After Effects - Motion Graphics & Data Visualization (Udemy.com)
Using Adobe After Effects create beautiful VFX Visual Effects, data visualization & VFX Compositing.
Created by: Daniel Walter Scott
Last updated January 2025
Our take
Based on the ratings of 8,939 students, a sample of their written reviews and the syllabus, as the course stood in January 2025. No course pays to be reviewed.
A short, project-based introduction to After Effects aimed at people who need to animate charts, icons and infographics rather than build film VFX. The headline mentions VFX compositing, but the syllabus shows the real focus: animating icons, connecting Excel data to pie charts, bar graphs and percentage counters, some camera and masking work, and a long section on exporting for YouTube, PowerPoint and GIFs. At six and a half hours across 51 lectures, it's built for complete beginners who want a usable result fast, not a full tour of the program.
Daniel Walter Scott is the draw. Reviewers call him engaging, casual and easy to listen to, and one says they were already using the shortcuts at their job. Of nearly 9,000 ratings, 93 percent are four or five stars. The complaints are about pace. One four-star reviewer says they had to stop and rewind because it moves quickly, and a two-star reviewer says Dan talks fast and jumps between topics. Another wanted more depth on effects and presets. Nobody in the sample complains about outdated material, and the course was refreshed in January 2025.
Value depends on what's wanted. Next to the After Effects bootcamps and masterclasses it sits beside, this is the narrow, task-focused option: a few evenings, real-life infographic projects, exercise files and a cheat sheet included. Note that a few steps happen in Illustrator and Photoshop, so those need to be installed too. For anyone with a spreadsheet to turn into a presentable video, it's an easy recommendation. Anyone hoping for character animation, expressions or serious compositing should pick a broader course instead.
Pros
- Real workflow: Excel data becomes animated pie, line and bar charts, then exports for YouTube, PowerPoint and GIF
- Daniel Walter Scott's relaxed, down-to-earth delivery is the most praised thing in the reviews
- Exercise files, a cheat sheet and Dan's saved project files for every video to compare against
- Refreshed January 2025, and 93 percent of nearly 9,000 ratings are four or five stars
Cons
- Pace is quick; reviewers say they had to pause and rewind, and one found the topic-jumping hard to follow
- Effects and presets get only a light touch, and there are no quizzes or graded assignments
- Needs Illustrator and Photoshop as well as After Effects for a few steps
It's great so far. I'm having to stop and rewind to integrate as the pace is quite fast. But I'm learning tons!
Listed as all levels but written for total beginners; intermediate users will mostly get value from the data visualization section.
What you will learn
- You'll learn to take Excel spread sheets and animate this in After Effects.
- You’ll learn how to make animated pie charts, line charts & bar graphs.
- You’ll learn how to create percentage counters.
- You’ll learn how to animate icons making beautiful infographics.
- You’ll learn how to create 'voice over' infographics.
- You’ll learn all the animation techniques needed to bring your data to life.
- You will have the finished files so you never fall behind.
- Downloadable exercise files & cheat sheet.
- Forum support from me and the rest of the BYOL crew.
- Techniques used by professional motion graphic designers.
- A wealth of other resources and websites to help your new career path.
Course content
12 sections · 51 lectures · 6.5 hours of video 1 article
- 1Overview 3 free previews3 lectures · 6 min
- 2Animating Infographics 1 free preview11 lectures · 55 min
- 3Techniques for beautiful animation8 lectures · 45 min
- 4Camera – 1 Node1 lecture · 10 min
- 5Preview & Playback1 lecture · 7 min
- 6Icon build1 lecture · 14 min
- 7Color & Backgrounds2 lectures · 10 min
- 8Data Visualization7 lectures · 1.5 hours
- 9Camera - 2 Node1 lecture · 10 min
- 10Masking4 lectures · 23 min
- 11Real life video infographics3 lectures · 29 min
- 12Exporting9 lectures · 1.5 hours
Who it is for
The instructor says it suits
- This course is for people completely new to After Effects. No previous animation or motion graphic design experienced is necessary.
- This is a relaxed, well paced introduction that will enable you to produce impressive video for your business or organization. Only basic computing skills are necessary - If you can send emails and surf the internet then you will cope well with our course.
What you need before you start
- You will need a copy of Adobe After Effects, Illustrator & Photoshop CC 2017 or above. 90% of the course will be done in After Effects but a few things are better done in Illustrator & Photoshop. A free trial can be downloaded from Adobe.
- No previous motion graphic skills are needed.
- No previous After Effects, Illustrator or Photoshop skills are needed.
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
- Reviews8,939#3 of 119 by number of reviews
- Length6.5 hourslonger than 76% of them
- Last updatedJanuary 2025more recently than 78% of them
Quality Score
Overall Score : 92 / 100
Course Description
Hi there, my name is Dan. I’m a Adobe Certified Instructor and I LOVE animating infographics & bringing potentially boring data to life using After Effects through Data Visualization.
