10 Best After Effects Tutorials & Courses for Beginners
Looking to dive into After Effects? It's the go-to tool for creating stunning visual effects, animated titles, and seamless post-production video edits. Whether you want to master green screen keying, rotoscoping, motion tracking, or 3D camera tracking, these tutorials and courses are perfect for beginners. They integrate smoothly with Adobe programs like Photoshop, Illustrator, and Premiere Pro, making your editing process a breeze. But before we start with the After Effects tutorials, let's first talk about what After Effects is and the benefits of After Effects.
What is Adobe After Effect?
After Effects is a robust tool that is capable of creating almost any video effect out there. It is used by professionals across the world for every type of production, from business & marketing videos, and music videos to documentaries, and feature films. Post-production video editing, the creation of animated titles, graphics, and other animated visual effects, and more are the main uses for After Effects. For a seamless video editing workflow, it works well with other Adobe programs like Photoshop, Illustrator, and Premiere Pro.
It supports complex composing techniques including green screen keying, rotoscoping, motion tracking, and 3D camera tracking, and uses keyframe animation to animate almost any property over time. It can be applied to a wide range of sectors, including visual effects, web design, motion graphics, cinema, and television.
Benefits of After Effects:
- Produces animations and visual effects of a high caliber that would be very challenging to achieve with regular video editing tools.
- Enables intricate text, graphic, and video layering and compositing to create intricate motion graphics and titles.
- Realistic VFX work is made possible by sophisticated tools for tracking, keying, stabilization, and connection with 3D apps.
- Exact control over animations and effects is possible because of the timeline and keyframe technology.
- Many artistic options, including VFX, animatics, data visualization, and dynamic typography.
- Allows for a smooth workflow through integration with other Adobe creative applications.
Best After Effects Tutorials, Courses List
- The Complete Adobe After Effects Bootcamp: Basic to Advanced
- After Effects CC Masters: VFX, Motion Graphics, Animation+
- After Effects CC: The Complete Guide to After Effects CC
- After Effects - Motion Graphics & Data Visualization
- After Effects CC: The Ultimate Motion Graphics Masterclass
- After Effects: The Complete Beginner Course (All Versions)
- Adobe After Effects CC - Motion Graphics Design & VFX
- After Effects for Beginners Complete Intro to After Effects
- After Effects CC: Motion Graphics & Animation Principles
- Adobe After Effects CC For Beginners: Learn After Effects CC
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1. The Complete Adobe After Effects Bootcamp: Basic to Advanced
Learn Adobe After Effects CC: Master Motion Graphics, VFX Visual Effects, and VFX Compositing with 55+ Real World Projects. It is certainly one of the best project-based After Effects tutorials for 2024.
In this After Effects course, you will learn the following:
- Comprehensive understanding of Adobe After Effects with a working proficiency in animation and visual effects.
- Unleash your creativity with over 50 interactive projects, ranging from beginner to advanced levels.
- Discover how to create compelling Motion Graphics that enrich your videos, following a clear, user-friendly method.
- Apply advanced compositing techniques to create breathtaking video effects.
- Grasp specialized visual effects techniques such as Motion Tracking, Camera Tracking, Chroma keying, Rotoscoping, Stabilizing, and more.
- Conquer Visual Time Effects to revolutionize your Videos and Motion Graphics.
- Immerse yourself in the 3D workspace, mastering Cameras, Lights, Shadows, and 3D Motion Graphics Projects.
- Learn to import and animate Illustrator Vector Graphics seamlessly.
- Explore the art of advanced Text Animation in both 2D & 3D
- Stay ahead of the curve with the latest Responsive Design Techniques.
- And so much more, setting you on the path to becoming an accomplished expert in Motion Graphics, Visual Effects, and Compositing.
You will go through creating useful and practical animations and learn how to use simple and complex animation techniques. You will start with a fast track to get familiar with After Effects and Create a Crash Animation. You will then learn all about the essential transformations using practical animations and useful examples.
You will build Projects and Videos from scratch and practically learn more about numerous features and functions of After Effects. You will go through projects where you will learn how to create animation sequences and package a whole video.
Featured Student Review: "When I was beginning Aftereffect, I didn't know how to use it and even its workspace. but now I make videos for Business places and even I am gonna be a Teacher to make Students learn video motion. still, I haven't graduated from this Course, I am in section 20. This dear teacher is the best teacher in the world because he makes me learn this Course the best way that I can understand lessons or I can feel that I can create every video that I need."
- Course rating: 4.7 out of 5.0
- Duration: 35 hours
- Certificate: Certificate on completion
2. After Effects CC Masters: VFX, Motion Graphics, Animation+
Learn Beginner to Advanced Adobe After Effects CC: Motion Graphics, Kinetic Typography, Visual Effects VFX, Animation+
With this After Effects course, you will:
- Know how to use After Effects to make your videos better than ever
- Be comfortable using After Effects - even if you're a beginner
- Know how to create a video project from start to finish in After Effects
- Create professional motion graphics that improve your videos
- Add creative visual effects to your video projects
- Export high-quality videos from After Effects and know how to use it with Premiere Pro efficiently
- Full support of an instructor who loves teaching.
