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I have been practicing with Adobe After Effects for quite a while. I've created some effects like gunshots, intros and such.

I now want to learn how to combine many videos together, and with additional effects - not only fade in and fade out, but more amazing stuff!

I have not found anything helpful when looking for where to start learning about this.

My main occupation is game programming. Would you suggest that I go learn better video editing and Photoshop or rely on an artist to do so?

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If you are trying to do editing, you are using the wrong program. Adobe After Effects is an effects and compositing program. It is designed to make alterations to clips of video that can then be used together. It is not designed for editing clips together.

If you wish to do video editing, you want a piece of software known as a Non Linear Editor (or NLE). Adobe Premiere is the NLE in Adobe's software line. Adobe Bridge allows for you to move back and forth between them, so you can include an After Effects composition as a clip in Premiere or open a clip from Premiere in After Effects to do effects or composition work on the clip.

As a bonus, note that this same kind of interaction can be used with Adobe Encore to add a Premiere Sequence directly to an Encore project if you wish to make a DVD or Bluray disk from your videos.

Update: Since you asked about it, here is a list of the major Adobe CC applications and their purpose.

  • Photoshop: In depth Image Manipulation

  • Lightroom: Photo cataloging, Non-destructive RAW processing and basic touch up, workflow management, printing, publishing.

  • Premiere: Non-linear Video Editing

  • After Effects: Video effects and compositing

  • Encore: DVD/Bluray disk production

  • Prelude: Video/Asset intake

  • SpeedGrade: Color grading

  • Illustrator: Vector graphic creation and editing

  • Flash: Vector and sprite based animation, script-able and interactive capable as well as supporting video playback

  • Audition: Audio Editing DAW

  • InDesign: Print layout

  • Acrobat: Public document finishing, creates PDFs

  • DreamWeaver: Web design

  • Muse: simpler web design

  • Fireworks: Alternate image manipulation application, primarily targeting the web.

  • Bridge: Minor Adobe product that interconnects the applications to allow them to exchange nested data

  • Media Encoder: Minor Adobe product that allows for a shared render queue and encoding of final assets

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  • Adobe encore? Too damn many adobe programs! I have installed Ps CC , Ae CC and Media Encoder CC (Im going with Creative Cloud). My PC has 8 gigs of ram and GTX 660 gigabyte windforce GPU . The processor is hydrocooled with the h100i. Now , adobe premiere pro... OK , Im downloading it. Any list in which I can see the adobe products? (BTW just for joining clips fast I use Movie Maker sometimes!)
    – user3029101
    Commented Dec 6, 2013 at 12:15
  • @user3029101 - yes, there are a lot of Adobe products. Adobe Encore has traditionally been bundled with Adobe Premiere and is the DVD/Bluray authoring package. Adobe also used to have bundles of software that included sets of applications related to different tasks or the Master Collection which included all the Creative Suite (now CC) apps. Once you learn what all the Adobe software does, it really isn't that hard to use in your workflow.
    – AJ Henderson ♦
    Commented Dec 6, 2013 at 13:58
  • Oh, just an observation about your setup. You should upgrade the RAM. 8gigs will meet the minimum for what you are doing, but it will limit you. 12 to 16 GB would give you a significant advantage over 8. SSDs would be good if you don't already have them as well. The ability to move data quickly is just as important or more so than processing power when it comes to video.
    – AJ Henderson ♦
    Commented Dec 6, 2013 at 14:09
  • I am going to add another 8 gigs for sure... (I had an issue with the h100, it leaked :'(). I dont trust SSDs here. they seem to get broken pretty easily... I think I will stick with the Ae - Me - Ps - Pp. I already have the free version of Acrobat , I do not think I will ever need to create a PDF . Also , they seem to be A LOT specialized. Do I need more stuff to do some video compositing/editing AND video game designing? I am a developer and I have stucked at the design thing!
    – user3029101
    Commented Dec 6, 2013 at 14:15
  • @user3029101 - I don't particularly trust SSDs either, however what you can do is use them as a scratch space. Temp files will be written there and Adobe software will cache to it so that it can load quickly, but if it crashes out you won't be at any great loss. My setup is to use a 12TB Raid 5 array for all my long term storage and two striped SSDs for my working space. (I do copy over the assets I'm working on at that time as well, but they also stay on the RAID 5.) Note that Acrobat Reader is only a reader, but if you don't need to make PDFs you don't need Acrobat.
    – AJ Henderson ♦
    Commented Dec 6, 2013 at 14:35

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