Customer Reviews

Focal Easy Guide to After Effects: For new users and professionals (The Focal Easy Guide)

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

 

 

After Effects is an amazing program, so powerful, so intuitive. People that are already committed to taking it on will be better off with the excellent but very dense Trish Meyers books. People that have gentler goals and less technical experience will be overwhelmed by them, and probably quit before they really crack AE, so that's where this book comes in.

AE is potentially a radical tool; with it anyone with a computer and a DVD burner is a film and animation studio. Far more people could learn it, and to that end this book is a useful thing: it isn't as thorough as the Meyers books or the also-excellent H.O.T. book, but as a quick spin through the essentials, a teaser to get you excited and briefed so you'll be ready to take on heavier selections, it's a good choice.

As an artist with a lot of 2d experience in animation who needs to absorb several new animation programs quickly, I find this book very easy to read and well organized.

There is one major problem though (actually, perhaps two).

Key components of the book are the 'downloadable' files located at the publishers' site online (rather than on CD as with other computer books). Many of these files seem to be corrupted or do not open in a newer version of AI. In addition there appears to be no 'help' page or resource for this problem from the publishers. I am unsure how much I'll be able to learn here without being able to perform many of the examples and lessons featured in the book.

I really want to like this book a lot more than I feel I am able.

I love this book, it's easy to read and understand even for an artistic type. The book is spangled with pictures, and visual guides. I use this for my beginning motion graphics class and all kinds of students are able to understand it.

AND above all it is not horribly expensive like all other software books!

Great starter book if you want to get familiar with After Effects!

Simple explanations with lots of pictures. Got it for class in school. Helps me out a lot.