21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
For professionals only!!!, May 15, 2005
This review is from: Adobe After Effects 6.5 Studio Techniques (Paperback)
Do you want to know how to create visual effects in detail?Then buy this excellent book that demistifies the realm of visual effects,this book is full of magic (isn't that what you'll want to be "a visual effects magician?")
Section I "Working foundations" reviews fundamentals of AE ,from page 4 till 133 he revisited the effects toolset,the timeline,selections(the key to compositing)and in chapter four(page115)"Optimizing the pipeline"the author examines the flow of data trough AE in specific detail;understanding how to use multiple compositions,knowing when to pre-compose and optimizing the rendering time;this is a great chapter while he explains you the workflow of your project(s) and time saving techniques to organize multiple compositions.
At the end of section I you'll be able to wring the most out of AE and continue in Section II with "Effects Compositing Essentials"(page 137-353)Color and light:adjusting and matching,color keying,rotoscoping and paint,effective motion tracking,virtual cinematography,expressions and issues specific to film and HDR images(chapter wrote by Brendan Bolles).
After this section(where you learned all the stuff and tips and tricks) jump to the final "Creative explorations"(page 375-497)
and meet the "real world"where you apply all the techniques you learned in the 371 previous pages.
Work with light and then create natural elements: replacement skies,mist,fog,smoke,effects of wind and water; create fire effects and explosions,sci-fi weaponry a.s.o(all believable footage!)In the final chapter wrote by Stu Maschwitz)"Learning to See" he focuses on some techniques for honing your eye; this means no compositing techniques but "lifestyle techniques" seeing the shot every time as if for the first time and using the left brain to understand what the right brain sees.
AE Studio Techniques is an amazing book,extremely well colour illustrated and full of notes and tips in the margin and the author Mark Christiansen, the number-one beta tester for AE6.5 gives you a professional approach from within the program,he knows what a visual effects artist needs and he tells it all to us like a magician who want to deal with his public all his knowledge.Thanks Mark!
ps:demo versions of professional tools like AE 6.5 ,Andersson technologies,Red Giant,Artbeats and Trapcode are on the companion cdrom to enhance our work.
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22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
After Effects 7 Studio Techniques: An Expert Guide from an After Effects Expert, August 14, 2006
Buy this book; its cost (particularly here at Amazon) is trivial compared to the software, and you'll get some important independent opinions and expert advice that, from what I understand, isn't available anywhere else.
In general, I've found the book to be pedagogical, informative and entertaining at the same time. What makes the book unique is Mark Christiansen's opinions. You get the voice of a great deal of experience, giving an independent evaluation of features and organization of After Effects itself, and how this impacts real-world usage. Reading that how certain features were implemented were "weird" was a pleasant surprise in a book published by Adobe Press. In contrast with the user manuals and canned tutorial materials, the book does not automatically assume that how After Effects works is the best way to accomplish certain tasks---in some instances, other software applications are better (e.g. rotoscoping), and Christiansen doesn't hesistate to point that out. What makes the book so useful is that you get an evaluation of After Effects, instead of an automatic assumption that it must be all things to all people. That being said, Christiansen does give it a fair Shake (pun intended :), and the general thrust is that After Effects is no younger sibling to node-based compositors, and it's capable of a lot more than typical users think.
The other major strength to the book is that it's NOT a user manual. Those books, and many about how to use software in general, are feature-descriptive, and organized like the software program in how things are explained. This certainly makes the organization easy to follow (and, I daresay, easier on the authors to write), but isn't necessarily useful for working professionals. What Christiansen has done is give his take on what After Effects can do, as related to a real production environment, and then describes how to do it. Again, it's his evaluative paradigm coming into play here, as he's made a number of decisions on what to cover. This is particularly evident at the beginning, as he explains all of the basic features as relating to how they influence real production. It's eminently practical, and an extremely useful addition to any set of reference materials, since it provides a real-work-driven guide to the entire program.
The shortcomings to the book are few, and ultimately may just be matters of taste. The flipside to having so many opinions is that people will inevitably disagree. My personal preference is to try to have all of the information and opinions at my disposal, which I'm then free to accept or reject, but others may find his opinionated style to be too judgmental; you have been warned. Also, the choice of topics in this book is, as clearly stated in the introduction and its subtitle "definitive guide to creating visual effects", heavily weighted toward visual effects. You will not learn much more about the traditional motion graphics, such as how to apply text effects, than what's in the Classroom-in-a-Book targeted toward absolute beginners. As such, entitling the text "Studio Techniques" may be a bit broader than the book actually delivers. And, finally, the language is strongly weighted toward the jargon in the visual effects community, and is used from the beginning of the book, which total beginners may find somewhat difficult to navigate at the outset.
That being said, I strongly recommend this book to anyone using After Effects at all. It's a detailed reference with a lot of information that will teach you how After Effects is operating beneath the hood. And all of this information, really the entire book, are geared practically toward getting the job done in a real production environment. That will surely be useful, no matter how you choose to operate the program. And, to me, the independent (and entertaining) opinions are extraordinarily valuable in judging both what After Effects can do, and how well it does them.
Overall, I've read very few books about commercial software that are anywhere near as good. It will be a well-used reference on my shelf for a long time to come.
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