How Much Will it Cost Me to Start in Motion Design?

The minimum requirements for Windows:

Processor: Intel or AMD Quad-Core Processor
Operating system: Microsoft Windows 10 (64 bit)
RAM: 16 GB of RAM

The minimum requirements for Mac:

Processor: Intel, Native Apple Silicon, Rosetta2 Supported Quad-Core Processor
Operating system: macOS v10.15 (Catalina) or later
RAM: 16 GB of RAM

So given all your expenses on hardware, software and education, the approximate cost will
be $1500 to start a motion design career in After Effects.

You can build a thriving career as a 2D Motion Graphics Designer, a role that is consistently increasing in demand.

Suppose you decide to pursue this career path, it may take a while to reach solid proficiency and even more time to achieve mastery. So please be sure that you truly want a career in motion design. 

An ordinary PC will allow you to create high-quality animations as a 2D Designer. Additionally, 2D animation is much less time-consuming than other formats. 

Once you’ve got some practice in, it would serve your education well to find a job in a studio as an intern. Maybe you have to work for free, but ideally you get paid for your time and experience a rapid improvement in your skills. Aside from design, you’ll also learn how to manage your time and organize your work, which will help you appear much more professional.

Learning on YouTube is great for beginners, but once you feel that you’re ready for something more serious, you can invest in online courses. Always check if the school provides any free resources so you can check out their style and materials. 

There are also a bunch of amazing tools and software. You can learn how to use Crazy Shapes and Deekay Tool for After Effects if you sign up for our free webinar series with Yaroslav Kononov, the founder of Motion Design School. You can download the trial versions by registering for the Motion Design School webinar.

If you are considering starting with 3D right away, you should
start with mastering Blender 3D software.

Blender is one of the most powerful 3D graphic design programs available. It gives users access to an open-source platform where they can use a wide range of graphic design tools. Blender is utilized by a wide range of creators, from individual hobbyists to huge organizations like Facebook, as well as TV and film studios like The Hunger Games.

Although it’s free to download, Blender and many of its features can’t be used by everyone. Like most software, Blender has minimum standard requirements for the hardware and software (mostly hardware) on your computer to operate effectively.

One of the primary uses of computing power on Blender is for rendering, which is the process of loading the graphic details of specific models and images. Blender’s rendering tools lie on a spectrum, as some are significantly more performance-intensive than others.

First off, the absolute minimum hardware and software specs to run a program should never be what you’re looking to meet. The minimum specs should allow you to download and use the program’s most basic features. However, the program will be pretty slow, and you may not be able to use some more intensive features without crashes.

Nonetheless, the list may still be useful to some users to determine what the low bar is. Below, we provide the list of Blender’s minimum requirements, based on the information provided on the Blender’s website and other sources.

Operating system: Windows 8.1+, macOS 10.13+, or Linux

Storage space: ~500 MB
Display: 1280×720, 24 bit
CPU: 64-bit dual-core with SSE2 support, 2 GHz
RAM: 8 GB
Graphics card: Any GPU card operating on OpenGL 3.3 GPU with 2 GB RAM
Mouse: Standard mouse, trackpad, or pen and tablet

If you want to go beyond the minimum specs and get the most out of Blender, you’ll need some upgrades. Better hardware will optimize your Blender experience and prevent significant lagging, crashes, and other issues. In this section, we’ll go over a list of preferred device specifications based on the insight from community users, benchmark reviews, and Blender’s optimal requirements list.

Operating system: Windows 8.1+, macOS 10.13+, or Linux

Storage space: 1 TB
Display: 2560×1440, 24 bit (maybe even two)
CPU: 64-bit eight-core with SSE2 support, 2.9+ GHz, (e.g. AMD Threadripper 3990X, 3970X, 3960X; Intel i9 10980XE, 10900k)
RAM: 32+ GB
Graphics card: High-quality GPU card or dual-graphics card with 12+ GB RAM
Mouse: Three-button mouse or pen and tablet

This list of device specifications below is more than capable of running Blender at a high-performance level and should allow you to use all of the features of Blender. However, think of this list more as a starting point as everyone’s setup is different, and if you already have a specific use for Blender in mind, you may not require all of these specifications.

So these are the major investments, but the question is how to make the most of them and make money. Not sure what your profit can be if you undertake the motion designer path? Take a look at how much motion designers can earn.

Seems like a lot of investment, requirements, and specifications! So you may be wondering how soon you can start getting your return on investment. What if we told you that you could start getting returns immediately? The only thing you should do is sign up for one of the Motion Design School courses. In this way, you can both learn and profit from your learning at the same time!

Intrigued? Let us explain.

Thanks to the move into the new era of web 3.0, our school has transformed into Learn-to-Earn business where you can earn real money while you are still learning. The process is quite simple. So you just enroll in any course at Motion Design School, and that’s how you start to earn $eMotion Tokens or Energy.

Energy is similar to in-game asset that you use to submit your homework for review and create battles, whereas $eMotion is a money-like token that can be used in the NFT Marketplace or Metaverse. 

If your homework wins the homework battle, you will get a 5x reward which is 500 $Emotions. In total, you can earn 5000 $eMotions which equals $50. Now imagine how many people enrolled in the same course and did the same homework. If your homework is approved, you will get a 5x reward which is 500 $eMotions. In total, you can earn 5000 $eMotions which equals $50. Now imagine how many people enrolled in the same course and did the same homework. 

You can send your homework to the battles where you can make a bid of 100 $eMtions. We call these $eMotion Battles. Suppose 100 people participated in the battle, and everyone added 100 $Emotions to the pool. In this case, the battle winner will get 10000 $Emotions – 50% battle fee. The reward will be another 5000 $Emotions which equals $50. That’s how you can earn money while learning according to this approach. At the same time, you benefit from practicing and build and enrich your portfolio. In the learning process, you also grow the level score which lowers the % for the battles up to 10%.

There are even more ways to earn like NFT mints, and we’ve described them in the article about the future of online education.

You can literally earn back the money you invested while learning from top artists in the industry like Markus Magnusson, the creator of Invisible Friends. So starting with a little investment today, you can build the best possible future tomorrow.