This is the Safari online edition of the printed book.

Visual effects and motion graphics pros of all stripes - from broadcast professionals to VFX supervisors to Web designers who need to produce occasional video segments - will welcome the dramatically accelerated features provided in the brand-new After Effects CS4. This best-selling book has been revised to cover all that's new in this upgrade: the ability to import 3D layers from Photoshop; the Cartoon effect that converts live-action footage into stylized imagery; Adobe Device Central CS4, which lets you preview and test animations for mobile devices, and more. Designed around a single complex project that’s broken down into manageable lessons, this book-and-DVD package mimics a real-world workflow - but one that readers tackle at their own pace. The DVD contains all the lesson files and footage readers need to complete the lessons.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 5 Ratings

Disappointed - 2009-02-14
Reviewer Rating:
I'm disappointed. I've read the entire book and everything did not work as advertised. I understand that After Effects is a very complex product. I think the book accomplished its mission, which was to provide an introduction to the product. I especially enjoyed the chapters on animating text, multimedia presentations, and layers. Also, the chapters on color correction, 3d effects, and particle systems were very good.

But I had interesting problems along the way, to say the least. Chapter 3 crashed my machine repeatedly. I think the interaction between Adobe Bridge and After Effects was causing memory access violations and services started crashing. Then the blue screen occurred. This problem is reproducible. In Chapter 5 you create a PDF file with a movie in it, and configure the file for clip notes. That crashed Adobe Reader, even after I loaded the most recent version of that product. Chapter 7 does not perform exactly as the book's description. The mask hides the movie, and a white screen appears where the movie is supposed to appear. Even their AEP file in the End_Project_File directory is incorrect and shows a white screen where the movie is supposed to appear. And the movie in their Finished_Product is blank as well. And Chapter 9 crashed my machine with the blue screen.

Four out of fourteen chapters caused problems on my machine, which is a pretty new machine (less than 1 year old). So I gave the book a 70% rating. I hate wasting time, especially considering that it takes alot of time just to figure out how these products work when they work properly. When they don't work as advertised, I end up wasting time trying to figure out if I've done something wrong.

And even though I had problems using the book and the product, I have to say, "Is there anything better?" So it's not like you are wasting your money. Just make sure you hit Ctrl-S alot in the chapters I've identified.

Useful Book, but not the best - 2009-04-14
Reviewer Rating:
I have Classroom in a Book for 6.0, 7.0 and now CS4.
It's usefull if you are new to After Effects by taking you by the hand to show you how to use this powerful program which is both difficult and complex.

It is very much just an updated version of the 7.0 book with a few new lessons on the new CS4 content (ie..Cartoon Effect).

Honestly, the best Classroom in a Book of the three is the one for 6.0. If you want to really learn After Effects in a way that deals with more complex motion graphics and compositing in a project that is far more impressive, I recommend it, even though it's written for an older version. The later books just come up short in comparison.

Nonetheless, if you just bought CS4 and have no clue where to start, this book will prove useful to you.

clear interesting lessons - 2009-06-12
Reviewer Rating:
I found this book to be very useful. The lessons were clear and not too difficult to follow. I particuarly enjoyed the distorting objects with the puppet pin tool lesson and also the building 3D objects/enviroments which opened up a whole area of After Effects that I have now explored in more depth. I used this book in conjunction with a beginners class in After Effects and found it a very good foundation.

A Great Teaching Book - 2009-11-01
Reviewer Rating:
Hi, this book is really great, specially if you are a instructor, because its helps you a lot when you are teaching different students, gradually after each lesson students started to feel achieving a lot, and I was completely satisfied with the seller, as I got the book just right on time without any delay.

regards

Zeeshan J. Shah

Great introduction to After Effects - 2009-08-17
Reviewer Rating:
I'm a Flash developer/animator and AE newcomer. After Effects is a very deep program, and this book covers a lot of it's capabilities. As someone just starting After Effects work, it's a great intro. I don't have any other books to compare it to, however (like I said, just starting out).
One thing that does concern me a bit: while following lesson instructions you are asked to do some routine things that will make sense to someone used to working in Flash or a 3D animation program, and only a cursory explanation is given as to why you would do this. Mostly workflow and best practices kind of stuff. While I did not have a problem with it due to related experience, I think someone just starting out cold might. That said, it is rare for me to be able to work through the entirety of a book of this type. It's nice to have different projects for each lesson; many books of this sort seem to create a movie project replete with every feature the program has to offer that you follow from beginning to end, this usually makes me lose interest, especially if the project is incredibly lame. These projects are all pretty lame (visually - they are informative and useful), but you only have to deal with a particular one for a few hours and then it's off to new footage and assets.

I haven't had any problems with any of the lessons or files, except:

one JPG that was corrupted on Lesson 5 (there are more to choose from , not a show stopper).

In lesson 8, Creating a Walk Cycle: One of the X positions on the graph on page 222 is incorrect -- it needs a "-" sign before the coordintate. I think it was for the torso at 1:00, but I can't recall for certain.

In lesson 11, Positioning 3D Elements: the initial composition should be set to "square pixels" instead of the stated "D1/DV NTSC" in order for the steps provided for correct 3d positioning to work accurately on your monitor.

Not huge errors for a book of this type, but I would have expected Adobe to hand this to a neophyte for testing -- these should have been caught easily by someone following the instructions.
I have not had any crashes or hardware related problems. This is a demanding program, however. I'm using my work machine (Mac Pro tower, 8 cores, 6GB RAM, OS X Leopard), which is a behemoth. I don't know how my home machine would handle it, or the stability of the Vista or XP versions.

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