Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects, Vol. 1: The Essentials (3rd Edition, Version 6.5)

List Price: $59.95 Discount Price: $12.00

Customer Reviews:

Amazon dropped the ball [Posted on 2007-03-08]
I had to cancel my order of this book three weeks into waiting, because for some unknown reason after the estimated 3-5 week shipping time, there was yet another delay. So I had to buy this book at twice the cost at my corrupt/evil University store.

The book itself is pretty good. I have only examined it a few times. However, some of the explanations can be confusing, it seems you have to read the entire thing to be sure to understand it, you cant pick and choose which things you want to learn from it.

Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects, Vol. 1: The Essentials [Posted on 2007-05-06]
If you are new to After Effects and Motion Graphics, or want to learn from Chris and Trish about the new features in Adobe's CS3 release, I recommend the Brand New:

After Effects Apprentice (DV Expert Series) (DV Expert Series) (Paperback)
by Chris & Trish Meyer

which is the only one of their books to cover After Effects 7, I'm pretty sure. Their next books will cover the new CS3 release.

Normally they write the new version's manual (yes, you can consider their books to be the missing user manual for Adobe After Effects) when the 'X.5' version comes out. There was no 7,5 version of after effects, so except for After Effects Apprentice, there is no manual for AAE 7.

Plus the book covers the new release of After Effects, the CS3 release.

AND this is a GREAT introduction to motion graphics in general, and to working with files in After Effects:

[...]
and when you finish that, you will certainly want:

Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects, Vol. 1: Advanced Techniques (4th edition, not yet published) by Trish and Chris Meyer

and

Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects, Vol. 2: The Essentials (4th edition, not yet published) by Trish and Chris Meyer

which should both be available very soon. I don't actually recommend getting the 6.5 version unless you are not going to upgrade to AAE 7 or AAE CS3. With the ton of new features (like Photoshop can handle video now!) in Adobe CS3, I DO recommend getting the CS3 version of every Adobe product that you use, and if you use more than just a few, you should get the whole suite, it will be cheaper.

Great Book [Posted on 2007-07-19]
This book was very helpful in teaching me how to use and understand After Effects. I'd recommend this book to any beginner wanting to learn AE. It is easy to follow and comes with a great CD (very beneficial).

Creating Motion Graphics Vol 1 [Posted on 2007-10-23]
Though this book series was written for After effects 6.5, I used it as a supplement to CS3. I am very glad that I did, the authors answered the question - Why do you use an effect or tool? The other "teach" books demonstrated what After Effects can do, but not how other than enter the number required in the exercise. A must read for anyone new to After Effects. I hope I can find such in depth books on the other Adobe Suite software. Kudos to the authors - thanks, thanks, thanks.

Excellent learning with lots of pictures [Posted on 2007-12-02]
This book is quite helpful. It covers the basics in manipulating images in After Effects and serves as a great teacher of the software.

I highly recommend it.

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