This beginner's guide to After Effects tutorials will teach you how to start a new composition, using the basic tools, work in the After Effects CC timeline, add shape and text layers, animate position, scale, rotation, and opacity, work with shape layers and masks, real-world projects such as lower thirds and bumpers, motion graphics principles and best practices, using video effects and presets to speed up workflow, green screen and chromakey removal, visual effects and rotoscoping, motion tracking, and video stabilization, creating unique transitions, and exporting your projects.
You'll learn all of the basics, intermediate, and advanced techniques, from working with shapes, text, and textures to video effects, transitions, and 3d cameras.
Featured Student Review: "The project-based nature of this course has been immensely helpful. By studying this course, I'm getting valuable experience creating effects. After Effects was so daunting at first because there were so... many... buttons... But this course helped me get used to the interface and learn so many artistic tricks and faster ways of working. Highly recommend!"
- Course rating: 4.6 out of 5.0
- Duration: 27.5 hours
- Certificate: Certificate on completion
3. After Effects CC: The Complete Guide to After Effects CC
Learn After Effects CC to improve your videos with professional motion graphics and visual effects.
You will learn all of the basics, intermediate, and advanced techniques, from working with shapes, text, and textures to video effects, transitions, and 3d cameras. You will learn about motion graphics in After Effects.
This After Effects tutorial will teach you how to shoot, design better presentations, create a great resume, colorize black and white photographs, and edit photos in Lightroom.
In addition, this After Effects course includes practice lessons that will get you motivated and moving toward your goals. The lessons are meant to teach you how to think like a motion graphics/video effects artist.
- Course rating: 4.6 out of 5.0
- Duration: 10 hours
- Certificate: Certificate on completion
4. After Effects - Motion Graphics & Data Visualization
Using Adobe After Effects create beautiful VFX Visual Effects, data visualization & VFX Compositing.
With this After Effects course, you will:
- Learn to take Excel spreadsheets and animate them in After Effects.
- Learn how to make animated pie charts, line charts & bar graphs.
- Learn how to create percentage counters.
- Learn how to animate icons by making beautiful infographics.
- Learn how to create 'voice-over' infographics
- Learn all the animation techniques needed to bring your data to life.
- Have the finished files so you never fall behind.
- Get downloadable exercise files & cheat sheets.
- Forum support from me and the rest of the BYOL crew.
- Techniques used by professional motion graphic designers.
- A wealth of other resources and websites to help your new career path.
You will start with the super basics, taking simple icons and breathing life into them with After Effects. You will get to work through real-life projects, connecting Excel to After Effects to transform your boring spreadsheet data into approachable visual information. You will also experiment with lighting & cameras.
Then you can do some fun things with masking, looking at how important sound is in your presentation, all the way through to exporting for Youtube, Powerpoint, and all sorts of social media including animated GIFS. There are projects for you to complete, so you can practice your VFX visual effects skills and use these for your portfolio.
Featured Student Review: "Overwhelming the first time through (mostly just watching). It will obviously take work and practice to learn these techniques but now I know what is possible as I think about my own project. Very engaging, breezy instructor who shows a lot of seemingly challenging ways to produce cool motion graphics in a short amount of time while keeping all of it interesting."
- Course rating: 4.7 out of 5.0
- Duration: 6.5 Hours
- Certificate: Certificate on completion
5. After Effects CC: The Ultimate Motion Graphics Masterclass
Create Motion Graphics with Adobe After Effects CC: Best Techniques and Methods to Become a Top Motion Graphics Artist.
With this After Effects tutorial, you will:
- Create full motion graphics videos in After Effects
- Learn how to create the 4-Phase walk for any character
- Create graphics using After Effects tools
- Use all After Effects motion graphics properties and methods
- Understand and apply the most useful visual effects for graphics
- Master the most useful After Effects motion graphics & visual effects techniques
- Import and animate illustrator graphics
You will focus on Motion Graphics while learning all about After Effects methods, techniques tips, and tricks to create awesome animations. Some practical projects are covered in this course which are the phone animation, the walking character, and angry birds.
Featured Student Review: "This is one of the best courses for beginners, Even though I had experience with After Effects before doing this course I still learned a lot of things that I didn't know before. So if you want to start using After Effects but don't know how, well this course is for you."
- Course rating: 4.5 out of 5.0
- Duration: 23.5 Hours
- Certificate: Certificate on completion
6. After Effects: The Complete Beginner Course (All Versions)
Learn How to Create Professional Motion Graphics & Animations. Add Exciting Visual Effects to Your Own Video Projects.
With this After Effects course, you will:
- Gain an understanding of how to use Adobe After Effects.
- Learn how to create professional animations & motion graphics.
- Learn how to add exciting visual effects to your own film projects.
- Progress from beginner to intermediate skill level.
- Learn how to create animated titles and infographics.
- Learn how to export & share your animations & visual effects.
In this course, you will learn to create your own motion graphics, animations, titles, and VFX for your video projects, and gain a solid understanding of all of the fundamentals of Adobe After Effects.
