Although I use After Effects for a tremendous number of special effects in my films, Expressions are not something I've used in the past, as they seem to require a shift in thinking. (Maybe it's a left brain, right brain thing.)
They are, however, very useful and, with proper training, no more difficult than learning basic was all those years ago on that Atari computer I cut my teeth on.
The Toolfarm Expressions series covers a lot of techniques like arrays and variables that I haven't thought of in years. Along with the After Effects files--including an AE comp, artwork to use in following the tutorial, and a reference sheet--each lesson has a full screen quicktime movie file that shows the basic After Effects Layout. Trainer Harry J. Frank guides us step by step through each lesson with very clear explanations reenforcing what is shown on the screen.
Now, if you haven't upgraded from 6.5, you won't be able to follow directly along in the AE comp, as the tutorial requires AE 7.0 or above. But even with an older version, the pace of the QT movies is such that it is very easy to follow and adapt. There is a built in pause with a large title to introduce new techniques.
The three lessons in After Effects Expressions Series 1 bundle starts with the basics and then builds on them in each additional lesson. To make sure you learn each lesson fully, there is a complete project to do with each one.
Lesson one shows you how to make a group of butterflies fly with two keyframes using expressions. Once upon a time I actually had to animate butterflies and then later birds, so this lesson would have been very useful.
The second lesson in Bundle 1 shows how to make a chinese dragon float across the screen using expressions. The dragon head moves up and down via an expression and the body follows it across the screen. You are shown several different ways to do things and some common gotchas are pointed out.
The third lesson in Bundle 1 shows how to make a 3D font using multiple layers of the same type in AE 3D mode. It's a very clever effect and once more, new and more complicated techniques that build on the first two lessons are introduced.
Bundle 2 in the After Effects Expressions series continues in the same way with three more lessons that once again increase in complexity. Lesson one does some cool stuff with rotating graphics and random numbers, lesson two shows us how to do that really cool ghostly title with the letters sort of jerking and becoming visible and invisible, and lesson three shows us how to lip synch a Monty Python type of photo with separate mouth using the audio to create keyframes. (The expressions in this bundle start getting pretty heavy duty by this point, so you should definitely make sure you master bundle one before moving on.) Once again all three of these techniques would be things you could use in your own projects and all are presented clearly in an entertaining manner.
