Great Online Adobe After Effects Tutorials

Taking advantage of the online resources for After Effects.

Like a lot of editors, when I run into challenges that have me stumped, I often turn to the web for an answer. Over the years I have collected a number of links that have helped me in the past.

In this week's blog we'll discuss the tutorials and tips for Adobe After Effects. There are a lot of tutorials out there, but these are the ones that I have found most helpful.

My favorites are the ones that can be achieved within the core toolset of After Effects. Those are the ones I have included here.

• MotionScript.com has a lot of great expressions to simulate things that happen in nature. One such expression that I have used (and love the result) is the bouncing ball from Physical Simulations.
  
  
• The Surfaced Studio channel on YouTube is a great resource for a number of different techniques in After Effects. In addition, they are somewhat entertaining to watch as well.
  
  
• Creating and Tracking Smoke in Adobe After Effects CS6 from Stefano Virgilli. This technique came in very handy when I was restoring my video "Mouse Failure".  There are other tutorials on creating smoke, but this one achieves the most realistic look.
  
  
  
• After Effects - 2D Track from 3D Camera Tracking from Dylan Reeve on Vimeo. This is a great idea. I haven't used it yet, but I often run into the problems that Dylan mentions when doing 2D tracking.
  
  
  
• Create A Gas Giant Planet Scene In After Effects from Chris Johnson-Standley. This tutorial is in a written tutorial, the video is of the final effect. I have used this technique and love the result.
  

I hope you get as much out of these tutorials and resources as I did. Please feel free to let me know if there are any others that I may have left out.