This is the Safari online edition of the printed book.

This is the only book in the After Effects market to focus exclusively on the creation of visual effects, and is a one-stop resource for anyone who wants in-depth explanations that demystify the realm of visual effects and how they were created, thanks to veteran author Mark Christiansen's friendly and accessible style. A thoroughly packed, informative read, this masterful guide focuses on explaining the essential concepts, features, and techniques that are key to creating seamless movie-quality visual effects. Readers will learn how to put After Effects to work to create the shots they need. Users who are comfortable with After Effects will find a helpful review of After Effects fundamentals--managing footage, viewing and editing layers, animating type, and more--so they can learn how to work smarter and more efficiently. Readers of all levels will learn core techniques for effects compositing: color matching, keying, rotoscoping, motion tracking, and emulating the camera. The final section of the book delves into creative explorations, demonstrating actual effects that readers might want to re-create. Readers will also find comprehensive coverage of all that's new in this upgrade. Throughout the book, beautiful full-color examples demonstrate what's possible, while the companion DVD offers plenty of sample footage and dozens of demos of the most useful After Effects plug-ins. .

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 16 Ratings

Great Book! - 2008-05-23
Reviewer Rating:
Adobe After Effects CS3 gives a lot of info that can really help jumpstart your After Effects questions that Have previouslly been unanwered. I've always wanted to get this book,and I'm glad that I've got it now. I recoommend this book to anyone who needs to further their chops with After Effects.

Rendering Fire - 2009-02-13
Reviewer Rating:
I originally picked up this book as a supplement to my other books on After Effects.

There is some good information here, which I think alone is worth the 5 stars.

I was particularly interested in how to render realistic fire effects - the book features a section dedicated to this, and many other creative effects which you may need in real world projects.

So, I recommend this book to anyone in search of a detailed discourse on creative post production effects. 5 stars.

The initial chapters were a bit dry for my liking, so I didn't pay much attention to them. I was mostly interested in Mark's insight on creating effects, I think this is the core of what the book is about.

However, there are chapters on setting up your tools and some of the quirks which can crop up, this may be useful for intermediates.
All good stuff I suppose.

Edward

Straightforward, 'real world' applicable techniques. - 2008-06-19
Reviewer Rating:
With one of the most refreshingly honest forewords I've found in a techinical book yet, Mark Christiansen & Stu Maschwitz have created an After Effects manual which, unlike so many others, DOESN'T focus on motion graphics, but reveals the studio techniques required to use After Effects as a fully fledged, fully capable compositing suite. It is obvious from the getgo that these authors are passionate about their craft, and have a real desire to raise the standards in the visual fx industry, and show just how capable After Effects is without the need to resort to other, ridiculously expensive compositing suites.

So many other books focus on 3D layer and text effects while completely ignoring the problems which visfx artists encounter in real world situations. This book does exactly the opposite, focusing entirely on compositing and related techniques and has proved an invaluable resource. Despite what they authors say about this book not being aimed at After Effects beginners, the sections on pipeline optimisation and camera & optics contain information that I wish I had've been taught when I first started using AE, and as such, even someone with only a very basic understanding of AE should invest in this book.

Good deal - 2008-05-18
Reviewer Rating:
Well laid out and an extensive amount of information.

This book has added greatly yo my knowlage of After Effects.

Paranormalist, Jim Callahan

For Web Work- It's better than flash... - 2008-04-24
Reviewer Rating:
This really is a great book. I'm an interactive designer, and use it exclusively for web work. Since FLV's are taking over the web, After Effects enables you to build amazing creative that can be used with flash to showcase amazing web pages, ads and anything else you can think of.

Would have given it 5 of 5 stars, but there were areas that I found difficult to understand and some terminology that was confusing. This is a book for intermediate/advanced.

Sorry beginners! Try the Adobe Classroom in a book series, it works great as well.

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