Customer Reviews

Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects: Essential and Advanced Techniques, 4th Edition

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Combining both editions of their prior works in this all-new updated version for CS3, Trish and Chris have outdone themselves yet again in this splendid, comprehensive AE motion graphics masterpiece.

Packed with all-new examples and much tighter, more professional editing than earlier works, this latest from the Meyers is their best work yet. The bonus chapters on DVD are a generous addition, as are all the extras and clean layout of the book.

Compared to their earlier books, this one flows even better, with an astounding array of new content and step by step tutorial content that can easily help you boost your After Effects compositing skills quickly.

This book absolutely "sparkles" with professionalism and depth. It's one of the top 5 software books I've read, of hundreds. It really is quite a masterpiece, and can help accelerate your AE production skills immensely.
Another plus is all the detailed, advanced subtleties and professional "tricks of the trade" that haven't been revealed until now, in this volume.

Trish and Chris, you folks have set the bar higher for how to "do it right" for stunningly powerful software books, and I was really impressed with it, from reading through it today. I'm looking forward to working through the tutorial examples to help boost my AE skills even further, and salute your professionalism and depth of expertise, explained in crystal clear examples throughout this "must have" AE reference work.

Great job! Everyone should go buy this book now - it's the best in class for AE books (and I've read 'em all). Wonderful work on this. A++++

Regards,

Ken Calhoun

This is the fourth edition of the Motion Graphics with After Effects book by Chris & Trish Meyer. It has been updated and revised for Adobe After Effects CS3 and contains many new sections on your favorite software features including The Graph Editor, layer styles, puppet tools, vanishing point, pixel motion and color management. The DVD is packed with bonus chapters and project files. This new edition is quite extensive, as is the software it covers, and the authors have concentrated on teaching their readers how After Effects "thinks" as well as sharing many tips and shortcuts to increase productivity.

The first few chapters get you acquainted with the user interface and introduce the production process for creating a project or "composition". Then you begin to learn the basics such as animation layers, 2D Bezier motion paths and transformation keyframes. As you would expect, keyframes are the basis of animation in After Effects and the authors concentrate on several Keyframe Assistants such as Motion Sketch, Exponential Scale, Smoother and Wiggler.

With the basics under your belt, the authors move on to more advanced animation techniques such as editing and sequencing layers, removing layers, hot keying and managing multiple layer comps. However, it isn't enough to just create layers and keyframes. You want your animation to be as realistic as possible. The authors teach many techniques for this such as motion blur for smoother motion and blending modes for combining layers. Masking and transparency is the next subject to tackle. The authors teach several techniques for creating and working with masks and stencils to add transparent areas in your animation.

It is difficult to go anywhere these days without seeing 3D animation such as the new Alvin and the Chipmunks movie from 20th Century Fox or The Coca-Cola Company's Polar Bears. The authors cover the basics of working with 3D animation such as scale and perspective, cameras and lighting. After Effects has some nice default cameras but the authors also teach you how to customize your own, as well as use lighting to illuminate layers, add color casts, cast shadows and project images from one layer onto another.

Besides animating images, you will undoubtedly need to animate text and apply special effects. The authors cover many aspects of these topics including how to replace the background behind the subject of your animation. You can do more in After Effects than animated preexisting graphics. You can also create your own graphics inside After Effects and the authors teach you how to use the shape layers, Brush and Clone Stamp tools, onion skinning and the Puppet Pin tools. Finally, the authors move on to advanced topics such as building complex animation with nesting and hierarchy, adding audio and audio effects and rendering your comp with advanced rendering techniques including Collapse Transformations and Continuous Rasterization.

Both Chris & Trish Meyer have been working in the real world of motion graphics for over 15 years and work at the CyberMotion motion graphic design studio in Los Angeles. They co-authored After Effects Apprentice and write the Motion Graphics column for DV magazine.

Advanced After Effects Motion Graphics is for the editor with some AE miles under their belt. It is not really a beginner book, but does start you off slowly with great step by step instruction. However, you will eventually need this book but buy it together with the Meyers' After Effects Apprentice which starts you off in the AE wourld. Any of the Meyers books are just what you need to learn AE. Highly recommended!!

This book has been traveling back and forth from my bed side to my computer desk for the last 3 weeks. In tandem with another book ("The After Effects Illusionist"), I've literally become an expert in After Effects, and recently used it produce an incredible 3-minute product demo that has gotten positive feedback from people like the former President of Sony Entertainment (now on the board of directors), the creators of DVR recording (white label manufacturer for all DVR - they own the patent), and several venture capitalists. This book helped me make that happen. I knew very little about After Effects prior to reading it, and it turned me from a beginner into an expert!

I have bought all of Chris and Trish Meyer's books and they are the best, bar none! You will not be disappointed with this book, and I can safely recommend it for beginners and veterans alike. The printing is superior, the graphics are well done, the instructions are well explained, and the photos are numerous and helpful. Many tips and shortcuts are dispersed throughout the book and the disk contains many extra lessons.

If you are only going to buy one book on After Effects, this is definitely the one to buy!

This is an incredibly thorough book. I am new to After Effects and this book has been very helpful in teaching me this complex program. The DVD that comes with the book is great too as it allows you to practice the techniques as you read about them. And at almost 700 pages plus additional digital chapters, you are definitely getting your money's worth.

One caveat is that if you have no experience at all with motion graphics, effects and the like, this book may be a little complex for you. However these authors also have a book called "The After Effects Apprentice" which is supposedly more basic, although I have not used it.

...this is definitely the book you'll want to buy, especially if you're on a limited "book budget". After Effects, while fundamentally not a difficult program to understand, has an enormous number of function parameters, user interface options and workflows that can cause the average Joe to question his own sanity for trying to learn AE. But, with this book as your guide and some time to tinker with the program as you are reading you can really improve your skills to a point where you're creating cool things in just a few days.

(You really need to try out the functions and examples as you go with AE; trying to learn and memorize stuff then use it later, doesn't work with this program because there are just way too many variables involved in creating motion content).

Like many Focal books, it is very well produced in terms of material quality, layout, typography and the like... and the writing is easy to understand. There are probably 10 different ways you could organize an After Effects reference book but here again I found that what was presented to me worked very well. The figure examples are plentiful where things get more complex, and the types of examples relevant to a typical AE workflow where you're doing a mix of things like animating objects to follow a pre-determined path or handling far-out text effects and background textures that seem to "move and evolve" as time passes.

If you can get through this book and not feel like you are a more capable motion graphics editor, you're doing something wrong. While I don't recommend relying on only one book to learn AE (anymore than I do with Photoshop) because ultimately you'll need a mix of books, videos and other mediums to really learn AE over time... if i had to rely on only one, this would be it for sure.

I used this book after finishing up with the Meyer's fantastic "After Effects Apprentice" book. This book, "Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects", was a great way to firm up what I had learned from other sources.

Highly recommended!

Well, I finally finished the book. I guess I will join the many 5 star reviewers. After reading this book, I have a great foundation of all the features AE offers. I didn't want to do too much as far as working the tons of examples the book offers this go'round, I just wanted to learn the "language". Now I will go through the book again. This time tackling the projects along with my own ideas.

I was a novice going in, and still am to an extent, but the Meyer's takes the intimidation out of you and teaches you principles where when you do speak to other seasoned artist you understand and can execute anything they do.

Excellent and well supported work. Starts from the very basics and gets into the esoterics. I use this work as the primary resource for mastering After Effects.