This course is for beginners. You don’t need any previous knowledge in VFX Compositing or any motion graphics experience. We’ll start with the super basics, taking simple icons breathing life into to them with After Effects.
We’ll work through a real life projects, connecting Excel into After Effects to transform your boring spreadsheet data into approachable visual information. We’ll experiment with lighting & cameras. We’ll do some fun things with masking, looking at how important sound is in your presentation, all the way through to exporting for Youtube, Powerpoint and all sorts of social media including animated GIFS.
There are projects for you to complete, so you can practice your VFX visual effects skills and use these for your portfolio. There is a cheat sheet and I’ve got exercise files so you can play along. I will also save my files as I go through each video so that you can compare yours to mine - handy if something goes wrong.
Know that I will be around to help - if you get lost you can drop a post on the video 'Questions and Answers' below each video and I'll be sure to get back to you.
What are you waiting for? Lets get making!
Instructor Details
- 4.6 Rating
8,939 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 Marcos Carvalho on 6/5/2026
I loved this class! I'm already using a lot of what I learned at my job, and the shortcuts have made my workflow so much smoother. I tried sending you my final assignment video to you on X, not sure if you got it. You can see it here: https://youtu.be/xlZGdSKQvqc
By Felicia Lovelett on 3/19/2026
I'm an intermediate AE user who only studies an aspect of this complex program in depth as the need arises. Currently I'm tracking a migratory bird population—charting the data in Excel is frankly, very boring. This course is an absolute perfect fit—it will give me tools to present the data in a more engaging way.
By Anonymized User on 12/17/2025
Please add character rigging to the After Effects tutorial, and include animations when mentioning keyboard shortcuts. This would be very helpful. Thank you for the great tutorial!"
By Kasturi Kankonkar on 12/9/2025
Daniel’s course was incredibly insightful and very well structured. The language was simple, the explanations were clear, and every concept was broken down in detail. After practicing the exercises, I feel confident that I can apply these techniques in my real work projects. Thank you for such a valuable learning experience! I’m hoping for advanced-level course for After Effects as well as you have advance courses for other softwares. If you already have an advanced After Effects course, please let me know—I’d love to continue learning. I truly enjoy your teaching style, and I already have a few more of your adcance courses lined up. Learning with your courses has been awesome!
By Ho Wee Peng on 10/16/2025
I really like your casual and down-to-earth personality, it makes the whole learning very fun. You were just like sharing knowledge with us and not talking down to your students from the peak of the mountains, which is a great plus. However, I just feel that there is too much of an ADHD thing going on, jumping around from this to that, talking very fast. I have ADHD myself, I tend to do this a lot and I am trying to stay away from this when sharing knowledge to help others while learning something from me. Slowing down your pace of talking would be very helpful and keeping the content more on point, just clear, “click here for this,” would be helpful. Also, a lot of “thinking out loud” talking sometimes confused me, should I be taking action on that or is it just you thinking out loud? Sometimes to a point it gets very annoying, and unbearable, hoping you could just talk normally instead to trying to be cool. Can I suggest you explore “de-essing” your vocal track in post-production of your videos? It makes it more comfortable to the ears while listeners are learning by listening with earphones.
By Sharika Chathuranga on 12/1/2022
Hello, I'm from Sri Lanka.This a very good course. I improved my after effects knowledge by 80% from this course and also everything explains clearly anyone can understand easily. Thank you again ! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 01010100 01101000 01100001 01101110 01101011 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00101100 00100000 01010101 01101110 01101001 01110110 01100101 01110010 01110011 01100101 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01100101 01110110 01100101 01110010 01111001 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100001 00100001 00100001
By Jennifer Coles on 9/9/2022
Great course, well set out and easy to follow as usual. Can I ask you to produce a separate camera lesson just for the new software. I've not used the old version and referring to it was confusing for a newbie. Thank you
By Max Moser on 7/30/2021
The course exercises were fun and well explained. The explanations were done at quite a fast pace sometimes, but I think that's also inevitable. Overall, this was a very useful course that I would recommend to others.
By Nit Juttun on 1/11/2021
Hi Dan, I used to create amazing Flash animation before and was a little bit overwhelmed to jump into After Effects, recently I updated my skills to be a UI/UX Designer and started working with Invision Studio and Lottie. Thanks to you, your tutorials are easy to follow and so much wonderful. I've learned so much. Thank you! Here's some of my work: http://www.vortex-design.ca/
By Mr Rachid Taftaf on 7/4/2019
Learn a lot thanks you, i only give 4 Star because the illustration course set up a high level of fun and efficiency that this course doesn't reach. I i never knew Dan's illustrator course i'll definitely give a 5 star












