Adobe After Effects CC Master Course - VFX & Motion Graphics

Master basic navigation, customize the interface, and work with the composition timeline and viewport in After Effects. Speed up performance and troubleshoot lag to ensure a smoother workflow.

Learn to navigate the Adobe After Effects CC interface, mastering the core panels—project panel, viewport, and composition timeline—with menus, tools, and key panels.

Customize the After Effects interface by selecting workspaces and rearranging panels, save a new workspace, reset to saved layout, dock panels, and use lumetri scopes for color correction.

Learn to create and customize After Effects compositions, set frame size and frame rate, adjust resolution and duration, and navigate the timeline and viewport for precise editing.

Master essential After Effects tools, including shape tools, selection and move tools, rotation, and anchor point controls, to create, transform, and animate with fill, stroke, and shortcuts.

Speed up After Effects by clearing all cache and optimizing media and disk cache, preferably on an SSD. Adjust memory, enable multi-frame rendering, and use GPU acceleration for previews.

Learn about layers, layer types, and properties in Adobe After Effects, create your first animation with layer styles and masks, and convert text to shapes; download attached project files.

Explore layers in After Effects, including text, shapes, solids, null objects, and adjustment layers, plus importing Photoshop and Cinema 4D files and working with video, audio, and image layers.

Master layer properties in After Effects, including transform attributes such as anchor point, position, scale, rotation, and opacity, and animate them using the stopwatch and effects.

Master tiny layer properties in after effects, from isolation and hiding with the shy button to quality, motion blur, adjustment layers, 3d layers, and parent linking.

Learn the basics of animation in after effects by creating a composition, drawing a shape, setting the anchor point, and animating position with keyframes across multiple points.

Master layer styles in After Effects to apply drop shadow, inner and outer glow, bevel and emboss, satin, color and gradient overlays, and stroke, with blending options.

Explore layer masks in After Effects to hide and reveal parts of a layer, create elliptical and custom masks, adjust feather, expansion, and invert options for dynamic effects.

Convert text to shapes in After Effects to access shape layer features, then edit fills, strokes, and paths and animate the converted text for advanced motion graphics.

Create your first After Effects CC animation by importing assets, creating a composition, and animating the text happiness is free with scale, opacity, drop shadows, and easy ease.

Learn to export video from After Effects, export with a transparent background, and export in GIF format in this module of the Adobe After Effects CC master course.

Export your After Effects project by adding the composition to the render queue, selecting best settings and MP4 format, and targeting the desired frame rate and output location.

Learn to export a video with a transparent background in After Effects by enabling transparency and using render queue. Choose QuickTime with RGB plus alpha to preserve the transparent channel.

Export After Effects animations as animated gifs with Adobe Media Encoder, since gifs can't be exported directly from After Effects; isolate text, add to render queue, and render.

Explore Adobe Creative Cloud libraries in After Effects and use the free Adobe Color resource to boost creativity; download the module project files to get started.

Discover how to use Adobe libraries to streamline cross-software workflows between After Effects, Illustrator, and Photoshop, store and organize assets, and invite collaborators for shared access.

Create and save color themes with Adobe Color using the color wheel and harmony rules, including analogous and complementary schemes, then apply them across After Effects and other Adobe apps.

Master essential After Effects techniques, including track mattes, time reverse remapping, frame freezing, precomposition, video stabilization, and content-aware fill, with hands-on practice using the attached project.

Discover track mats in After Effects, using alpha and luma mattes to control video transparency. Learn to invert mattes and apply independent transforms on shape layers.

Master frame blending in After Effects, choosing between frame mix and pixel motion to smooth motion and adjust frame rate. Use invert selection to quickly select all layers except text.

Learn time remapping in After Effects, using keyframes to adjust video speed, enable time remapping, and apply frame blending for smoother motion.

Explore time reverse, time stretch, and frame freeze in After Effects, using time remap, splitting layers, and freeze frame to reverse, slow down or speed up, and freeze frames.

Learn how to use pre compositions in After Effects to group text layers, apply effects and transformations to the whole group, and manage composition duration.

Apply content aware fill to erase parts of a video and fill automatically. Use the pen tool to mask, invert, and generate a fill layer to see results and artifacts.

Stabilize shaky footage in After Effects by tracking motion, analyzing forward, and applying stabilization. Scale the video to avoid edge cropping and verify stability against the original.

Master time remap in After Effects by importing footage, creating compositions, and keyframing speeds; perform color correction with Lumetri and animate text with alpha mattes.

Master faster, smarter workflows in After Effects by learning essential shortcuts, creating custom shortcuts, and applying workflow tips, with the attached project files.

