Adobe After Effects CC - Motion Graphics Design & VFX (Udemy.com)
Learn the techniques to start your career as a Motion Graphic artist.
Created by: Daniel Walter Scott
Last updated January 2025
Our take
Based on the ratings of 3,584 students, a sample of their written reviews and the syllabus, as the course stood in January 2025. No course pays to be reviewed.
Daniel Walter Scott's course is a short, beginner-only introduction to After Effects for motion graphics. It runs 5.2 hours across 52 lectures in 18 sections, and most lessons last a few minutes. The syllabus covers lower thirds, type animation, masking and green screen, animated bar and pie charts, parallax on still images and a little character animation. It says plainly that it is not for anyone who already has a good grasp of the software.
Reviewers like Daniel's easygoing, funny delivery and the short videos that are simple to replay. One calls it the best course for AE beginners. Another, back in multimedia after about 12 years writing C# code, says it helped them catch up on what had changed. The complaints are fewer but real. One reviewer wants the rotoscoping and camera sections redone because the software no longer matches. Another says it feels like 2014 to 2016 material. One found the narration hard to follow, and another was put off by mouth noises.
The course was last updated in January 2025, yet the requirements still mention CC 2015 and CS6, so expect some sections to feel dated. Of 3,584 reviews, 2,242 are five stars and only 62 are one or two stars. With more than 19,000 students, it is a low-risk first look at the software. It suits a weekend of small projects. It will not take you far past the basics.
Pros
- Short lessons, 52 lectures over 5.2 hours, that are easy to replay and review
- Daniel's delivery is easygoing and funny, and reviewers say he explains fundamentals clearly
- Covers lower thirds, masking, green screen, parallax and animated bar, line and pie charts
- Downloadable exercise files plus finished files to check your own work against
Cons
- Rotoscoping and camera sections no longer match current After Effects versions, per reviewers
- Requirements still point to CC 2015 and CS6, so the tooling feels dated
- One reviewer could not follow the narration, another wanted the content split into smaller pieces
The best course for AE beginners. After the course, I have now a clearer understanding of the important AE fundamentals because Daniel explains the concept in a clear and in a easy-to-follow manner.
Suits true beginners only. The course itself says it is not for anyone with a working grasp of After Effects.
What you will learn
- Create beautiful motion graphics
- Animate compelling infographics
- Choose the correct video settings.
- You’ll learn how to exporting your video easily.
- You’ll be able to create slick type animations.
- Rendering your video for Youtube & Vimeo.
- Create titles for interviews.
- Add music to your motion graphics.
- Trim & editing video.
- Add watermarking your video.
- Fixing shaky footage.
- Color correct & fix any bad footage.
- Add a vignette to your video.
- Learn how to use your skills from Illustrator & Photoshop
- How to use green screen footage
- How to mask like a pro.
- How to animate infographics like bar graphs, line graphs & pie charts.
- How to use camera to make 3D type.
- Animating static images using parallax
- Plus basic character animation.
- + More…
Course content
18 sections · 52 lectures · 5.2 hours of video 2 quizzes, 1 article
- 1Start Here 2 free previews3 lectures · 5 min
- 2Getting started quickly 1 free preview8 lectures · 1 quiz · 33 min
- 3My computer is really crappy & I keep getting lost.3 lectures · 11 min
- 4Title overlays, lower thirds & water marks5 lectures · 36 min
- 5Inspiration1 lecture · 4 min
- 6Fixing / Cleaning up your video4 lectures · 27 min
- 7Camera tracking + Time Remapping3 lectures · 29 min
- 8Animating illustrations4 lectures · 1 quiz · 22 min
- 9Masking & green screen5 lectures · 41 min
- 10Infographics2 lectures · 20 min
- 11Cameras2 lectures · 14 min
- 12Animated static images3 lectures · 21 min
- 13Swinging text1 lecture · 11 min
- 14Puppet tool.1 lecture · 6 min
- 15Effects and presets1 lecture · 7 min
- 16Exporting advanced2 lectures · 12 min
- 17What now?1 lecture · 4 min
- 18Extras3 lectures · 10 min
Who it is for
The instructor says it suits
- This course is for people who want to start earning money as a motion graphics designer.
- This course is for beginners wanting to learn to use After Effects for motion graphics and infographics.
- No previous After Effects or animation skills are necessary.
- This course is for absolute beginners.
- From Zero to Hero.
- This course is NOT for people who have a good understanding of After Effects already. This is for new people only.
What you need before you start
- Students will need to download After Effects. The latest version of CC 2015 is recommended but the earlier CS6 version will still work.
How it compares
Against the other 118 rated Udemy courses in Adobe After Effects on CourseDuck:
- Rating4.6 out of 5higher than 67% of them
- Reviews3,584#5 of 119 by number of reviews
- Length5.2 hourslonger than 70% of them
- Last updatedJanuary 2025more recently than 78% of them
Course Description
In this course you’ll learn how to create motion graphics in Adobe After Effects. This motion graphics course is everything you need to start creating beautiful animation & infographics.
As part of this course you’ll get downloadable exercise files so you can work along exactly with the trainer. You’ll also get completed files with every video so you can download and check your files against the trainers.
Your trainer is an Adobe After Effects Certified Expert and Certified Instructor. Daniel has been creating immersive infographics and motion graphics for more than 12 years.
The course is approximately 3 hours long. Each step broken into individual videos to make it easily digestible.
In this course we'll cover:
- Motion Graphics
- Infographics
- Correct video settings.
- Exporting your video easily.
- Type animation.
- Easing and motion blur.
- Rendering your video for Youtube & Vimeo.
- Titles for interviews.
- Adding music.
- Trimming & editing video.
- Watermarking your video.
- Fixing shaky footage.
- Color correcting footage.
