Visual effects (VFX) is a cool technology created by placing several optical elements into the footage and finally composting the layers together. VFX can also be used to manipulate videos, and improve your presentations or websites.

VFX is an exciting field and paramount in the modern film industry, the artist ought to be abreast with the latest techniques and tools of the trade.

If you are an absolute beginner in VFX, it might be intimidating finding a VFX practice essays that is not meant for advanced users. In this post, I discuss VFX tutorials for beginners that I believe are very educative.

VFX Tutorials for Beginners

1. Lester Banks

Lester Banks has a blog where he shares an assortment of tutorials about VFX disciplines. The blog contains the most recent tutorials showcasing latest VFX and graphics technology, from 3D modeling to composting. The tutorials are free making it even more resourceful.

2. Get started with Animation in after effects

Gone are the days when animations were meant for children. Adults are increasingly becoming interested in animation making them a boom. The tutorial teaches on techniques of creating VFX in animation. A step by step guide with videos and illustrations.

What you will learn:

• How to import files from Photoshop into your composition.
• Use of keyframes- ‘a location that marks the beginning or end of a transition’ with characteristics like position, rotation, scale and more.
• Use of easing to smooth the transitions between keyframes
• Alignment of anchor points to assign a parent/child relationship. Example when scaling or rotating a car you need all the parts like the wheel to change with it. In this example, the wheel is the child that makes the car body, and the car is the parent
• Adding natural motion to a puppet
• The required steps for exporting the animation into a film.

3. The beginners guide to After Effects

Ever felt you are not using the full power of an application when using Photoshop? Mike Griggs gives elaborate steps that will get you started with ‘Photoshop for moving footage.’  Photoshop being the best manipulation tool worldwide, Griggs shares his top tips that will make you ‘Jack of all Digital Trades’ when it comes to moving footage.

What you will learn:

• How to save an after effect file. How to save the file to include all the compositions contained in the project.
• Creation of a new piece with external images or videos saved within the project
• Layers: use of footage and objects in one layer to mask lower layers
• Expressions: Adding scripting language to create animation cycles. There is also a brief paragraph that teaches the ‘how to create personal expressions.’
• Creation of Kinetic typography with the help of some selected technical tools.
• Shape layer: use of specific animation tools to create shape layers such as vector shapes.
• Working in 3D: the current trend is creating 3D from 2D based on the shape layers, and the lighting. Learn how to use plugin’s that create 3D files and tracking tools like the 3D tracker and the planar tracker (mocha AE)
• The RotoBrush: a new device that does rotoscope. “Rotoscoping is the process of extracting elements from video footage or cleaning the footage from unwanted elements.” These after effect tool speeds up the masking process and is very accurate.

4. The 007 Intro

The Creative Cow leader Michael Park passionately show you how to achieve a catching introduction to the James Bond films with the use of primary After Effects plug-ins. The step by step tutorial is easy to follow, and you can download it for free.

5. Adobe after effects for absolute beginners

Surfaced studio have a VFX tutorial for the very basic beginners. The tutorial is free and guarantees at the end you will have learned how to create VFX using Adobe After Effects.

What you will learn:

• The basic workflow to create a VFX in Adobe.
• The interface of Adobe After Effects: The Project window, the timeline, the preview window, configurable tool panels, playback controls and the effects and pretests.
• Importation of media
• How to create and export a composition

6. ActionVFX

There is no tutorial site bigger than ActionVFX. There is no computer technique you can’t learn. The videos might not be captivation because they are purely educative, but there is no better resource than ActionVFX.

The above tutorials are comprehensive but do not restrict your knowledge. We are as good as the materials we interact with, therefore, read more books, watch more tutorials on YouTube, practice and soon enough you will become an intermediate user.