After Effects Tutorial Sites
Budding visual artists looking for something like Photoshop with a timeline, usually find themselves at the door of After Effects soon enough. And while higher end software packages exist, it remains a sophisticated and powerful application for creating animation or motion graphics, for layering and compositing text, graphics and video, and for adding special effects or post-producing ( colour corrections etc ). There’s an abundance of tutorial sites online, but there’s a few resources that are particularly handy :
videocopilot.net – has a great range of free introductory video tutorials, and sells more advanced tutorials ( as well as software plugins ).
ae.tutsplus.com – Probably the most regularly updating AE blog out there.
aescripts.com – Useful scripts that can make several tasks easier ( auto-detect edit points and separate clips into individual layers? No problem. )
[ And via Synesthete in the comments :
GREYSCALEGORILLA – has AE gems mixed in C4D and production tips.
maltaannon – in depth AE
Making It Look Great – paid DVD tutorial series has some great stuff. ]
creativecow.net/after-effects-tutorials-podcast – The pioneering motion graphics site also has 150+ video podcast episodes to wander through, from easy through to brain-squintingly hard. Which reminds…
Alternatives to Itunes For Podcasts
While the iphone/itunes combo can be a delight, it can also be a pain in the ass – Apple extending it’s control too far, and trying to limit how easily media can be moved too and from your device. Stepping outside the itunes publishing monopoly also reminds how much more can be found on the web. And indeed, there are several options for subscribing to podcasts :
Doubletwist.com
This looks interesting, coming from a company with ‘DVD Jon’ onboard ( famous for reverse engineering many pieces of software for the purpose of allowing citizens to do what they wanted with files ):
“We started doubleTwist because we were disappointed by the quality of software applications offered by the major device manufacturers. We feel that just like you don’t use a different browser for every web site you visit (Firefox to read the NY Times, IE to stream Hulu, Chrome to browse YouTube, etc) you shouldn’t have to use iTunes for Apple products, Nokia software for Nokia phones, Sony software for Sony products, etc. The typical household today has many such devices and there is a need for a simple and powerful software that connects them.”
Boasts a much bigger podcast directory than itunes, and features easy sync with any gadget, as well as amazon.com mp3 access.
Songbird ( mac / pc / linux )
Smoother interface, easy gadget syncing, social media integration, artist ticket updates.
Miro ( mac/PC/linux )
Includes audio, video podcast subscribing, bit torrent downloads, HD optimisation, smooth interface.
yamipod.com ( mac / pc / linux )
No podcast services, but worth mentioning as a good freeware app to manage an ipod.
Love to hear about any other recommended podcasts, be it tutorial wise, or clever audio storytelling from the likes of Radiolab… Drop a line if there’s something you love..
GREYSCALEGORILLA – http://greyscalegorilla.com/blog/ – has AE gems mixed in C4D and production tips.
maltaannon – http://maltaannon.com/ – in depth AE
Making It Look Great – http://www.motionworks.com.au/category/makingitlookgreat/ – paid DVD tutorial series has some great stuff.