- Add a vignette to your video.
- Matrix effect.
- Working with Illustrator
- Working with Photoshop
- Green Screen
- Masking.
- Animating bar, line & pie charts.
- 3D type.
- Animating static images using parallax
- Character animation
In this course you’ll create over 15 smaller projects so you can gain experience with the software. You can also use the exercises we create in your own portfolio.
You’ll need Adobe After Effects installed on your computer. A 30 day free trial can be downloaded directly from Adobe.
If you’ve been excited by the world of motion graphics but still haven’t started. This beginner course is perfect for you.
Dan (Adobe Certified Instructor)
Instructor Details
- 4.6 Rating
3,584 Reviews
Daniel Walter Scott
Sharing is who I am, and teaching is where I am at my best, because I've been on both sides of that equation, and getting to deliver useful training is my meaningful way to be a part of the creative community.
I've spent a long time watching others learn, and teach, to refine how I work with you to be efficient, useful and, most importantly, memorable. I want you to carry what I've shown you into a bright future.
I have a wife (a lovely Irish girl) and kids. I have lived and worked in many places (as Kiwis tend to do) – but most of my 14+ years of creating and teaching has had one overriding theme: bringing others along for the ride as we all try to change the world with our stories, our labours of love and our art.
I'm a certified Adobe instructor (ACI) in Ireland. I'm also an Adobe Certified Expert (ACE) and have completed the Adobe Certified Associate training (ACA). And I don't just do Adobe. Remember, media is a very broad term – digital blew out the borders, so we are all constantly learning.
I've been teaching for 14+ years. I come from being a media designer and content creator – so I understand exactly where you're at now. I've been there. I love this stuff. Print, digital publishing, web and video. I can see how it all connects. And I can see how we can share those connections.
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Reviews
By Stephan Wolf on 8/8/2026
Thanks, Dan! Already did the premiere pro course with you and both were top notch! Only thing I would love to have updated is the rotoscoping and camera section as the AE versions don't match up anymore
By Dan Van Ordstrand on 5/16/2026
Dan, you do an amazing job in all of your learning courses with presenting the material in an easy, straightforward manner. In my case, I've been out of the multimedia world for about 12 years while I was writing code in C# / .NET. But I'm getting back into the world of Adobe software and seeing what has changed in my time away. Following your various learning courses is making it a breeze to get caught up on everything I've missed, or never learned in the first place. Great work!
By Chris Lingard on 11/16/2023
Dan is incredibly knowledgeable and the course is really easy to follow! The lessons aren't too long so you can stay engaged easily and is full of lots of different techniques, tips and tricks to make learning After Effects easy! Thanks Dan for your hard work and effort in making this course, I really enjoyed it!
By Fide Gress on 6/14/2023
This is another course I take from Daniel Walter. I love the way he teaches, fun and well explained. Now, I should say that even thou this course is set for beginners, you actually need some basic knowledge of the adobe world or you will struggle to follow up (this is not an a-z course), specially in the beginning of the course, where I feel the organization of the sections could be arrange in a better way. However, in this course you will learn tons of info and new skills, you'll level up your knowledge and skills without a doubt. I will enroll in more of Daniel's courses.
By Varun Naik on 2/5/2023
I have bought a bunch of Dan's courses. Awesome as always. Love his teaching style and choice of examples. He doesn't let any video go boring and that really helps you to stick long enough to complete the entire course.
By YanivS02 . on 9/4/2022
Dan is my favorite instructor on Udemy, he could probably film a course about tying shoelaces and I'd still buy it. Really enjoyed and benefitted from this course, it helped me hit the ground running with a piece of software that initially seemed out there and daunting. In my opinion this is definitely worth a purchase considering the value you get.
By Mark Holley on 9/19/2021
I took this course based on Daniel Walter Scott's excellent Premiere Pro Courses, and I also purchased access to his Photoshop and Illustrator courses. I'm rating this as a 3.5 because it could have been much better. It appears to be some of his earlier work, and it shows. He doesn't really take the student through how to use After Effects from the ground up, but this course is rather an almost-manic whirlwind of YouTube-esque tutorials. The intro and outro for every video is especially annoying. I'm supplementing this with Phil Eibner's After Effects Masterclass and that's really filling in the gaps. So, 3.5 is still Average/Good. This is because Scott is still one of the most engaging instructors that I've taken courses from here, because I've learned a lot from this course even though it's more scattershot than his other courses, and because I have a feeling that this course is going to be a damned good resource when I need to do something in After Effects, but I don't quite remember how to do it. And it'll only take me seven minutes with one of these videos in order to get the gist of it. So, for $12.99 or whatever this course runs you, you will probably go from knowing nothing about After Effects to knowing a fair amount about different parts of it, even if you don't have a comprehensive idea of the basics. So I recommend it, but that doesn't mean that I wasn't also mildly disappointed. Thanks!
By Kori Thompson on 11/4/2020
This course took me from being a newbie to After Effects to someone who is COMFORTABLE adding A LOT of motion to my once-upon-a-time static work. I subsequently bought 2 more courses from Daniel because he made learning incredibly easy and fun!
By Anonymized User on 12/29/2018
Great after effect course for beginners like me. I learnt a lot about motion graphics in this course. Hope Dan can add on some animations like cartoon walking, running etc. However, in overall this course is absolutely great. Thanks
By Jean Nelson on 10/19/2017
The sounds is great, easy to follow, video is nice and short not to long to get lost..happy chappies thus far.. halfway yippeee still all good I like the part where he had to go google, good lesson in it, if you unsure, go google double check, we have to make mistakes to learn from them.. OK just finish ....now t go re watch and practice again.. Thanks Dan it was awesome.. chat soon.
Quality Score
Overall Score : 92 / 100












