Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects: Essential and Advanced Techniques 5th Edition, Kindle Edition

Good material but I'd strongly go through the AE Apprentice 4th version from the same author before tackling this one. The book assumes knowledge and you will be lost trying to do the exercises if this is your first publication on learning After Effects. Also it is dated and many of the functions may have changed names so prepare to do a lot of Google searching for current terms. This is my third book on After Effects and I am finding myself having to stop and dig into the SOURCES folder to pull up certain objects the author is asking me to transform. The layers he is asking to change do not present themselves in the pre-built compositions in the timeline so you have to add them manually form the SOURCES folder if you want to complete the exercises in their entirety. Example: On page 53 Chapter 3 the tutorial asks to select the CP_Spaceman.tif layer in the timeline panel from the Ex.08_starter composition. Look at my screenshot and I only have the Ex.08_starter composition as a whole, there is no CP_Spaceman.tif layer visible in the timeline. Looks like this was a pre-composed composition so I had to go into SOURCES and put the CP_Spaceman.tif layer on top in order to complete the exercise. If you pre-comp a multi-layered composition you will not see the individual layers anymore in the timeline so I'm assuming this is what was done.

A comprehensive reference for the intermediate After Effects user. Beginners (and rusty users) would probably be better off starting with "After Effects Apprentice".The detailed descriptions of workarounds that allow Illustrator paths to be used as shapes, masks, and motion paths in AE have saved me countless hours of (often unsuccessful) trial-and-error. Thank you Trish and Chris Meyers!This book is still relevant for After Effects CC 2019, but I look forward to the release of the 6th edition (announced for Q4 2019). Hopefully my well-used copy will survive that long.

get the latest edition, or get the one that relates to your versionChris and Trish are amazing artists and are really good at explaining, not just what button to press for this effect or that -- but how and why it works that way. It's really all you need to get to entry-level professional. Don't waste time reading my review, just buy it.

Don't be intimidated by the physical size and weight of this comprehensive volume. Once inside it's very reader-friendly, and I say that as a rank novice After Effects user. It's well-organized, crisply written and easily digestible for newbies like me without sacrificing depth and detail. Everything is covered. The exercises are focused, well thought out and take you smoothly, step by step, through each aspect of the software while putting your hands on every button, knob, switch and dial in the toolset. Almost no detail is skipped, which is remarkable considering how many nested nooks and crannies there are in AE's very dense interface. I'm using CS6, so it would be nice to have an updated 6th edition, but it's really not a problem, just a few small differences so far and I've been able to easily work around them.If I absolutely had to come up with a quibble, it would be that the book is printed on very nice coated paper stock, which makes it much heavier than if the pages were uncoated, and the ink is VERY prone to smudging, so I find myself going to rather tedious pains to place my fingers carefully when holding the book to avoid obliterating any of the text. I understand why they used coated paper, but it is a bit of a pain. I also would welcome a DVD-less next edition, preferring to retrieve project files via browser from an online server (and skip the plastic disk that has to be stored and disposed of someday, and can also be easily damaged).I have no problem recommending this book without qualification.

Great Book! I wish I had known about this book when I started with AE. If this isn’t the first book you get on AE, then it needs to be the 2nd. This book goes into great detail on how to use the various features and options in AE. I don’t think I’ve read another book yet that provides such clear instructions on how AE works, how to configure settings, and when to use certain features and options. It’s a must have for all users of AE.

I have to say, before I read this book, I thought I had learned everything about After Effects. I have spent countless hours on the internet watching tutorials as well as doing my own experiments with getting desired effects in after effects. But I was required to buy this book for a motion graphics class, and to my surprise, there is a LOT of information in here covering ALL forms of after effects, even Mocha. I have to say what I thought to be 100% self-taught knowledge is now about 85%. There are a lot of things covered in here, such as path/mask interpolation, rendering techniques (after effects render farm!) and other things like the sort that are just NOT covered in tutorials around the internet.I am very pleased with the quality and coverage of this book. I highly recommend it for ANYONE looking to learn after effects. This book is designed to instruct beginners all the way to the most adept after effects users.

Great book, just don't buy it for the Kindle!!!!! This book has great information for both seasoned users as well as beginners alike. What killed me was the fact that the book has been purchased by a different publisher. The book has not been updated to reflect this change. The email addresses and web pages provided for you to get the files you need to complete the lessons are all incorrect. Once I finally got hold of someone (took a week) they informed me that they would have to send me a disk as they are not set up to make these files downloadable. They are happy to send me a disk. While this is all well and good I must admit I am a bit annoyed at having spent $44 only to have a book that is totally unusable for at least two week. False advertisement in my opinion.

I have only just started to use this book, but already I can see that it is well written and easy to follow. I have been using After Effects for a few years, but have not made use of all of the features and have not always understood some of the techniques fully that I have been using. I would recommend it both to first time users of AE and for more experience users.

You'll need to dedicate some time to this book but if you do you will be able to say 'Yeah I can do After Effects'. Very good intro and intermediate level lessons. Indispensable.

This is a great book and has useful tutorials. I find though the artistic approach of the motion graphics a bit outdated. The design of motion graphics has very low aesthetics. But it is very good to technically improve your skills.

bought this book on the kindle. the Book itself is good, but is based a series of tutorials, which in the paperback version you get a CD with the demo files on. On the kindlestore you email the publishers with proof of purchase and they are supposed to send you a web address and an access code . So far I have not had a response to my two emails. very dissapointing I am thinking of asking Amazon for my money back.

This is my third After Effects related book that I have worked through. My initial goal was to find a book that taught more advanced concepts than other books offer, and this book provided that in spades.I wanted to mention that a lot of people have advised that the disk that came with their book was faulty. This caused me concern when I initially made my purchase, however the disk I received with my book works flawlessly. Additionally, this book is still relevant in 2017 despite having been written in 2010. Despite a few very minor changes since being published, working through the book with the latest release of After Effects is not an issue.What I like about this book is that when it teaches you a new concept it goes far deeper into that technique than other books I've read. Although I am no stranger to After Effects, I decided to work through this book starting from Chapter 1. I am glad I did. Right from Chapter 1, this book taught me a lot more about even the most basic concepts that had been glossed over or completely omitted in other materials I had read. It taught me a lot of things about the program itself that I had never read about or considered.As a result, someone like myself, I really appreciated it. A person brand new to After Effects however may quickly become overwhelmed and disinterested in learning After Effects because so much time is spent on really fleshing out single concepts. For that reason I recommend, if you are brand new, start with a different book; learn from that, and then move on to this if you're interested in developing your skills further. The book is well written and the DVD contains numerous interesting pieces of media used throughout the many chapters in this book.In my opinion, I really find two flaws with this book and they are as follows: not enough "do it yourself" opportunities. Many times you will read about a specific concept, but not necessarily execute it in the program yourself unless you take the initiative on your own. My next "flaw" is that the ink on the pages smudges rather easily, and I had to consciously only touch the borders of each page so as not to remove or smear any of the ink. Beyond that, I think this book deserves 5/5 stars for what it accomplishes.