Adobe AfterEffects... some advice please

[Dear Mr Echo]

Hi
After doing some reading and looking at Computer Arts Projects magazine I've decided I'd like to learn to use After Effects to get 'something else' going. I use Photoshop and Illustrator everyday in my work so I'm guessing that there will be a similar sort of intuitive control that I'm used to with those other programmes.

So are there any users of AE out there? Would you like to pass on any words of wisdom, recommendations for books or online resources? I'd like to hear them :)

[Phayze]

If you're used to PS/Ill, you'll probably snap straight into AE - it's very similar (as far as it can be). Once you've got the hang of adding keyframes, masks, and having compositions within compositions, there's a lot you can do with it...

[Dear Mr Echo]

Cheers Phayze
I found this site (http://www.creativecow.net/), which has some useful tutorials to work through.

[Mr Biggles]

I use AE a lot at work and if you're familiar with Photoshop, you shouldn't have any trouble picking it up. When I first started using it, I thought of it as 'animated Photoshop'. I was going to recommend Creative Cow - there are plenty of tutorials on there, though the quality varies a bit. Another good site for tutorials is http://www.ayatoweb.com/ae_tips_e.html though he's Japanese so his english is a little confusing at times. Once you're familiar with the program though, you should be able to work out what he means. A good company for plugins is Trapcode (http://www.trapcode.com)

[Dear Mr Echo]

Thanks for that Mr Biggles - some very interesting stuff on both those links. I've been working in the music industry for nearly 17 years doing graphics for print and it has to be said A) I'm a bit bored with it and B) it's on it's way out - a sad fact but I don't see a future where people own physical media. I probably should have made a move away from print years ago!