After Effects or Motion?

It depends on who you are going to be working with. One company my friend works for only used Premier Pro and After Effects. Another company I interned for used anything you could afford personally. So, if you are looking to learn something I would start with After Effects, but dabble in Motion, then learn what program the company you want to work for uses, then learn that one inside and out.
I did that with 3ds Max, dabbled in Maya, then had to learn Lightwave, but because of my background in 3ds Max and Maya, it made working in that program so much easier.

In my experience most of these programs all do that same thing, it is just a matter of finding where the designer buried it in the menus and commands.

I think it’s way more important to have a mastery of the techniques behind motion graphics, if you don’t already. It’s quite a steep learning curve going from print and web to motion graphics for film or broadcast.

That being said, I would start off with After Effects, simply because it’s the most ubiquitous and powerful. Most professional studios won’t use Motion unless they use the entire Apple suite for some reason. And learning Motion (or any other motion graphics tool) will be easier if you already know After Effects. I don’t know if the converse is true or not, I learned After Effects way before Motion was ever released. Combustion also used to be really popular, but I haven’t heard much buzz around it lately. Also be aware that some studios will use their own proprietary software sometimes (which they would never expect you to know beforehand, obviously). After Effects on your resume will probably help you more then anything else.

Here’s a great site to get you started Video Copilot

thx guys! I will look into AE first.