Tuesday's Adobe User Group meeting was an eye opener. I walked in clueless about After Effects, and I walked out wanting to tear into the program and make my own animations. Andy Nick and Brian Ward showed some well-designed video/animations they have created for Real Art Design Group, as well as one cool side project, then they broke them down and showed how they got the effects we had just seen. It would be hard to make that kind of work easy, but those guys certainly made it look tempting. Thanks to Bruce Linebaugh and MCA-I for co-sponsoring this event, bringing some real-world After Effects examples, and of course for providing the pizza and cookies.

I was also impressed with the way people piped in, adding in new tips for using the program. I was glad that although we had a large group, people still felt comfortable enough to participate in the discussion.

Check out the Flickr set: