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Our Favorite After Effects Tutorials of 2018 (So Far)

By Robbie Janney

Published: March 09, 2018 Last Updated: March 09, 2018

2018 has already brought us some killer After Effects tutorials. In this roundup, we’ve collected our favorite eight to help you keep up.

This year’s already been a good one for amazing VFX. We saw Blade Runner 2049 take home the Oscar for “Best Visual Effects,” new After Effects updates now allow you to edit in VR, and a number of really great tutorials have come out to help both beginning and advanced editors. Here are some of our favorites so far this year.

Creating A Realistic Planet

This stellar tutorial comes from our friends at Rocketstock. It teaches you to take some of their free nebula assets and turn them into a kinetic planet for your next space-themed video. This is a must-see for any filmmakers who need to create realistic space effects.

How to Loop Animations

Do you get frustrated in After Effects when you have to copy and paste a bunch of your keyframes to get a looping effect? Well, worry no more: this tutorial will teach you how to create an automatic looping command.

Creating Electrifying Shockwaves

This advanced tutorial from ProductionCrate will show you how to create a shockwave using some lightning assets they have in their arsenal. This one is a bit more complicated, so go into it with some time on your hands.

Animating Text Stroke

Adding motion and style to your text stroke can really give your video the professional edge you’re looking for. Follow along with Jason as he leads you through the steps to create this effect.

Blade Runner-Inspired Eyes

Still hyped about Blade Runner 2049? Well, this video shows you how to add your own Blade Runner-inspired eyes to any of your creations.

Annihilation “Shimmer”-like Effect

If you are anything like me, you were blown away by the “shimmer” in the new sci-fi thriller Annihilation. Here, we go through the process of adding the nebula assets from Rocketstock to your video to bring a “shimmer”-like effect to your own project.

Scribble Effect

Inspired by Kendrick Lamar’s new music video “Love,” this tutorial walks you through how to add your own stylized “body scribbling” to kick up the intensity of your video.

Adding Glitch Effects

Have you ever seen those futuristic, glitchy titles in videos or promos and wanted to create them on your own? Then this video is for you. Create your own glitch effects from scratch to add a bit of dirty-futurism to any of your projects.

Looking for more video tutorials? Here are a few to check out.