Research Resource Discovery

Explore the tools in After Effects that help with the animation "between" the animation: keyframe assistants. These features help speed up repetitive tasks and add style to animations. This course starts with the basics: using the Keyframe Assistant tool itself to control the appearance, sequence, and timing of multiple layers within a single pre-composition. Then you'll move into very refined, keyframe-specific adjustments using a few different tools: Convert Audio to Keyframes, the Wiggler, ease adjustments, and expressions. In the final chapter, author Ian Robinson explores some very helpful third-party assistants like LayerMonkey, MotionMonkey, PlaneSpace, and Ecospace to speed up your day-to-day workflow.

Keylight is a powerful keyer turned After Effects plugin. It was developed for use in features films and is now available with every copy of After Effects. In this course, Luisa Winters helps you understand what keying is, how Keylight works, and how to get the best green-screen footage from your shoot while in production. Then she demonstrates basic keying and techniques for refining mattes, using masks, and correcting color. Use these tips to create your own amazing composites in After Effects. It all starts with a great key!

Even if you've already established an After Effects workflow that suits you, exploring overlooked features and shortcuts can only help you work more efficiently with this powerful application. In this course, learn tips for creating a fast and efficient motion graphics workflow in the After Effects timeline-leaving you with more time for creativity. This installment of After Effects Guru reveals time-saving features for navigating to specific timecodes, adjusting keyframes, changing layer behavior, working with layer modes, and using composition markers.

In this course, Rich Harrington offers tips for creating a fast and efficient motion graphics workflow in the After Effects timeline—leaving you with more time for creativity. This installment of After Effects Guru reveals time-saving features for navigating to specific timecodes, adjusting keyframes, changing layer behavior and applying effects with switches, and using markers to annotate your projects.

This course was created by Rich Harrington. We are honored to host this content in our library.

Join Nick Harauz as he takes you through some of the options available to enhance your motion graphics workflow. Start by looking at what's already in After Effects and discover what else becomes available when looking beyond the After Effects hood. Find out what third-party plugins can do for your workflow and when these might come in handy on your next AE project. This course explores major plugin packages, advanced options, and more.

Video editors look to enhance their projects by using motion graphic templates to spice up their work. In this course, learn how to work with and create After Effects text templates that you can modify later in Adobe Premiere Pro. Nick Harauz breaks down how complicated templates are designed, and how to get more comfortable with tweaking them. Plus, he shows how to create your own mosaic template to update inside of Premiere.

This course was created by RHED Pixel. We're honored to host this content in our library.

One of the ways to add drama to video and animation is the manipulation of time. In this course Eran Stern shows different ways to control time in After Effects, from basic linear changes through time remapping and time warp. He'll review all the effects in the Time category and explore real-life usages of each one. He also examines methods to add synthetic motion blur, and use time-related effects to achieve unique effects such as morph, echo, and strobe. At the end you'll be able to use these techniques to add magical visual effects to your videos, titles, and motion graphics.

Having a solid understanding of how compositing works—and what can be achieved in After Effects—can alter your overall approach to shooting time lapses. In this course, Keith Kiska demonstrates how to effectively apply 3D motion and compositing effects in After Effects to create superior time-lapse shots. Keith explains how to add dynamic movement to static shots, and goes over how to add or remove elements from your shots. He also shares helpful methods for compositing layered shots by adding skies, composing stylized text into your time-lapse shots, and creating HyperZoom time lapses.

Whether it's removing camera shake or tracking a camera's movement, After Effects has you covered. You can apply a variety of techniques to smooth out the camera movement in a shot, using the After Effects Warp Stabilizer VFX effect, and track the camera to add objects into a scene realistically. Rich Harrington shows you how in this installment of After Effects Guru.

Generator effects can be used to solve many problems when creating motion graphics and VFX projects—and to add unique creative twists you can't replicate with other After Effects tools. In this course, author Ian Robinson shows how to use generator effects to attach multiple layers, create animated glints and highlights, achieve better blended composites, and more. Follow along as he introduces a variety of next-level mograph techniques for creating interesting backgrounds, repeating graphic elements, and applying 2D and 3D type treatments, and walks through a complete map-based infographic generated with effects like Grid, Stroke, Vegas, Write-on, and Radio Waves.

Every Adobe After Effects user could benefit from having more time at their disposal. As you build motion graphics and special effects, your computer has to work hard. The choices you make greatly impact how long your computer takes to build these effects, as well as the results you'll ultimately get. In this course, learn important strategies that can help you render faster and work less. Explore how to use render settings templates and output modules, render with Adobe Media Encoder, create and save RAM previews, set up a network render, and more.

Every Adobe After Effects user could benefit from having more time at their disposal. As you build motion graphics and special effects, your computer has to work hard. The choices you make greatly impact how long your computer takes to build these effects, as well as the results you'll ultimately get. In this course, learn important strategies that can help you render faster and work less. Explore how to use render settings templates and output modules, render with Adobe Media Encoder, create and save RAM previews, set up a network render, and more.

After Effects Guru helps you dig deep into advanced After Effects options and techniques. This first installment focuses on the new CINEMA 4D (C4D) Lite plugin—a slimmed down version of MAXON's 3D modeling program offered with After Effects CC—and the exciting ways the two programs integrate.

Author Ian Robinson walks through the basics of using C4D Lite and moving between C4D and After Effects. Learn to match your frame rates and project settings, create 3D type and other models, apply materials, add animation, and output your project for compositing in After Effects. Covering the basic linear workflow, this course is the perfect introduction for the experienced After Effects artist who's new to the C4D workflow.

