Customer Reviews

After Effects 5.5 Magic

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is a great book. It's not for beginners; get the Adobe Classroom in a Book (which has some pretty advanced stuff) and/or Trish and Chris Meyer's book, if you're just starting out.
This book is just what I needed at this point in time: I've wanted some instruction on how to do the more advanced text Presets in 6.0 and 6.5, and this has a lot on that. It also gives you advanced methods of masking, stroking masks, using Illustrator Files like you see on TV cable shows, and advanced 3D methods such as Zaxwerks Invigorator, etc. After 3 1/2 yrs of being at a standstill, this book helped me jump to the level to where I can do most TV commercial and movie trailer graphics, it's weak on effects, however. .....it's mostly how-to, and has almost all of the keystroke commands included. But they don't give ALL the keystrokes, there are times when you have to KNOW already how to do advanced things....but if you're ready for the big time, this book is a big help ...study it carefully.
The authors of this book are creative and brilliant, and present you with lots of awesome tricks that you will not get in other books, and not esoteric ones, like some books have. If you're into AE and have watched TV commercials and movie trailers and wondered "I'd like to know how to do that" this book goes a LONG way to teaching you, very quickly, how to do the really good stuff.
The only limitation is, it's mostly oriented toward "desk" work: working with solids, text,, Illustrator files, and existing video footage. But for these it's great, you can start with a blank composition, and using this book, come up with some high end stuff...not the highest end, but mainstream. Most of the time your potential clients have their own video, logos, etc, and just want you to come up with ideas and put it together, and with this book you will be able to. It's not really good at advanced effects such as shatter, paint, etc. These are hardly covered at all...but then again these aren't mainstream....

This book is the best book on AE yet! While the Meyer's book is the best intermediate level book, AE Magic takes AE to the next level. A wide range of sample projects with plenty of hands-on experience across a wide range of project types.

From film resolution graphics to expressions, this book takes you where you want to go. Each chapter ends with a collection of modifications and suggestions that you can use in your own productions.

The multiple authors each detail their areas of expertise, and everyone will find a couple projects worthy of experimenting...

Great book!

I bought this book thinking it was the update version of After Effects Magic by Nathan Body and Mark Christiansen, whose names I had forgotten and I only remembered the title of the book.
This book does not give you an overall idea of After Effects, it has very cheesy tutorials, not to mention the author's photo on the third page posing like a cheap real estate agent or even a used cars salesman. There is no depth to it, even for beginners it will take you trough the wrong path on what is the essence of the software. The tutorials are really lacking creativity and are not designed to make you understand the power behind AE.
I own 5 books on AE, and I highly recommend the ones by Trish and Chris Meyer for all levels, and for advanced compositing the one by Mark Christiansen "Studio Techniques".
I returned this book the following day. If I had seen the pages on this book online I wouldn't have bought it in the first place. Thanks to Amazon for making it so easy to return items you are not satisfied with.

Don't get this as a beginner's book - you'll be lost in the first example! Instead, think of this as fodder for your next work of art AFTER you have a handle on the basics. I got several great tips that created ideas that I was able to implement on my own. Great complement to the Trish & Chris Meyers AE books.

'Creating Motion Graphics' is a much more complete and useful read. This book isn't bad, but if you're going to get one book, get 'Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects'. I bought 'After Effects 5.5 Magic' first, but I can't say it really helped my skills very much.

After Effects 6.5 Magic is an excellent resource for those who understand the program basics and are now looking to expand their skills and challenge their abilities. This book was designed for the intermediate user -- After Effects beginners like the reviewer from Texas will become lost and confused. I recommend the Meyers' books too, I use them for reference all the time. Think of those books as the textbooks you studied when you were in school, and After Effects 6.5 Magic as the workbook you practiced with at home.

If you're new to After Effects, I could not recommend this book. Better to go with the After Effects Classroom in a Book.

If you are a self-starter and don't mind doing some investigating, then you may love this book. The reason I'm qualifying my praise is because I'm in the middle of it and I'm having some trouble making these projects work the way they claim to. This book is not an step-by-step, procedural kind of
tutorial. They give it to you in broad strokes, and also expect you to finish some of the projects by simply describing the last few steps in a single paragraph, so you have to backtrack and see what you've already covered, and apply it to the rest of the project.

It does teach some pretty cool things, and what you learn, you learn well, because it can be painful to figure some of these projects out. They don't hold your hand here.

At the end of each project are some brief paragraphs describing variations you can do. I expect to do these eventually. I believe in reading a book three times, so maybe by the time I've done that I'll have mastered it. They do seem to know what they're doing - and they also assume that you do.

The Adobe After Effects 6.5 Magic for James Rankin and Anna Ullrich is a practice book. You will learn by example 100 of the After Effects techniques through 22 chapters. Each chapter includes project that helps you creating cinematic and commercials animation effects.

Creating each project is described step by step easily and clearly, by the end of each project, you will find a Now Try This section that inspire you with new ideas to apply what you have learnt in each chapter.

The After Effects Magic projects are varies from text, lighting and corporate logo animation techniques. I wished the book includes more projects and order them according to its level. But generally, the book is good choice as a practice resource that lets you easily digest many of the After Effects features.

This is an excellent book for people that are serious about After Effects. James Rankin did an excellent job authoring the book. The color images look great and are very helpful. The book is very easy to navigate through. This book is most helpful at work. The chapter topics translate very well into the professional use of After Effects. I would recommend this book to my colleagues and anyone else interested in After Effects.

Easy to follow instruction. Interesting special effects, something we, as beginners, would like to try. Well lay-out formats with illustrations and photos, all in color.
I would recommend it for anyone who use Adobe After Effect 6.5 Magic first time users.