Graphic Design & Illustration · Guide
How to animate on Procreate
Animation Assist turns layers into frames. Here is how to switch it on, what onion skinning is for, and a first six-frame loop you can finish tonight.
The Nextversity teamGraphic Design & Illustration schoolUpdated August 10, 20265 min read
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The short answer
Turn on Actions > Canvas > Animation Assist. A timeline appears at the bottom, and each layer becomes a frame. Draw on a new layer for each frame, press play, adjust the speed.
That is the whole feature. Procreate is built for short loops and simple animation rather than long-form work, and within that scope it is genuinely pleasant to use.
Setting up
- New canvas. Keep it modest, because animation multiplies your layer count and every frame costs memory.
- Actions > Canvas > Animation Assist on.
- The timeline appears. Add Frame creates a new layer at the end.
- Tap Settings in the timeline for frames per second, onion skin count and loop mode.
Three loop modes are worth knowing: Loop repeats from the start, Ping-Pong plays forward then backward (excellent for simple cycles), and One Shot plays once.
Onion skinning
Faded previews of neighboring frames, so you can see where the drawing was and where it is heading. This is the feature that makes hand-drawn animation possible at all.
In the timeline settings, set Onion Skin Frames to two or three and adjust the opacity until the ghosts are visible but not distracting. Too many and the canvas becomes soup.
Your first loop tonight
A bouncing ball, which is the traditional first exercise for good reason: it teaches timing, spacing and squash in six frames.
- Frame 1: ball at the top.
- Frame 2: ball a third of the way down, slightly stretched vertically.
- Frame 3: ball near the ground, stretched more.
- Frame 4: ball touching the ground, squashed wide.
- Frame 5: ball back up, stretched.
- Frame 6: ball almost at the top.
Set the loop to Ping-Pong, play it at 12 fps, and adjust. The lesson hiding in this exercise is spacing: frames close together read as slow, frames far apart read as fast. Gravity means the ball moves further per frame as it falls.
Animation is timing more than drawing. Six well-timed circles look better than sixty beautifully rendered frames with even spacing.
Frame settings worth knowing
Tap any frame in the timeline for options:
- Hold duration. Keep a frame on screen for several beats without redrawing it. This is how you get a pause without extra work.
- Duplicate. For frames that repeat.
- Foreground and background. Mark the bottom layer as background and the top as foreground, and they stay visible across every frame. Essential for a static scene with a moving subject.
Group layers to keep several drawings in one frame, which is how you animate a character on top of a static background element.
Exporting
Actions > Share:
- Animated GIF for web loops. Limited colors, small files, universally supported.
- Animated PNG when you need transparency.
- MP4 for video, social platforms and anywhere quality matters.
Export at the frame rate you designed at. Changing it afterwards changes the timing you carefully built.
When to use Procreate Dreams instead
Procreate Dreams is the separate iPad app built for animation with a proper timeline, keyframes and longer projects. If you want anything beyond short loops, that is the tool.
Animation Assist is for illustrators who want to make something move. Dreams is for animation as the main event.
What to learn before animating
Animation rewards drawing fundamentals harshly. If your character looks different in every frame, the animation is what makes it obvious.
Get comfortable drawing the same thing twice first, which means construction, shape and proportion. The Procreate course covers the drawing side, and the character design course covers keeping a character consistent, which is exactly the skill animation demands.
Procreate's help site documents Animation Assist in detail, and its main site covers Dreams.
Where to learn more
One subscription opens the whole Graphic Design & Illustration school. If you want motion at a larger scale, After Effects is in the video school.
Six frames, 12 fps, Ping-Pong. Start there tonight.
Questions people ask
Can you animate in Procreate?
Yes, with Animation Assist, which turns each layer into a frame. It handles short loops and simple animation well. Procreate Dreams is the separate app built for longer timeline work.
How do I turn on Animation Assist?
Actions menu, the Canvas tab, then toggle Animation Assist. A timeline appears at the bottom of the screen showing your layers as frames.
What is onion skinning?
Faded previews of the frames before and after the current one, so you can see where things were and where they are going. Adjust the number of frames and opacity in the timeline settings.
How many frames per second should I use?
Twelve is a common starting point for hand-drawn animation and looks lively without doubling your workload. Twenty-four is smoother and twice the drawing.
How do I export an animation from Procreate?
Actions, Share, then Animated GIF, PNG or MP4. GIF for short web loops, MP4 for video, and animated PNG when you need transparency.