This course was created by Ian Robinson and produced by Rich Harrington. We are honored to host this content in our library.

Photoshop is well suited for creating initial concept boards, storyboarding, and preparing elements for animation in After Effects. By doing this prep work in Photoshop, you can save precious render time later in the animation process. In this course, After Effects guru Ian Robinson shows how use channels and masks to isolate selected elements from stills. He also creates storyboards in Photoshop and optimizes those documents to speed up the next step in the process: animation in After Effects. Plus, learn how to create depth mattes, correct lens distortion and sharpen video using Photoshop's video editing capabilities, and use the data sets modular workflow to speed up creation of repetitive elements like lower thirds.

Join Ian Robinson for a closer look at all of the different ways to animate vector graphics in Adobe After Effects. But rather than focusing on just the tools native to After Effects, he explores why you should consider integrating Photoshop and Illustrator into your vector motion-graphics workflow. Learn about time-saving vector creation tools native to each application, from the Custom Shape tool in Photoshop to the Blend tool in Illustrator. Ian also shows how to tie all of these elements together while exploring how to import and animate vectors in After Effects with shape layers and the dynamic effects Stroke and Vegas.

This course was created and produced by RHED Pixel. We're honored to host this content in our library.

Adobe After Effects has been developed continuously for over 20 years now, meaning there are a lot of potentially useful tricks, shortcuts, and features hiding in there that you might not be aware of. Chris and Trish Meyer have used After Effects since version 1.0, making them the perfect duo to unearth these gems, polish them off, and share them with you. But this isn't some trivia contest; these are features you can put to work to save you time and learn more about what this deep motion graphics and visual effects program can do. Features that have been lurking for years will be intermixed with new ones introduced in the latest releases.

Kinetic typography is an art form that combines text and motion to express ideas in the form of animation designed to accompany spoken word or music. Join art director, author, and motion graphic designer Angie Taylor as she shares her considerable knowledge of this form. Work along with her in this unique course as she builds a complete kinetic typography project from start to finish. Along the way, discover how to create and animate text layers directly within Adobe After Effects using animators and 3D features, set up Photoshop files for animating in After Effects, and use a variety of effects and techniques to create numerous text animation styles within a single project. The course also offers lots of tips and tricks for animating 3D cameras and lights and using expressions and scripts to simplify the processes involved.

After Effects: Principles of Motion Graphics with Ian Robinson covers some of the core principles used to create motion graphics, breaking them down into smaller groups of applied techniques in After Effects. The course explores everything from gathering inspiration to integrating traditional typography, transitional elements, animated textures, color, and more into motion graphics. Instructions for building a toolkit with templates and a style guide for future projects are also included. Exercise files accompany the course.

Join Chad Perkins as he breaks down the process of creating, rigging, and animating the arm of a character in an opening title sequence in Adobe After Effects—a task traditionally performed using rigging or skeleton tools available in 3D programs. Instead, this short course shows animators how to use a combination of layers, parenting, and expressions in After Effects to create a similar effect. The course also covers parenting the arm component, picking up objects with the arm, and obscuring objects.

Discover tactics, tricks, and workarounds that can make working in After Effects easier and more fun. Owen Lowery introduces various free scripts that you can install for better functionality and faster workflow, discusses animation and design theory, and shows simple, effective ways to put that theory into practice. He guides you through several solutions to the kinds of common problems that new After Effects users tend to run into. Plus—as this course doesn't build from lesson to lesson—you can dive into whichever topic piques your interest.

After Effects Scripts & Tips explores the best free third-party scripts, along with tactics, tricks, and workarounds, that make working in After Effects easier, more productive, and much more fun. In this course, instructor Owen Lowery focuses on a the design theories of contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity (C.R.A.P.) and shows simple, effective ways to put that theory into practice. Learn about color management and how the underlying meaning of colors impact your design. Discover innovative ways to incorporate typography and custom fonts. Find out how to align 3D objects, integrate logo designs into projects, animate text, and more. The lessons aren't linear, so feel free to jump around and explore whatever scripts and tips are most interesting to you.

Get the most out of After Effects, with Eran Stern's After Effects Tips and Techniques. The aim of the series is to help you increase productivity by learning new shortcuts, hidden gems, and overlooked effects. In this part you'll learn how to overcome problems when compositing layers and matching shots, and explore a few "recipes" for popular effects. Discover how to key smoke and water, preserve transparency, match color, and create fun and popular effects such as film flash and "fake" camera tracking.

Get the most out of After Effects, with Eran Stern's After Effects Tips and Techniques. This installment is dedicated to rendering: increasing the quality and speed of your final export, as well as the RAM previews and prerenders you generate along the way. Eran shows how to optimize your system settings, addresses issues like flickering and upscaling, and introduces production-ready workflows that will increase your productivity and speed up interactions with complex projects.

Get the most out of your motion graphics workflow with After Effects Tips and Techniques, the series that introduces new shortcuts, hidden gems, and overlooked effects to experienced After Effects artists. In this course you'll learn how to make the most out of shapes, masks, text, and path effects: some of the most flexible and design-friendly elements of the software. Eran Stern shows how to scale these elements, add effects to path outlines, extrude artwork in 3D space, and incorporate numbers and expressions in your effects.

Get the most out of After Effects, with Eran Stern's After Effects Tips and Techniques. The aim of the series is to help you discover new shortcuts, hidden features, and overlooked effects, and use them to increase your productivity. In this part, you'll learn how to customize the interface, display only what you need to see, and quickly navigate across the Timeline, as well as organize your project and avoid surprises when sending it to another user.