# Basics in Adobe After Effects: Creating Simple Animations with Trim Paths - review & insight | Gareth B. Davies Source: https://garethbdavies.com/course-insights/basics-in-adobe-after-effects-creating-simple-animations-with-trim-paths/ [← All courses](https://garethbdavies.com/course-insights/) Video & Animation · Quick win · Rated 6 /10 # Basics in Adobe After Effects: Creating Simple Animations with Trim Paths Updated September 2026 Taylor Carroll · Illustrator & Chief Cat Mom Beginner · 33 min A tightly scoped 33-minute build teaches one After Effects tool deeply instead of overwhelming beginners with the whole toolset. [Get a Free Month on Skillshare](https://skillshare.eqcm.net/c/3155494/298081/4650?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.skillshare.com%2Fclasses%2Fbasics-in-adobe-after-effects-creating-simple-animations-with-trim-paths%2F1065413076) New to Skillshare? Your first month is free, enough to take this course at no cost. This is a short, single-project class built around one idea: that a beginner can get further by mastering one After Effects tool than by poking at all of them. The tool in question is Trim Paths, and the project is a monoline line-art animation of a favorite vacation memory, sketched, vectorized, and animated in under 15 seconds of final runtime. The structure is linear and sensible. It opens with a sketching lesson that pushes students to simplify a place down to single-weight lines rather than trying to reproduce a reference photo literally, then moves into Illustrator for cleanup (round-cap strokes, separated layers, one line per layer) before handing off to After Effects for the import and animation stages. Each stage exists because it sets up the next one: the round caps in Illustrator, for instance, save the trouble of manually rounding every joint later in After Effects. That kind of practical sequencing is the course's real strength, it is taught by someone walking through their own production habits, not reciting a generic feature tour. The Trim Paths lesson itself is the reason to take this course. It covers the mechanical basics (adding the property, keyframing start or end values, Easy Ease via F9) quickly, then spends its real time on a technique with more nuance: separating a multi-line design into individual groups and staggering their trim keyframes so that lines appear to draw in as one continuous, seamless stroke rather than snapping in together. That distinction, animating a whole shape group versus animating trimmed sub-paths independently, is a genuinely useful thing to internalize and the kind of detail that separates competent motion work from flat, uniform-looking animation. Where the course runs thin is depth and rigor. The final touches lesson covering color, glow effects, and background treatment is largely "experiment and see what you like," which is honest but not very instructive. The render lesson is useful in a practical, IT-support sense (AVI natively, MP4 via Media Encoder, a warning about the completion chime), but it is not animation instruction. And a full keyframe-timing system, the graph editor, is waved off entirely as "a whole other class," which is a fair scoping decision but does mean students leave without a real handle on how to shape motion beyond dragging keyframes by feel. At 33 minutes across ten lessons, this is closer to a guided demo than a comprehensive class. It will not teach someone how After Effects works in general, and it assumes a basic comfort with vector drawing tools even though it includes a workaround for students without Illustrator. What it delivers reliably is a complete, small, satisfying project and one specific, transferable technique. For a total beginner who wants to finish something in an afternoon and understand why Trim Paths matters, that is enough to justify the time. For anyone chasing a broader animation foundation, it will need to be the first of several classes, not the only one. The standout The lesson on staggering Trim Paths keyframes across separate line groups, rather than animating one uniform group, to make multiple lines appear to draw in as a single continuous seamless stroke. ## What you will learn - · Sketch a simplified monoline design representing a place or memory, keeping consistent line weight throughout - · Set up an Illustrator file at 1920x1080 with round-cap strokes and separated layers ready for animation - · Import an Illustrator file into After Effects as footage, convert it to a layered comp, and generate shape layers from vector layers - · Apply and animate the Trim Paths property on individual shape groups, using Easy Ease (F9) to smooth the motion - · Offset keyframes across multiple line segments to create a staggered, seamless-looking line-draw effect - · Add color fills, background solids, and effects, then render out finished AVI and MP4 files Best for: Someone brand new to After Effects who wants a small, finishable line-animation project without wading through the full toolset. Skip it if: Anyone who already knows Trim Paths, wants deep coverage of the graph editor, or lacks Illustrator and hopes for a fully-developed alternative workflow. Clarity of Instruction Engaging Teacher Organization of Lessons Helpful Examples [Get a Free Month on Skillshare](https://skillshare.eqcm.net/c/3155494/298081/4650?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.skillshare.com%2Fclasses%2Fbasics-in-adobe-after-effects-creating-simple-animations-with-trim-paths%2F1065413076)