55+ Game Changing Adobe After Effect Tutorials

By following After Effect tutorials, you can learn how to create stunning cinematic visual effects and motion graphics from the most experienced users.

After Effects is a powerful digital motion graphics solution from Adobe used to add wow effects to movies, overlay movies with other movies, images, to change colors, insert new elements such as text, vectors on moving shapes in 3D. The possibilities are many as you can see in the tutorials for After Effects I collected in this article. The application will allow you to adjust, composite and animate media in 3D and 2D space using powerful plugins and inbuilt features.

Learning a new software and mastering new skills and techniques is not always easy, and even experienced users may speed up and improve the result by looking others over the shoulders. This is where a sizeable collection of good quality Adobe After Effect tutorials comes in handy and I collected most of them here for your convenience.

I am sure this roundup of Adobe After Effects tutorials will be a game changer for you if you take the time to work your way through some of them. Do not forget to provide us your thoughts by adding your comments below. Also, please share this article with your friends.

Time to learn new Adobe After Effect techniques!

Soul Removal – MORE INFO

Tutorial on how to create Energy particle systems in After Effects

Basic effects – MORE INFO

This video tutorial teach you how to get started with the basic effects in After Effects

3D Light Casting – MORE INFO

Create an energy-ball that re-lights the road surface. Use reverse-tracking and build a volumetric point light.

3D Crater p1 – MORE INFO

Great tutorial in how to use Boujou to solve 3d camera movement from footage

Futuristic hud – MORE INFO

Learn how to create 3D interface display as seen in Iron Man’s helmet

Energy – MORE INFO

This this tutorial, you will learn how to create a complex energy scene with CC particle world. Learn how to animate particles in 3D with multiple instances.

Create a World Traveler Animation – MORE INFO

In today’s tutorial, we’ll be taking a look at mapping layers accurately upon a sphere, then we’ll create a line that travels between the mapped layers using expressions. Because of the 2.5D nature of After Effects, there are some interesting technical challenges to solve along the way.

Particle Man – MORE INFO

This tutorial will show you how to use Motion Vectors with one of the new features in Particular 2.2 to create the effect of particles emitted from direction of motion in live action footage.

How to Automate a Stop Motion Photo Slideshow – MORE INFO

In this tutorial you will see how to work some expressions to create your own preset that you can apply to achieve a stop motion effect for hundreds of photos. Let’s jump in!

Fracture Design – MORE INFO

Fracture layers and manipulate in 3D space with ease. Use expressions, scripts and create a distressed title.

Create a MoGraph Urban Jungle – MORE INFO

In this tutorial Naim Alwan ventures outside of After Effects for a little bit of 3D Matchmoving to create this stunning Urban Jungle effect where vector graphics are perfectly tracked to some city footage. In day 1 you will learn how to do a track using Boujou (although any matchmoving software will work for this) and then import and apply that information in After Effects successfully.

Create a Breathtakingly Awesome Rain Scene Day 1 – MORE INFO

In this massive 2 part tutorial inspired by the work of Pierre Michel, Alex Verlan shows us how to create the dramatic slow motion rain drops falling scene entirely within After Effects.

Create a Breathtakingly Awesome Rain Scene Day 2 – MORE INFO

In part 2 of this massive tutorial, the entire effect is completed with the construction of the last scene.

Create a Rhythmic ‘Beat-shake’ Effect – MORE INFO

In this tutorial you’ll learn how to make moving geometric shapes shake and shudder as if they’ve been moved by the vibrations of a beat. You’ll learn how to sync this effect to music and create the building blocks of a stunning and futuristic music video.

Add Atmospheric Grunge to Your 3d Renders – MORE INFO

Take a look at basic looking 3d render and adding a grungy atmospheric style to it using a number of post-production techniques. This will all be done in After Effects impressively taking advantage of quite a few native AE plug-ins.

“Vampire Zoo” Opening Titles Background – MORE INFO

In this tutorial, you will learn to make this really cool, stylized background plate as seen in a project called “Vampire Zoo”. You will do some basic keying with Primatte Keyer, do some color isolation to get red blood on white skin, and wrap up some with compositing in the stylized background and adding some organic camera shake. Jump in!

