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Design & media courses
Beginner friendlyThis After Effects course takes you well past the basics into motion graphics, character animation, 3D and visual effects. You animate logos and a sci-fi HUD, rig characters that walk, run and talk, light 3D scenes and fly a camera through them, track effects onto moving surfaces with Mocha, and build the shots people replay, until the effects you picture are ones you can make.
Course overview
This course starts where the basics leave off and goes a long way past them. Twelve modules and about 50 hours: effects on real footage, motion graphics, two modules of character animation, four of 3D and text effects, tracking with Mocha, then three of visual effects, from disintegration to horror eyes and electricity arcing between two hands.
By the end you can key and track a shot, rig and animate a character, build and light a 3D scene, and put an effect onto real footage so it belongs there. It assumes you already know compositions, layers, keyframes and masks. Whether you edit, design or create for your own channel, you finish with shots worth putting on a reel.
Free course guide
Every module and what it covers, the price, how you're assessed and where the course can take you.
10-page PDF, free
Curriculum
12 modules and 186 lessons, with around 50 hours of video. Work through them in order, at your own pace.
Key benefits
Everything you need to learn the skill, prove it and put it to work.
All 3 for £179 instead of £277
Getting started
There is no application, no waiting for a start date and no sales call in the way.
Pay once. Instant access, yours for life.
Career outcomes
In motion design and visual effects, your reel does most of the talking. The certificate opens the conversation, and a walking character, a metallic logo and an effects shot of your own win it.
Source: National Careers Service (gov.uk), September 2026.
An example of the certificate for the Certificate in Adobe After Effects.
If you have never opened After Effects, this course starts beyond the basics: spend an afternoon with Adobe's free Get Started tutorials first, then come back. If you mostly cut footage together, take Adobe Premiere Pro instead, or the Video Production Bundle, which puts Premiere Pro, After Effects and CapCut together. And if you want quick animated posts for social, Graphic Design Using Canva gets you there with far less to learn.
A course advisor will talk it through with you free, and will say so if a different course fits your goal better.
Good to know
Twelve modules, 186 lessons and about 50 hours of video. Every lesson carries a written summary, notes and a key-takeaways panel, about two in three carry an interactive step, and there are twelve checkpoints of eight questions and a final assessment of twenty questions at 80 per cent, which is what issues the certificate. Module 1 is editing and effects on real footage, 2 is motion graphics, 3 and 4 are character animation, 5, 7 and 8 are 3D, 6 is text effects and 3D type, 9 is tracking with Mocha, and 10 to 12 are visual effects.
It's for people who know the basics, and it starts at intermediate level. You'll want four things first: what a composition is, what a layer is, how to set a keyframe and how to draw a mask. New to them? Adobe's free Get Started tutorials cover them in an afternoon.
One free script, and for some lessons two other Adobe apps. The character rigging in modules 3 and 4 uses Duik Bassel, a free, open source script from Rainbox Laboratory that you download and install. The character and logo work reads Illustrator files, and three lessons in module 7 prepare files in Photoshop, which any free editor that saves transparent layers can stand in for. Neither Illustrator nor Photoshop is needed for the certificate, and nothing in the course needs a paid plugin.
After Effects is a paid Adobe subscription with a free trial, and the trial is the full application. Start it in a week when you can put real hours in, because the clock runs whether or not you open it.
Premiere Pro for cutting footage into a story, After Effects for animation, compositing and effects. Module 1 here does some real editing, but if you can't yet cut a simple sequence, take Adobe Premiere Pro first. If you want both, the Video Production Bundle puts them together with CapCut.
Yes, your own footage and artwork, or free stock, and the lessons point you to free sources. On the effects lessons, your own footage makes the better exercise.
A capable one helps. After Effects is demanding, and the 3D and effects lessons stack enough layers to make any machine work hard, so check Adobe's system requirements before you start the trial.
Yes. Pass the twenty-question final assessment at 80 per cent and you get an OBA certificate of completion that an employer can verify online. It isn't an Adobe certification exam. The shots you build along the way are the other half of the proof.
Download the free info pack first. It walks you through every module, what you'll build and what you need before you start, so you can enrol knowing exactly what you're getting. If you'd like to talk it through, get in touch and we'll help you choose.
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Free info pack
Every module, the price, how you're assessed and where it can take you. Yours free, and it opens straight away.
Takes 30 seconds
