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FREE After Effects Basics -2D Flat Shadows in After Effects (Udemy.com)

Intro to After Effects - Learn After Effects Animation with this basic free course

Created by: Andrew Pach

Last updated November 2025

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What you will learn

  • Get started with After Effects the right way, learn essential tools & a proper workflow
  • I will touch on topics like precomposing, growing bounds, effects, simple expressions and more
  • Learn built-in effects in After Effects

How it compares

Against the other 118 rated Udemy courses in Adobe After Effects on CourseDuck:

  • Rating4.1 out of 5higher than 9% of them
  • Reviews692#18 of 119 by number of reviews
  • Length0.9 hoursshorter than 89% of them
  • Last updatedNovember 2025more recently than 84% of them

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Course Description

Learn 3 different techniques to create 2D long flat shadows and add them to your motion graphic compositions. We will take a look and create those popular long shadows which are very popular amongst the designers creating on the current flat design trend. You don't even need to have a project to work on - I have created a few sample animations which you can work on by downloading the attached project file.

The shadows will be dynamic, which means they will react to any movement that will be going on in your composition. I will show you how to save them as a preset for future use, how to link the shadow itself to a null object and much more handy quick tips like that.

A few benefits of this class:

  • Get started with After Effects the right way, learn essential tools & a proper workflow
  • I will touch on topics like precomposing, growing bounds, effects, simple expressions and more
  • We will use the repeater, work on shape layers, create shapes, duplicate layers etc.
  • We will be using only build-in effects
  • You will learn 3 different techniques to use
  • We will save animation presets for future use
  • Modernize your compositions - use it for any project
  • Learn to have fun inside of After Effects with a new technique

...What are you waiting for? Enroll now and let us start applying modern flat shadows to our animations!

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Instructor Details

Andrew Pach

Hi! My name is Andrzej Pach (but Andrew is easier to say ^^) and I spend my daily time with graphic design, presentations, motion & animation, typography, video editing, and online teaching. Most of my work is done in Adobe After Effects & Microsoft PowerPoint 2019 / 2021 / 365 and Camtasia so naturally, this is the software I want to teach about and share my experience with. I have completed more than 5000 graphic projects for clients, mostly including video animations like intros, outros, and transitions for various YouTube channels & marketers. On Fiverr alone (a freelancing website), I have more than 3500 reviews and 4k+ finished jobs. I would like to share with you the knowledge that I was able to "stack up" during the process. I am always willing to help people out by enhancing their brands and projects. 

  Who am I? 

I'm born in 1989, live in a small village in Poland, and graduated from my University in July 2014. A few years back, when I tried to find my "place" after getting hired to prepare a website, flyer, and business card for a local business in my area, I finally "felt it". Since then (2011) I have expanded my skills in this area by completing various graphic, website, and design-related projects. Places like the Warrior Forum, freelancing websites, and graphic contests across the web caught my interest and never let me go. I run my own company since April 2015.

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Reviews

4.1

692 ratings on Udemy

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By Allistair on 5/10/2021

I found the lessons informative and helpful, several of the tricks shown I was able to pick up quite quickly. However I did go through the lessons several times to go over those areas I missed

By Seemitr Verma on 8/4/2020

Thank for the basic knowledge on working with shadows. Do keep up the good work. May be the other courses of yours have more details

By Bolaji Yemi on 2/27/2020

Though I am very conversant with all of Adobe's graphic design apps but with all the motion and video apps I am quite the opposite, therefore learning from scratch. Andrzej voice pitch at every level of the course helps me remain confident in my ability to learn and progress to the next level. Can't wait to see what is in stuck with the latter part of the course. The next few lessons did not get me to where I was hoping to get, that is creating basic 2D, I think using objects only would have helped me since it was a basic beginners course (hey that is my selfish opinion, may have worked for many others). Maybe it was just me but when I took the PowerPoint presentation I was on top of my game and worked like a Pro from then on. I guess I will need to practice some more with this software. Thanks and I will still register for other AE courses, once I have built my confidence with the software

By JIMEET JAIN on 12/25/2019

i am very thankfull to udemy for keeping this course for the beginners and for giving them a opportunity through giving certificate !!! a great work.

By Abdelwahab on 2/2/2019

some points need more explanation .. whatever.. i love your videos .. and i learn new things like : save presets .. thank you very much

By Fisher on 9/9/2017

the key benefit is to know about the combination of CC Fast Blure+matte Choker, and how to fill the "shadow" with Fill. then afterwards the rest is just about letting the user twick the scene.

By Kishor Venkata Naga Vakkalanka on 6/17/2017

I am a novice in After Effects. While I am learning these shadow effects' course , I felt very good at the beginning. But felt uncomfortable losing grip as the course progresses. This is because the techniques in the course comprised of skillls of all levels... from very basic to too advanced ( like coding at one place ) , which lead to a confusion. How ever I am thankful to the author as this course introduced me about the depth of AE.

By Noor Marji on 2/28/2017

very enjoyable course! I can play around with shadows, although it would have been nicer to include more topics that cover the specifics of each tool and effect, as that part was a bit difficult for me to follow as a beginner.

By Otobo Emmanuel A. on 11/8/2016

The teacher is inspiring with great knowledge and experience in After Effects. However, i expect he teach from scratch and give clear step by step details and should be slow at explanation.

By Jordan S on 7/11/2016

Clear instruction, interesting techniques for creating 2D shadows. What makes this course so great is that it also gives a high level overview of After Effects. It's also short enough to complete in a few hours, so it would not be daunting for a newbie at all.

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Overall Score : 82 / 100