This course covers all of the basics of Adobe After Effects from how the interface works all the way to creating your own Morph VFX.
- Course rating: 4.3 out of 5.0
- Duration: 4 Hours
- Certificate: Certificate on completion
7. Adobe After Effects CC - Motion Graphics Design & VFX
Learn the techniques to start your career as a Motion Graphic artist.
With this After Effects tutorial, you will be able to:
- Create beautiful motion graphics
- Animate compelling infographics
- Choose the correct video settings.
- Learn how to export your video easily.
- Create slick-type animations.
- Render your video for YouTube & Vimeo.
- Create titles for interviews.
- Add music to your motion graphics.
- Trim & edit video.
- Add a watermark to your video.
- Fix shaky footage.
- Color correct & fix any bad footage.
- Add a vignette to your video.
- Learn how to use your skills in Illustrator & Photoshop
- Use green screen footage
- Mask like a pro
- Animate infographics like bar graphs, line graphs & pie charts.
- Use a camera to make a 3D type.
- Animate static images using parallax
In this After Effects course, you’ll learn how to create motion graphics in Adobe After Effects. As part of this course, you’ll get downloadable exercise files so you can work along exactly with the trainer. You’ll also get completed files with every video so you can download and check your files against the trainers. You’ll create over 15 smaller projects so you can gain experience with the software.
You can take Adobe After Effects CC - Motion Graphics Design & VFX on Udemy. For motion graphics & VFX, this tutorial can be considered the best after-effects tutorial.
Featured Student Review: "I've seen a lot of the motion graphics effects that are covered in this course and always wondered how they were done. Now I feel a whole lot more confident in creating them myself! This is a great course for beginners who are just getting started with motion graphics (like me). Thanks, Dan!"
- Course rating: 4.7 out of 5.0
- Duration: 7 Hours
- Certificate: Certificate on completion
8. After Effects for Beginners Complete Intro to After Effects
Complete Intro to After Effects - Learn After Effects CC typography and animation
With this After Effects course, you will be able to:
- Improve the quality of your videos by adding animations
- Establish a healthy understanding of motion graphics
- Use After Effects fluently and understand advanced tutorials
- The transition from a graphic designer to a graphic design & motion artist
This course will teach you all the necessary & most used After Effects tools, and a proper workflow, and show you real-life examples of animating and various tricks in the program.
Some of the things that will be covered during the course are motion graphics basics, After Effects program layout and basics, working with different types of layers, creating your first few animations, simple kinetic typography to use, real-life examples of lower thirds, logo animations, cross-usage between Photoshop / Illustrator, how to add effects to our compositions, precomposing, matting, exporting, rendering, tons of often used tricks, and keyboard shortcuts.
- Course rating: 4.7 out of 5.0
- Duration: 7 Hours
- Certificate: Certificate on completion
9. After Effects CC: Motion Graphics & Animation Principles
Learn how to create awesome motion graphics animations while implementing the animation principles in After Effects CC.
In this After Effects tutorial, you will learn:
- How to create motion graphics applying the animation principles
- The motion techniques and graphic effects to implement the animation principles.
- How to add sound effects and adjust the pitch
- How to work with time to create flowing animations
- The option to download all the graphic artworks used in the course and design your own animations
- How to download free vector artworks (AI), how to organize them in Illustrator ready to animate in After Effects
- How to create in and out transitions for explainer videos
You will start with the basics, creating simple entry animations. Step by step you will start learning the animation principles and implementing them in your animations.
You will create in and out transitions, typical animations for explainer videos. Then you’ll venture into complex animations, pop, wiggle, float, shake, and wave. You’ll familiarize yourself with Distortion techniques to create lively micro-movements. You will also learn several methods to implement these Animation Principles.
Featured Student Review: "Laoy method in teaching is the best I've come across in the udemy platform. He is responsive, and energetic, pushes you to engage with him during the course, and encourages you to do assignments that will help you create After Effects in your mind."
- Course rating: 4.4 out of 5.0
- Duration: 6 Hours
- Certificate: Certificate on completion
10. Adobe After Effects CC For Beginners: Learn After Effects CC
Adobe After Effects CC For Beginners: Create Motion Graphics, Animate Text, Key Framing, Importing, Exporting & More!
With this After Effects course, you will be able to:
- Understand Adobe After Effects windows and controls
- Create lower third titles
- Create motion graphic titles
- Create and save composition and export presets
- Work with HD 1080p and 4K compositions
- Export video projects in High Definition
- Export animations and titles with transparent backgrounds to use with other videos
- Animate text and graphics
This course is an introduction to Adobe After Effects CC. It will get you started with understanding the software to create effects, animations, titles, and more for your video projects. This course will take you from the very beginning of opening After Effects and learning the panel windows and settings to creating your first motion graphic title.
- Course rating: 4.5 out of 5.0
- Duration: 2 Hours
- Certificate: Certificate on completion
Thank you for reading this. We hope our course curation would help you to pick the right course to learn Adobe After Effects. In case you want to explore more, you can take the free Adobe After Effects courses.
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