Learn essential After Effects shortcuts, including the selection tool (V), text tool (Ctrl+T), transform properties (P, S, R, T, A), keyframe exposure (U), and precompose (Ctrl+Shift+C).

Learn to create and customize keyboard shortcuts in After Effects, search and replace actions like new composition, resolve conflicts, and save presets to switch between default and custom layouts.

Boost your After Effects workflow by centering anchor points for new shape layers, organizing files into folders, using lower resolution previews, clearing the cache, and enabling proxies and autosave.

Learn the 12 fundamental principles of animation and how to apply them to After Effects projects, with downloadable module project files and support to enhance your learning experience.

Explore the 12 animation principles, from squash and stretch to timing, and apply them to motion graphics in After Effects using keyframes and easing.

Explore practical animation principles in After Effects, including squash and stretch, anticipation, follow-through, arc, easing, timing and spacing, and staging to add weight, realism, and clarity to motion graphics.

Master keyframes and the graph editor in this module, learning to create and use different keyframe types. Download the attached project files and reach out with questions.

Learn to use the graph editor in After Effects to visualize and refine keyframe interpolations with value and speed graphs. Apply easy ease and bezier handles for smoother animations.

Explore seven types of keyframes in After Effects, including linear, easy ease, easy ease in, easy ease out, linear continuous, toggle hold, and rove across time, using the graph editor.

Recreate a bouncing ball in After Effects by applying the principles of animation, including squash and stretch and anticipation, using keyframes and the graph editor.

Complete an original After Effects project that applies the principles of animation, building on bouncing ball dynamics, keyframes, and the graph editor as homework. Share your results.

Explore shape modifiers in After Effects and apply them across a variety of projects and class exercises. Download the attached files and reach out with questions to enhance your learning.

Explore how to use the merge paths shape modifier in a single shape layer to combine and subtract shapes like ellipses and rectangles, creating complex designs and animated strokes.

Explore the offset path shape modifier in After Effects, using a star shape to adjust amount, copies, and joint styles (round, bevel, mint) and animate keyframes for dynamic results.

Explore the plotter and plot shape modifier in Adobe After Effects CC to inflate or deflate shapes, animate the amount, and create radical shapes across multiple layers.

Learn the repeater shape modifier in After Effects to duplicate an ellipse with controllable copies, offset, composite options, and transform properties like position, scale, rotation, and opacity for custom animations.

Learn to use the round corners shape modifier in After Effects CC, adjusting the radius to round off any shape, from rectangle to ellipse, with easy, precise control.

Learn how to use the trim paths shape modifier in After Effects to trim paths and animate start, end, and offset for strokes and fills, including multiple shapes.

Master the twist shape modifier in After Effects to twist lines and shape layers with adjustable angle and center for dynamic motion graphics, applied to ellipse, star, polygon.

Explore the wiggle paths shape modifier in After Effects, adjusting size, details, points type, and control wiggle per second, correlation, temporal and spatial phase, and random seed for hand-drawn lines.

Explore the wiggle transform shape modifier to animate a polygon’s position, scale, and rotation, control speed with wiggle per second, and use correlation and repeater for dynamic, randomized motion.

Use the zigzag shape modifier in After Effects to create animated ridges by adjusting size and ridges per segment, then refine with points, corner, smooth, and keyframe in graph editor.

Explore fill and stroke shape modifiers in After Effects, including applying fills, strokes, and gradient strokes, and animating color, stroke width, opacity, dashes, and taper with keyframes.

Explore how to add and animate rectangle, ellipse, polystar, and path shapes inside an existing shape, adjusting size, position, and roundness with keyframes, easy ease, and graph editor.

Learn to create an icon reveal animation in After Effects by importing an Illustrator vector, converting to shapes, applying the trim path, and offsetting keyframes for a smooth looping reveal.

Learn logo animation in After Effects using shape layers, trim paths, and a repeater, with keyframes for scale, position, rotation, and null object parenting to create anticipation.

recreate a vibrating gun shooting electricity at a target using After Effects, with wiggle path, dash stroke, shape layers, and loop out expressions to animate the shock beam.

Create a loading screen animation in after effects using a shape layer and the repeater modifier, with 12 copies, start opacity zero, and a 30-degree rotation centered on eight-second composition.

In this exercise for the Adobe After Effects CC Master Course, recreate a gun shooting electricity at a fan, with spinning blades, bubbles, and detailed shape layer animation.

Apply what you learned about ship modifiers to recreate a logo animation, shooting, loading, and running fan sequences in your own theme, such as a summer motif.