Learning Vegas vs. After Effects??

K

kmcgrath

Well-known member
Can anyone give me any insight about how difficult it is to learn After Effects compared to Vegas? I've had Vegas for close to a year now, and feel like know it pretty well, and now I am thinking about tackling After Effects. Thanks, Ken.
 
After Effects is much different. If you know photoshop well you will feel pretty much at home in AE. If you don't then you'll have a rather decent learning curve. Both operate on the same principles - AE is just moving images instead of stills.
 
I have to disagree on that, from my own personal learning curve with AE. I've had Vegas for about 1 1/2 years now, and know it pretty well. I've done just a little more than scratch the surface with Photoshop, but know it well enough to typically do what I want to do with it ... however, I've tried messing around with AE a couple times now & SUCK at it ... I'm finding the curve a little steeper than I thought it would be.

Bottom line, Vegas is MUCH more different than most NLE/FX programs out there, and for people who've not grown used to other NLE/FX programs, they've found Vegas the easiest to pick up.
 
I found Vegas much more intuitive and easier to learn than AE. Although I use Photoshop constantly, I've never been a huge fan of Adobe interfaces. With AE, I'd recommend getting some good training tools like the Meyer books and maybe some DVD's. The amazing amount of plugins written for AE make it pretty invaluable and although Vegas can do some pretty neat compositing tricks, AE is on another level when it comes to compositing, effects and animation.
 
If you open Vegas and stare at its blank interface, it won’t take you long, if you’re familiar with Windows, to figure out how to find clips and drag them to the timeline, and then start messing with them.

That’s not the case with After Effects. You may NEVER figure out how to import a clip without looking it up, and if you do, you’ll certainly never figure out what to do next.

Extrapolate from there. AE is a whole ‘nother ball of wax.
 
Thanks for all the comments. I just downloaded the 30 day AE trial, and soon must decide whether to buy. I just started today with the Meyer book ("Creating Motion Graphics with AE"), and so far the book seems to do a very thorough job (but I am only partially thru chapter 1). I have Photoshop Elements which hopefully should help in the transition, but my first impression is that one could make a career out of trying to master AE.
 
Adobe used to include a starter tutorial with AE. It got you up and running on the concepts of how animation, the timeline, etc. function in AE. However, I've not seen it since v4 unfortunately. Then again, they may still include it, I just haven't looked ;) At any rate, it was the best way I found to get a good starting base in AE, and after that, it was just learning and adding new techniques to the mix.
 
does anybody know any good introductory starter video tutorial site's for the complete noob coming from a video vegas background?
 
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