Fundamentals on After Effects
FREE online structured course about After Effects fundamentals plus a free exclusive Motion Tools plugin
Enroll now for freeYou will gain understanding of AE's most important functions, windows and controls while bringing life to this beautiful campfire illustration. The free module will prepare you for any other After Effects course and will be just enough if you want to animate your own art.
What you get?
Start with a static illustration
This lesson was created for those who have never opened the Toon Boom Harmony before but want to learn it in a really quick way. We will have a quick overview of the interface and main frame-by-frame animation tools. So, after completing this lesson you will have a clear understanding of how this software works and will be able to create your unique animations.
End with an animated masterpiece
At this lesson, we will consider the animation of liquid trails. We will show you the creation stages of this animation, then we will talk a bit about special effects design and what approach to use when animating liquids. After this, we will create the animation of liquid trails starting from draft animation and finishing with сlean-up and coloring.
Course curriculum
Lesson 1 — After Effects Basics
In this lesson, you will get familiar with After Effects Interface and Shape Layers structure and, of course, create your first animation. By the end of the course, you will make a fish jump! Seems easy, isn't it?
Lesson 2 — Background Elements
By the end of this lesson, you will animate the whole bunch of branches, leaves, and bushes. And look, that fish is already jumping out of the water! Oh wait, the stars are flickering too and some of them are even falling. It already looks promising.
Lesson 3 — Main Objects
Here you will literally play with fire and make characters alive. We will cover the principles on the right guy with a guitar, and you can do whatever you want with others.
Lesson 4 — Stylization
The last step of animation would be to add some textures and glows, and voilà! Our animation is ready.
Lesson 5 — Render & GIF Optimization
Now whats cool about making something you can't share, right? So we've added a tutorial on how you can export this animation into GIF to share it with the whole world.
Bonus — Optimize Your Workflow with Motion Tools
And in our bonus lecture for more advanced users, we will explain in-depth what you can achieve with our Motion Tools plugin that you will receive for free. It will save you tons of time in your future motion journey.
What will I be capable of after the Fundamentals on After Effects course?
Take a look at the students' homeworks that were made during the course and see for yourself
What do our students say?
"Amazing job you guys did there. Really. I'm not new to After Effects. Originally just intended to enroll on this course for the motion plug in. But then I thought I'll give it a shot. And I'm glad I did. So many amazing tips and tricks. Also for faster workflow which I did not know about. As soon as I got some money together I will look to get one of the full courses. Keep it up guys!"
"I very much enjoyed the Fundamentals course. There were a lot of tools I’d never come across before and the Motion Tools script is so useful. I have just enrolled on to the Motion Beast course and have the Expressions Trip course ready after that so I am very excited to learn more and hopefully become a better animator as I feel my skills are limited to the basics at the moment."
"I was a complete beginner in After Effects, and this course was an absolute boon! I learned the basic interface, and how to do simple animations and the repetitive nature of specific tasks helped cement them in my mind. I'm truly grateful to you all for putting up this course! You have no idea how much you helped me out. Thank you so much!"
"I just stated this course (lesson 2) and I have to say that I'm really surprise by its quality. This online course is really perfect I have nothing wrong to tell about it. What I really like is:
- You decided to offer this course and it's super cool because lot of online courses don't propose it !
- The voice of the lecturer is super clear and the music in the background is not too loud (I'm french and I understand it easily)
- You always give the shortcuts plus we can see it in the video
- You explain the purpose of every tool, effect, etc it's super useful to have examples, it's good for the comprehension especially for beginners. Keep doing the same thing with your future courses :)"
"I really, really like it. It has taught me a lot so far. The instructions are clear and concise, and very informative. The pace is slow, but not too slow, and very easy and stress free to follow. And it was free, so thanks so much for this. "
"I've done Fundamentals Course a while ago and I think it is one of the best courses you can do online for After Effects. Great teacher, very helpful tips and clear instructions. And we ended up with an amazing animation! Thanks for this course!"
"It's awesome! I am amazed at how much value is loaded in this free course! I have learned so much from this and that's how I decided to take it further with Motion Beast. Pace is great and the instructions are clear. Totally well recommended. And thanks for the MDS Script! Sweet."
"Fundamentals has been very good. It gave an idea of how many things i didn't know and about how much time i lost using not so correct methods. It introduced me to expressions, some new effect and way to work convincing me to buy the Motion Beast course. I can wait to reach the point 9 and the followings. Also the advanced tasks are useful to learn new stuff."
"I've been having a lot of fun, It's like the best tutorial I've found so far, it's very interesting how you guys made me understand workflow, tools, concepts, and other things about animating."
"I really enjoyed it. it’s the best tutorial on after effects I have done. I still have a little bit to go but will be finishing it soon. I like how you supply the files to work from, it makes it much easier. I want to do the Motion Beast course as well."
"Fundamentals on AE, i loved the course (a lot of styling tricks) but what i enjoy the most from your course, rather than other ones, is that when you show a "how to do something", you guys first show the results, and then the process. Is annoying trying to follow a tutorial when you don't know what are you gonna get.
Keep on going the good job! (and i hope that soon i'll get one of your courses)"
"I want to say a big thank you to you guys. It’s a wonderful website for us to learn and your tutorials will breakdown parts by parts which make us easier to follow and understand. I really fall in love with the motion of the characters. [...] Hahaaaa Once again thank you for you guys to have your own time to teach us all the complicated stuff using a nice and easy way. Have a nice day, Ocean."
Meet your tutors
You will study from animators and Motion Designers from around the globe. Each of them is a professional in their own field, seasoned in production studios, freelance projects with big brands and stock footages. And right, we are also sweet.
Yaroslav Kononov
The author of the first Motion Beast course, CEO of Yaroflasher studio. More than 10 years of experience in motion design and animation.
Ihor Karas
ool animator and teacher. The voice of the course. We call him Reference-Man since he always acts and records himself before making character animations.
Vladimir Liubarsky
Experienced graphic designer, who smoothly transferred to the animation field. He can tell a lot about the workflow, ideas generation and many other tricks of the trade.
Denys Siurin
An experienced 3D designer who transferred to Motion Design. Loves bringing life to simple shapes and images. Was a student of Motion Beast course, so he knows the pain of getting through.
Sergey Bolobaev
Loves After Effects and everything related to it. Highly skilled in organizing processes. Will help you out throughout the education process.
How much?
It’s absolutely 100% free. Just deal with it.
Fundamentals on After Effects
Enroll now for free6 lessons are enough to make you comfortable with AE and help you animate your own artwork.
- 6 video lessons (2.5 hours in total);
- Our own studio plugin — Motion Tools.