Creating an App Walkthrough in After Effects – MORE INFO

This tutorial will teach you the basics of creating a walkthrough for apps and websites that can be used to show functionality to clients or to instruct a customer on its use. This is a beginner tutorial more aimed toward app and web developers.

Compositing Reaper Drone – MORE INFO

In this tutorial, you will be walking you through the compositing process for creating this MQ-9 Reaper UAV shot. You will know about 3D Tracking in After Effects CS6, Exporting 3D information from AE to C4D, Rendering from C4d and finally some compositing techniques in After Effects.

Hollywood Movie Title Series – MORE INFO

Welcome back to the first Hollywood Movie Title tutorial of the New Year. Take a look at the interesting title style of movie “John Carter“. This tutorial will make this simple 2d tribal design with Photoshop and then in After Effects, animate the entire scene by integrating the logo.

Generate Splendid Spirographical Designs – MORE INFO

Resurrect a classic drawing toy in After Effects using an expression tied into a few custom sliders. This tutorial uses Trapcode Particular 2.0 to display the resulting animated patterns but CC Particle World could be used almost as easily and the results can be used in a myriad of ways for your projects. Or you can just experiment and see what kind of unique shapes you can generate just by changing a few numbers.

Simple Reflection Techniques – MORE INFO

This tutorial will show you how to create simple reflections on the floor for both individual people and crowds, in Adobe After Effects. As a bonus, you’ll pick up a valuable technique for counteracting some of the issues you may encounter when you have collapse transformations turned on.

How To Track Motion In Adobe After Effects CS3 – MORE INFO

In this tutorial you will understand how motion tracking works inside of after effects. Motion trackers tracks pixel location on frame-by-frame basis. You can track the movement of an object and then apply that tracking data to another layer or to an effect control point. Motion tracker can also be used for stabilizing the footage. You can also track multiple objects in the same layer. After Effects Motion Tracker is a flexible tool and used widely.

Light Sabers – MORE INFO

This After Effects tutorial will show you how to create light sabers like those in Star Wars.

How to Cheat an Indoor Day for Night Scene – MORE INFO

The best way to achieve an indoor day for night shot is obviously to not shoot with a big window in your shot. This tutorial will show how to make a daytime shot appear as though it is a night scene. It will show you how to approach this by creating a clean plate, inverting and color correcting a bit, and then just jumping in with a bit of roto work.

Creating 3D Cloud Motion from a Still Image – MORE INFO

This tutorial will show you how to take a 2D image of clouds and use it to create realistic 3D cloud motion, in just a few simple clicks. No cutting up of the image needed!

How to Use 3D Tracking to Save Time Rotoscoping – MORE INFO

This tutorial will cover some techniques in how to create silhouette cut outs from footage by rotoscoping the bodies and then creating a 3d environment in order to integrate the silhouettes over the original people. This will be much more time effective than traditional rotoscoping.

Car Light Trails – MORE INFO

This tutorial will show you how to create light trails created by cars in Adobe After Effects.

Create a Rockin’ Automated Slideshow – MORE INFO

With the aid of a couple of scripts, you can have thousands of photos synced to music in a matter of minutes… and speaking of a matter of minutes… that is all it will take to see all the photos! It’s a win win situation for everyone.

Colorful Flowering Logo Repeater – MORE INFO

In this tutorial, you will learn how to use a number of scripts to create multiple duplicates of your logo and control them easily. You will be able to decide how the duplicates will be positioned away from the original logo as well as how to set up an easy color scheme to save time.

Glass Orbs – MORE INFO

Use After Effects to create shiny glass orbs in 3D. Create a spherical and reflection map from images.

How To Create A Time Freeze Force Field – MORE INFO

This tutorial will show you how to create the look of someone being frozen in time by a force field.

3D Text Animation in After Effects – MORE INFO

This 3D Text Animation project gives viewers a chance to learn about the new per-character-3d animation option in After Effects CS5.

