the bottom left, placing them in the desired sequence.

Now we need to create shapes for animation from vector layers. To do this, select the layers and right-click, then New → Create Shapes From Vector Layer. The so-called curves will turn out.

After that, the layers in the AI format can be removed so that they do not get in the way. Select them while holding down the Ctrl key and press Delete. Only curves will remain.

Done, import is complete.

How to create animation

In Adobe After Effects, you can create animations of very different complexity. But we will not dive into the jungle and, for example, will try to make our face just raise an eyebrow.

Select the eyebrow you want to animate and left-click on it. Click the> icon next to the curve in the lower left panel and select "Convert".

Using the icons that appear on the panel, you can change the position, scale, rotation angle and transparency of objects in the animation. Since we only need to raise the eyebrow, we will manage by changing its position.

Click Anchor Point and Position. Then drag the time pointer on the timeline a third second of the animation (pull all the way).

Click on the diamonds in the left sidebar, to the left of Anchor Point and Position. This will loop your animation: its first frame will be the same as the last one. This is important, otherwise Telegram will not accept your sticker.

Now place the time pointer roughly in the middle of the timeline.

Click on the diamonds again to create an anchor point there as well. And change the position of the eyebrow by lifting it. This can be done using the numbers next to the "Position" parameter or by dragging the eyebrow manually with the mouse or with the arrow keys.

Press the space bar to start the animation playback. Everything, the eyebrow moves.

Similarly, you can make other objects move in the animation. Just create anchor points for them by clicking on the diamonds and change their position.

Exporting a sticker

Click Window → Extensions → Bodymovin for Telegram Stickers. Select the composition you want to export (in our case, the one with the “Eyebrow” mark). In the Destination Folder parameter, specify the folder where to save your sticker. And click Render.

If everything is in order, the extension will report the completion of rendering. Click Done. If something is wrong, the extension will prompt you. However, only in English.

The sticker will be saved in the folder you specified under the name data.tgs.

Place a sticker on Telegram

Start a bot in Telegram and send a command to it / newanimated … The bot will offer to choose a name for the new set of animated stickers - enter it and send a message.

Then send the sticker to the bot by dragging and dropping the data.tgs file into the Telegram window.

The bot will ask you to send an emoticon with which the sticker is associated - do it. If you have more animated options for this set, add them. When done, enter the command / publish and select your sticker pack from the drop-down list. You can assign an icon to it, if you have one (it must be a TGS image up to 32 kilobytes in size). However, this step can be skipped without any problems by going to the command / skip.

The last step is to choose a short address for your dialing. The bot will create a link where you and your friends can access the sticker. Click on it and you can add a new animation to the collection as usual.

Your first hand-made animated sticker is ready. And you can access our animation by clicking on.