Learning a new program is quite amazing, but it can be boring as well. I mean, you need to know where to find the right menus, learn principles how everything is working and so on. But the day comes when you want to do the amazing stuff. Of course you can Google for some tutorials that are based on creating a specific project, but you can also learn from observing and discovering.
It’s not important if you’re just a beginner or intermediate user that looks for additional ways to sharpen your skills. This approach will work for both. You can purchase After Effects template projects and learn from them by reverse engineering them. I’m reviewer on biggest After Effects templates marketplace called Video Hive and I’m also an author there. I see those projects every day and create some of them myself. What I’ve discovered is – nearly every template project is built around some interesting technique that author came up with.
The bad thing is – great authors usually don’t have enough time to create tutorials to pas on their skills. What this means for you? Instead of just learning to build another project that looks exactly like everyone’s else project who followed the same tutorial – now you can learn the techniques behind the original project. The bad thing is – great authors usually don’t have enough time to create tutorials to pas on their skills. No doubt we could learn a lot from them, but since they’re not creating tutorials – we can suck out their knowledge from their
brains projects.
To start off you need some basic training to understand how things work in After Effects. You’re good to go as soon as you’ve learned the simple things like:
- How to open comps
- How to see what effects are applied to each layer
- How to reveal keyframes and expressions
- How to turn of the shy layer which often times hide the real treasures
What to look for when you dive in and scout for great templates to learn from? Most importantly – search for templates that amaze and inspire you. Remember we’re trying to escape from those boring basic tutorials. Therefore go wild. Find the ones that you like and have fun discovering how they’re built. Avoid all kind or pre-renders. If some elements looks like generated with 3D software – read the description to find out if they really are pre-rendered or is everything made with pure After Effects. Pre-renders generally are useless for learning as they are elements, hard coded into video files and you can’t find out neither what effects are used nor how they’re animated.
For your learning pleasure I’ve put together a list of some great projects that are excellent for learning new skills and techniques.
Click here to start browsing the projects
See projects I’ve created
Can be used as a greeting card by motion artists, video producers, photographers, designers, artists, businesses, schools, families and basically anyone who wants to send out a Christmas greeting in a stylish way.
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Cool, MTV style logo reveler. Work great as a podcast opener, TV ident or logo reveler for your website, presentation, TV show, webshow, podcast, reel, film etc.
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FREE Download Beautifully, seamless looping bokeh background. Infinite color combination. Download AE CS3 project file and play with the settings, see how it’s made and use whenever you need.
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Use this beautiful project to promote your products/services or your company with strong 3D animated keywords
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Simple, stylish and elegant HD Logo reveler. Stylized with custom Lens flares. Reveal your logo and slogan or website. Easy to customize. Add your logo and slogan and you’re ready to render.
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Quick, audio synchronized, sliding image project with 10 image placeholders, 7 text placeholders, a place for your logo/slogan/url
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Simple, stylish and elegant cinematic HD Logo reveler. Stylized with custom Lens flares. Reveal your logo and slogan or website in movie style. Easy to customize. Add your logo and slogan and you’re ready to render.
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Ultra modern, stylish opener with 8 video/image holders and 12 glossy, extruded titles. Also 2 extruded 3D logo placeholders which can also be replaced with titles.
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Simple, but beautiful, animated 3D portfolio mock-up. Use to show off your web designs, photos, videos etc. 7 image/video placeholders, a place for logo, your web URL and it’s all within 50sec of stylish animation. Impress your clients. Make them desire your products/services.
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Hi-tech abstract creative and stylish opener/title sequence/logo reveler. Trendy looks, digital noise, distortion with IDM /Glitch audio track. Highly creative animation that would work great as a logo and keyword revealer for your creative company.
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Pile of glossy cubes ready to show off your best media. Can be used with both – images and video. Ten placeholders for your media. Starts and ends with your logo.
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Stunning 3D graphics without 3D software. Built using standard AE tools in a smart and innovative way. High attention to the smallest detail will ensure that this project works for professional broadcast stations as well as private online use in websites, podcasts, presentations and more.
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