[Eric Lagerlof]

Google storyboarding software for starters. I’ve been using the Frame Forge software. You can download a demo version tha’s completely functional, it just limits the amount of objects that you can use. It’s 3D based and if set up properly can give you a reasonably accurate idea of what your angle of view/distance issues are as well. There are some others out there that use, (I believe), 2-d cutouts to populate the frame. Anyway, there’s a start.

[Eric Lagerlof]

Some more belated thoughts…I do agree that while you can create motion-gfx soley w/AE and video, your creative options expand GREATLY by having paint and ilustration programs at your command. Besides PS, there are other programs like Real Draw, Painter, Paint Shop Pro, etc, on the raster side and Illustrator, Freehand or Expression on the vector side, that might be a more natural fit for you. Most can be reviwed for 30 days for free etc. and give you a good feel for what they do. While Adobe programs have added abilities to interact with eachother, the primary needs for AE are to be able to save your grafx file in a format AE understands, (and it understands a lot of them), and that you can save it with an alpha channel for compositing. Along with the Total Training and other training materials is a book that I believe has been reviewd here at the Cow, Photoshop for Non-Linear Editors by Harrington. I have not read it but it might be more to point for someone like you. Also, as a final thought, have fun, screw around with whatever art creation tool(s) you decide you like. Sometimes, being silly slides your brain around those mental blocks.

[Eric Lagerlof]

Some more belated thoughts…I do agree that while you can create motion-gfx soley w/AE and video, your creative options expand GREATLY by having paint and ilustration programs at your command. Besides PS, there are other programs like Real Draw, Painter, Paint Shop Pro, etc, on the raster side and Illustrator, Freehand or Expression on the vector side, that might be a more natural fit for you. Most can be reviwed for 30 days for free etc. and give you a good feel for what they do. While Adobe programs have added abilities to interact with eachother, the primary needs for AE are to be able to save your grafx file in a format AE understands, (and it understands a lot of them), and that you can save it with an alpha channel for compositing. Along with the Total Training and other training materials is a book that I believe has been reviewd here at the Cow, Photoshop for Non-Linear Editors by Harrington. I have not read it but it might be more to point for someone like you. Also, as a final thought, have fun, screw around with whatever art creation tool(s) you decide you like. Sometimes, being silly slides your brain around those mental blocks.