Best tutorials for After Effects?

[Filipe]

I got AE and I'm pumped to learn how to use it to make some sweet stuff, do you guys know a good Youtube Channel or website which provides good tutorials?

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[dkamm65]

Tools like that have way too much to them to look up generic tutorials. Dig around in the software, play around with it, click random buttons until it spits out something nifty.

You're better off coming up with something you want to do with it first, thinking about how you might go about doing that with AE's functions, looking for explanations of how to use those specific aspects (which you should have an easy time finding with Google) and then applying them to what you're making. You'll learn the software much more quickly when you learn how to use relevant tools in real scenarios, and you'll make something cool along the way.

It was the same thing with me for Photoshop. I looked up a generic "how to make cool things in Photoshop" tutorial, and ended up just following some guide to the letter and not really understanding how to use the tools in other applications.

[TristanLuigi]

Dkamm gave some pretty cool advice, but there is one tutorial series I'd recommend, which would be the beginner's course or whatever from Video Copilot. Other than that, you'll need to look up specific things or ask people that know the program decently well. If you're interested in "spending" a bunch of money, Trapcode has some nice, useful plugins with a nice particle system.

[espio100]

Video copilot

[mod-man]

while jumping in head first is my favorite policy, there's still plenty of places that have insightful tutorials:

video copilot has tons of excellent content to help you out. andrew kramer is probably the best guy to listen to cause he gets right to the point and actually walks you through what he's doing, rather than the other lame-o internet tuts where they joke around or tell you a life story half way through

tuts+ has a lot of helpful after effects stuff too. some of it is effect based, while some is post production fine detail stuff

there's a couple of good youtube channels ill link you to:
mt. mograph is a wonderful channel. he does a lot of great flashy text/cartoon based motion design. he also does some work with c4d and blender(?) if thats your thing too

ross plaskow is pretty great if you want to learn how to do cartoons. i personally cant stand his voice (lol) but hes got some great tips for doing cartoon based animation

ECAbrams has some interesting text based videos. hes very joke based but it doesnt get in the way of the tutorial too much, so i figured id list him cause ive also snagged some tips from him

video copilot's youtube channel has just about everything on the website, (cool explosions, 3d element stuff, logos, compositing techniques etc) but ill include it too just in case
 
as for plugins, video copilot, red giant, and trapcode have some of the best stuff you can get. if you can get them, id definitely recommend it

[Goth77]

-snip-

Although tutorials can be helpful at times, I agree the best way to learn software is to mess around with it, learn how it functions, and learn how it works so that you can use it efficiently

[Filipe]

Although tutorials can be helpful at times, I agree the best way to learn software is to mess around with it, learn how it functions, and learn how it works so that you can use it efficiently

I would rather look up and see how things work instead of messing around and make a clusterforget on the settings and everything. (Like I usually do when I try to discover a program my own :x)

[TristanLuigi]

I would rather look up and see how things work instead of messing around and make a clusterforget on the settings and everything. (Like I usually do when I try to discover a program my own :x)

Use a tutorial to learn shortcuts and the basic structure of the program or if you really need a specific effect, but you need to mess around!

[Goth77]

Use a tutorial to learn shortcuts and the basic structure of the program or if you really need a specific effect, but you need to mess around!

This.
Tut's arn't always bad thing but if you rely on them too much your motivation for learning on your own hits 0

[ShadowsfeaR]

I did this basically for Blender and learned it pretty quick.

I actually learned 80% of Photoshop's functions in school though. :3