Adobe After Effects Tutorials

VFX, SFX and CGI
After Effects is 'compositing' software, which means it is able to combine visual elements taken from a range of different sources or generated from with the software and combine them into one shot.  This shot can then be output as a normal video file to be used in editing software such as Premiere Pro.  In short, it creates 'Visual Effects' (VFX)!  The term 'Computer Generated Imagery' (CGI) is slightly different: it is usually used to describe sequences with no live action composited into them - After Effects can do this too, but it's not what we tend to use it for on our course, although one student did make an entire music video in After Effects without any live action sequences! Finally, the term 'Special Effects' (SFX) is different again and usually used to describe things like make-up and prosthetics.

Learning After Effects
After Effects is extraordinarily powerful and you can spend a whole career basically becoming an expert in this and other VFX software, so in this course we can only give you a little taste.  If you get interested and want to develop your skills in your own time, the best thing to do is to watch some examples of what it can do, then follow some tutorials to understand how to reproduce the effect you want.

In our work during lockdown we will get to know the interface and how to do things like animate type, create lighting effects and, if time, do some motion tracking.  If you really get into this post-production/VFX/motion graphics side of video, then there are whole degree courses in Post-Production and VFX.  Use the UCAS course search to identify some!

In our work we will be starting with some tutorials from within After Effects, then will move on to look at some on the Adobe website here:

https://helpx.adobe.com/uk/after-effects/tutorials.html

Once we have done these we can graduate onto some of the amazing tutorials on Video CoPilot.  However these are for earlier versions of After Effects and you will find that some things have changed considerably in the software.

https://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/

Or those at MamoWorld here:

https://mamoworld.com/after-effects-beginner-tutorials

MOTION TRACKING is a really key skill to acquire in After Effects so make sure you try some tutorials in this.

After Effects now also includes a special plugin called Boris FX Mocha for motion tracking which makes in more accurate and there is a good tutorial on how to use that here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoUpnqgCrUghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoUpnqgCrUg


And you can find many, many more excellent places for free After Effects tutorials.

Here for example is an excellent 'star wars' lightning force effect tutorial which if you work really carefully through it introduces you to many really useful concepts, in particular 'null layers' and how you use them to make objects track movements  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRKGJoZMo7I

Remember, we dont have time on the BTEC course to make you an expert, but if you have the determination, and access to the software, there is nothing stopping you!

If you are having issues running AE smoothly on your home computer set the resolution pop-up menu at the bottom of the compostion window to half or lower.  

This link also has advice on running AE smoothly: https://helpx.adobe.com/uk/after-effects/using/improve-performance.html