3D Building Fragmentation and Compositing – MORE INFO

This tutorial shows how to recreate the original camera from a shaky camcorder shot and make a building to line up with the one in the source plate.

How to Create the Spider Man 2 Title Effect – MORE INFO

In this tutorial you will be recreating the look and feel of the title sequence from the 2004 movie “Spider-Man 2.?

Design the Build Up of a High Tech 3D Car – MORE INFO

In this tutorial, you will prepare the 3D model within Cinema4D so it’s ready to export for Element 3D and Trapcode Form 2.0. You will then simplify and improve the structure of the model by connecting separated parts together and set up a certain amount of materials, which will be used to style the car within Element 3D later on.

Organic Liquid Filling Logo Reveal – MORE INFO

In this tutorial, you will know how to create a fluid, liquid-like transition which can be used to reveal logos, animate elements on or off, or transition between elements. Trapcode Particular will be used, although CC Particle World would also work. Topics include using custom particles, motion paths, track mattes, and creating a fluid distortion.

Create Snow and Rocket Blast – MORE INFO

This tutorial shows how he use Trapcode Particular to create the snow storm and rocket blast. You will need Trapcode’s Particular for this part of the tutorial.

Create an Intricate Interface from The Avengers – MORE INFO

In this tutorial, you will learn how to create the most interesting key parts of this stunning interface inspired The Avengers movie and learn some new techniques for creating some specific elements in the interface. It also has a short introduction with some helpful tips that will help you to make your interfaces look really awesome and professional.

Create a TV bumper in After Effects – MORE INFO

Create a cool TV bumper – using mattes in Adobe After Effects and this handy tutorial.

Animated Swirls in Adobe After Effects – MORE INFO

In this tutorial, you will create swirl on Adobe Illustrator then animate it using Adobe After Effects

Boharg II Breakdown – MORE INFO

How to create effect seen in a shortfilm called Boharg II Breakdown

Introduction to Adobe After Effects – MORE INFO

Video tutorial to help you get started with the basics of Adobe After Effects.

Graffiti Writing – MORE INFO

Learn how to simulate graffiti writing on a wall in 3D and add some paint splatter elements using After Effects.

Disintegration – MORE INFO

Build a furious procedural Disintegration effect in AE

Trim Paths – MORE INFO

This tutorial is a video that teach how to make trim paths as you can see on the map.

Starting with After Effects – MORE INFO

In this tutorial you will see how easy it is for any photoshop users out there that create a lot of effects-added branding to transform their work into a great and simple animation using After Effects, presumably to spice up your client presentation or intro to your website.

3D City – MORE INFO

Animate Your Logo Into Characters – MORE INFO

In this tutorial, you will learn some of the cool new features introduced in Trapcode Particular v2.0. Inspiration for this tutorial is from the logo reveal of the Digital Domain Animation Company.

Animation – MORE INFO

In this video tutorial you will learn how to create basic animation

Ink Bleeding Effect in After Effects – MORE INFO

In this tutorial, you will create a similar look from an older Gnarls Barkley video. This technique can be used for some incredible animations other than simply imitating a great music video.

Energetic Titles – MORE INFO

Learn advanced tips and create “3d-looking” titles. In this tutorial, you will use Sure Target preset to achieve advanced 3d moves.

Energy Wipe – MORE INFO

In this tutorial, you will learn how to create a fluid energy wipe with built-in particles.

Light Streaks 2 – MORE INFO

In this After Effects tutorial, you will use light streaks with live action footage.

3D Stroke Effect – MORE INFO

In this tutorial, you will learn how to animate a thin particle system in 3D space. Thoughout this tutorial, you will use expressions to enhance particle control.

Ancient Titles – MORE INFO

In this tutorial, you will create an ancient title in After Effects. You will bevel the title and create a realistic soft shadow.

Skin Displacement – MORE INFO

Learn how to simulate the look of bugs crawling under the skin

Lars

Lars is passionate about web design, web development, SEO, social media and loves to look into new technologies, techniques, tools etc. and to write articles for tripwire magazine readers.