- Undoubtedly the current king when it comes to online courses for Motion Design.
- They offer a huge variety of courses that focus on all aspects of Motion Design for all skill levels.
- Whilst majority are paid courses, they do offer a fantastic free course called The Path to Mograph.
- If you’re interested in the life of freelancing, we also highly recommend their book called The Freelance Manifesto.
- School of Motion also have over a hundred podcasts with legends of Motion Design all over the world.
- But it doesn’t stop there, they have a rich blog full of interviews, articles and tutorials, as well as a newsletter covering the week’s highlights.
- A recent, rising online school that’s getting better every passing month.
- Their FREE course on the Fundamentals of After Effects is no joke. This course also includes the fantastic Script UI Panel for After Effects called Motion Tools.
- They also have free courses for Toon Boom, Sound Design and UI Animation so make sure you snap these up and learn something fresh.
- Beyond their free courses, they have an extensive offering of paid courses for After Effects, Cinema 4D, Character Animation, and more.
- They also have a collection of Masterclasses which are shorter, more focused sessions for a reduced cost.
Now, to start with, we mentioned the word free when Lynda is clearly a paid service. If you’re a student, or you have a library card for your local library, there is a huge chance that either your university or library offer Lynda for free and all you need to do is sign in through their portal.
- While Lynda is really good at covering all the fundamentals for a huge range of programs, we find the way they deliver their content to be quite dry, at least compared to the two websites above.
- If you’re completely new to a program, Lynda is a great place to start. Beyond the basics however, we recommend looking elsewhere for further learning as you’ll find far more engaging content.
- “Hey, what’s up, Andrew Kramer here…” are all the words you need to hear at the start of a video to know you’re about to learn something new inside of After Effects.
- Video Copilot has been around for so many years, their catalog of tutorials is just insane and it’s only been getting better.
- While Video Copilot focuses more on the VFX side of After Effects, they do also offer a playlist for their Motion Design tutorials as well.
- Truly a magnificent resource for those of all skill levels.
YouTube Channels (Free)
YouTube, of course, cannot be ignored. In fact, we have our own YouTube channel!
Home to many incredible teachers offering their skills for free. We’ve compiled our favourites below:
- Ben Marriott, local Australian legend, After Effects wizard and texture king. He delivers some of the finest tutorials on YouTube.
- ECAbrams has been uploading quality After Effects tutorials to his channel for over half a dozen years now and his recent podcast, Motion Design Hotline, is wonderful.
- Jake In Motion has a small but fantastic collection of tutorials on his channel. His DUIK introductions videos are stellar.
- Gareso has recently started posting superb tutorials and workflows to his channel which showcase his brilliant use of cel animation.
- Animoplex has a huge and thorough course on expressions in After Effects. It’s crazy that it’s available for free.
- John Eriksson has a wonderful collection of quick tips for After Effects on his Vimeo page.
Here are some of our favourite, more VFX focused channels:
- Workbench host more advanced tutorials, focusing heavily on procedural effects. Incredibly rich with insights and complex techniques.
- Red Giant features numerous, lengthy tutorials which really showcase the potential of their products. It’s a must for those that use their plugins.
- Hugo’s Desk is an absolute gold mine of knowledge when it comes to compositing inside of Nuke. His eye for detail and the wealth of insight he shares make every video he releases a treasure chest of goodies.
We’re always on the hunt for other stellar teachers on YouTube. If you’ve got any favourites that we haven’t mentioned, please let us know!
- Quality over quantity here, Divison05 has incredibly rich videos covering the broader aspects of Motion Design including storyboarding, style and composition.
- Their paid, 7 hour long course, Visual Design Lab, looks like a behemoth of a resource: “Right now, your taste exceeds your core skills, and learning more software tricks ain’t gonna get you there. This will.”
- Skillshare features many shorter classes for Motion Design (and a butt load of other mediums, programs and techniques).
- Jake In Motion, mentioned above, is a rockstar on the website for his amazing Beginner’s Guide to After Effects, and Animating with Ease in After Effects classes.
- You’ve got other stars on there too, such as Fraser Davidson from the studio Cub Studio teaching Character Animation.
- Best of all, you can get a 2 MONTH FREE TRIAL where you can access every single class, so go wild.
- This page is so much more than just After Effects, covering other giants such as Cinema 4D, Houdini, Nuke and Maya.
- Lester compiles the best tutorials around the web for each program and links them on his blog, so it’s certainly worth a peek every now and then to see what you might have missed.
- If you live in Melbourne like us, and you’re not quite sure about online courses, then the local animation studio Jumbla may be the perfect fit.
- Currently, they offer 2 courses, Motion Design Fundamentals and Animation in After Effects, both 20 week courses.
- We both took their Cinema 4D Fundamentals Intensive a couple of years ago and it was exceptional.