Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Creating motion graphics with after effects
Comment: I really enjoy the way the book presents the material. It's easy to read and follow the step by step tutorials. The included disc contains each tutorial that the book covers so that you can follow along and test each and every step. It makes learning After Effects easy and fun to work with. It's great for beginners as well as experienced users of the software. This book will stay on my bookshelf as a quick reference.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The bible of motion graphics
Comment: Start off with After Effects Apprentice, then get this book. You'll know After Effects well.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Most complete after effects book
Comment: This is the book I was looking for. I bought 4 books on after effects and this book is by far the most complete one. Everything is explained well, every functions of after effects and the tutorials are also really great.
This book of 690 pages is really worth to buy! Enough said
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Updated and revised for Adobe After Effects CS3
Comment: 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.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Best teachers in the business!
Comment: 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!
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