After Effects 4 in Depth [With Contains Hundreds of Animations...]

by R. Shamms Mortier

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1576103102
• ISBN13: 9781576103104
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: Coriolis Group Books
• Length: 616 Pages
• Weight: 2.62 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 7.4" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Great for Plug-ins Overview

This is a good book if you're shopping around for plug-ins. For the price, it can save searching time on-line for all the different vendors. Plus it has demos of most of them, so you dont need to download for hours. Has a good overview of After Effects 4, but it probably wont make you into a designer. You'll still need the manual for a functional overview.If you are short on dough, and like to pirate software and are looking for a 3rd party book as a manual, you should wait for Trish Meyers book which will be released in the next few months. They are in the final stages of edit as I type this - 2/11/00

Review from SemperMac magazine

It has been quite a few months since Adobe Systems released After Effects 4 and still there is no sign of the obligatory Adobe After Effects 4 Classroom In A Book. However sources tell SemperMac to expect the book to appear real soon now. Adobe's CIAB series are perhaps the best means to find your way in to an unfamiliar program via their carefully structured step-by-step tutorials that are written by Adobe's own trainers, and using files on the book's CD-ROM. Shamms Mortier's After Effects 4 In Depth is not intended to replace the well-proven CIAB format, but instead takes a different course: it is mostly to do with the vast range of After Effects plug-ins available and that extend the core program in ways the program's creators themselves barely dreamed of. Mortier is doing us a real service in showing and telling us about all these optional extras, as I can assure you that if you visit the web sites of many such plug-in developers you may be left less well-informed than if you relied on the info on Adobe's plug-ins page alone. The variety of plug-ins is bewildering, and we need a guide through it all. Mortier is just the one do it with copious quantities of illustrations on each page. Lest this description convinces you After Effects 4 In Depth is a show and tell tome only, Chapter 44: Three After Effects Projects, is exactly that, a trio of motion graphics learning projects based around source files included on the CD-ROM. Coriolis' production staff may want to watch out for a faux pas like the one on the last page, in What's On The CD-ROM, where they recommend that both on both the Mac and Windows platforms a "Pentium processor is strongly recommended." Now what possible use has a Mac for an Intel Pentium snail roaster? The words imprinted in the CD-ROM, "Click on INSTALL.EXE for installation" might also lead the unwary to believe that the disk is only for Windows when in fact its content is mostly movies in Apple's QuickTime format, with trial versions of AE 4 for Mac, Media Cleaner Pro for Mac, Commotion 1.6 for Mac, 2 RayFlect included for good measure, along with Chapter 44's project files.

Excellent For What It Is

The first thing to do is figure out what this book is not. It is NOT a tips and tricks, or recipe book for step by step making of great After Effects projects. Look ElseWhere. What it is is the most in depth and comprehensive encyclopedia of After Effects, Production Bundle, and 3rd party plug-ins. I too initially was disapointed by it not being a recipe book, but the author has done a worthwhile job, and one of the main powers of After Effects is that it has so many plug-ins. The coverage of the program itself is well done, thorough, if seemingly short. Most of the book is spent on Production Bundle, and 3rd Party Plugins.

valuable reference

After Effects in Depth details the new After Effects internals first and then describes external plug-ins, each with details and examples, descriptions, directions, tips, all cleverly keyed to icons for fast reference. The CD is full of imaginative animations showing the effects in motion-- a stellar work.

Kicks Butt over the sad Adobe version

This book beats adobe hands down, While they are concerned with making their software attractive and speaking from the company mouthpiece, this book really covers the stuff you actully use after effects 4.o for. And it has been available longer than the official adobe version that is not even out yet, they are still in committee about what to write in it! Anyway if your an editor or just like to mess around with the after effects 4.o production bundle..you will get a kick out of this fancifull kick butt book.