Animating a bobbing head or head-bob in After Effects

Posted on Sunday, 19 August 2018

Animating a bobbing head or head-bob in After Effects – Simple Expression

head-bob bobbing head
So you are looking to animate a head or object as “bobbing” up and down?
I.e. you want an object to be moving up and down repeatedly, to make a bobbing head on an animated character.

How to create a simple bobbing up and down, this expression for a layer’s position can be used for this effects, simply for the y-position and still allows for keyframing the position as well. The same expression can be used for a camera position.

Animating a “head-bob” Expression:

f = 1 // the frequency in times per second for the head-bob
a = 20 // head-bob amount in pixels
y = Math.sin(time*Math.PI*f)*a;
value-[0,y,0]

To adjust the speed and distance of the head-bob, simply modify the values for frequency and amount in pixels.

Are you looking for a reliable 2D animation partner? - Sundstedt Animation

Animated Music Video Testimonials

“Anders is an amazing artist and animator! I had the pleasure of collaborating with him on a song I produced for Sofi K called “Fall Back Down.” The level of hard work and detail that he put into our music video was unbelievable. He is communicative and gives you detailed descriptions and options of ways to make something work. We sent him examples of some of the imagery, tone, and feel that we were looking for in our animation and he was able to masterfully incorporate these things in. We were blown away by his talent and the way our video came out. I think Anders is doing great things in the world of animation and will continue to impress the people he collaborates with. I’m hoping to work with him again in the future.”
Bryce Harding
bryceharding.com

If you are interested in our animated video production services, please get in touch using the contact form or direct email.

Here are some more more helpful guides, articles and pages:

Start or stop wiggle at specific time
After Effects Eye Blink Expression
How to lock the position of a mask in After Effects
Moving anchor point to center of content in After Effects
Exporting Photoshop Animation To After Effects & Looping Forever
Replace and Reconnect a PSD file in After Effects
Services – What We Do
Animation & Whiteboard Portfolio
Professional Video Skin Retouch Services
2.5D Parallax 3D Effect Animated Photo Service
Explainer Video Production Service
Healthcare, Biotech, Medical & Pharmaceutical Animation
Artist or a band wanting an animated music video?
Animated Music Video Production Studio
Lyric Video Production Service
Non-Profit Explainer Video Services
Corporate Video Production Services
Animated Infographics
Title Sequence Design Services
Childrens Book Illustration
2D Background Artist Services
Animated Book Trailers Videos Production
Book Trailer Video Service
Colour Grading Services
Whiteboard Animation Service
VideoScribe Video Production Service
Whiteboard Animation Companies
Dark Energy – Animated Music Video
Poka – Animated Music Video
Replace new lines with commas in Notepad++
Fix the Formatting for Outlook.com Signatures

Ready To Partner?


Back To Top

How useful was this post?

Click on a star to rate it!

Average rating 0 / 5. Vote count: 0

No votes so far! Be the first to rate this post.

We are sorry that this post was not useful for you!

Let us improve this post!

Tell us how we can improve this post?

Don`t copy text!