After Effects Resources
ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS RESOURCES
DMA/LA: Digital Media Artists/Los Angeles
An association of digital artists in Los Angeles – not restricted to any particular hardware or software, though After Effects does get a lot of attention. They meet on the third Tuesday of the Month at the Barnsdall Gallery Theatre at 4800 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood.
http://www.mgla2.org/
AE Portal: A blog with “occasional news on After Effects and the World, as well as lots of links, resources and tips:
http://aeportal.blogspot.com/
Definitely check this very nice page of AE links:
http://msp.sfsu.edu/Instructors/rey/aepage/aeonline0107.html
AFTER EFFECTS USER FORUMS ON THE ADOBE SITE
http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx/.ee6b2fe/
ADOBE EXCHANGE
Community for users, with downloadable tutorials, presets, etc.
http://share.studio.adobe.com
ADOBE LABS
Cool new things under development at products at Adobe. Samples, documentation, tutorials, etc.
http://labs.adobe.com
AUTOMATIC DUCK:
A company that makes tools for exporting timelines in and out of Avid, Final Cut Pro, After Effects Combustion and Pro Tools.
http://www.automaticduck.com/
STEVE KILISKY’S AFTER EFFECTS BLOG
A blog by Steven Kilisky, the senior product designer for Adobe After Effects; lots of interesting news about AE.
http://blogs.adobe.com/skilisky/
ADAM WILT’S WEBSITE
Not an After Effects site, but useful just the same: the website of Adam Wilt, a cameraman, editor and software engineer who has a lot of really solid information about DV, HD, video in general and the proper formatting for character generation in video.
http://www.adamwilt.com/
COMPRESSION INFO:
ffmpegX
Great free video and audio encoder for MacOSX
http://www.ffmpegx.com/
Nice, somewhat blunt overview of compression.
http://blogs.adobe.com/bobddv/2006/09/manic_compression.html
Good, extremely thorough article on virtual cineamtography by Mark Christensen, who also wrote the highly recommended book Adobe After Effects 7.0: Studio Techniques, described below:
http://www.adobepress.com/articles/article.asp?p=1273350
Another great article by Christensen, about all the selection tools in After Effects:
http://www.adobepress.com/articles/article.asp?p=597700
SCRIPTING AND EXPRESSIONS
Great introduction to scripting in After Effects.
http://www.motionscript.com/
Forum of AE expressions, scripts and presets, including lots of examples that people have posted online.
http://www.aenhancers.com
TUTORIALS:
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/designcenter/search.cfm?product=After+Effects&go=Go
Adobe’s own support center, with lots of tutorials, tips and links.
http://aftereffects.digitalmedianet.com/articles/splasharticle.jsp?type=techniques
Some very useful tutorials and tips. (Along with some annoying ads.) Have a tutorial on using Automatic Duck to move projects from Avid and FCP to After Effects and back.
http://movielibrary.lynda.com/html/modPage.asp?ID=69
A few free video tutorials buried among a lot that you have to pay for. But I’ll tell you what else…I subscribe to www.lynda.com, and I find it worth every cent. So try out the free clips, but definitely consider signing up for real.
http://www.studiodaily.com/studiomonthly/archive/tutorials/howtutorials/f/graphics/
Tutorials on a variety of softwares.
http://www.stephenschleicher.com/
A geek blog with some useful tutorials and links. This guy also did a DVD called After Effects 7 PowerStart, which is available for $79.95 from www.dvcreators.net).
http://www.dvcreators.net/
And speaking of dvcreators.net… They have a lot of tutorials, tips, and collections of knowledge about various applications, including AE.
http://www.theanvel.com/
Anvel is another for-pay training service, but there are some free tutorials and background projects to play with.
http://www.toolfarm.com/tutorials/
Toolfarm sells software and plug-ins, but they also have a lot of tutorials for After Effects, Photoshop, and other applications, including some excerpts from the After Effects Power Start DVD. And I love them because they did a terrific interview about our short film Gandhi at the Bat.
http://www.tutorialfinder.com/articles/listarticle.jsp?type=AfterEffects-725-10-10
Links to AE tutorials from all over the Internet.
http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials.html
Sells stock elements and some training DVDs, but also have some interesting free tutorials (including downloadable project files).
http://forums.creativecow.net/index.html
Creative Cow is a great online community of digital artists, with lots of forums and tutorials, including quite a few video tutorials on the basics of AE.
http://www.graymachine.com/tutorials.html
A small collection of free video tutorials by a Detroit-based motion graphics artist.
BOOKS:
These are the two authors that every After Effects user should read. They cover just about every topic, basic to advanced, and together give the best and most thorough grounding in the program.
Adobe After Effects 7.0: Studio Techniques, by Mark Christiansen
More advanced than Adobe’s Classroom in a Book, this is very project-oriented and practical, and very focused on visual effects and compositing. Starts by introducing the fundamentals of using After Effects, then goes into detail about specific compositing techniques, then ends with series of “Creative Explorations” on topics like creating weather effects, pyrotechnics and learning to see. Really cool and inspiring.
The Art and Science of Digital Compositing by Ron Brinkmann
Brinkmann was one of the original designers of Shake, before it became an Apple product, as well as a notable compositor. He takes an approach that is simultaneously technical and artistic. It’s not specifically about After Effects, but it can’t be beat for a great overview of compositing.
Digital Compositing for Film and Video by Steve Wright.
Very hardcore stuff – really gets into the underlying mathematical principles of composting. But great if you want to know what’s really going on under the hood of After Effects and other compositing applications, so that you can use them better.
