After Effects Most Wanted

Rating:
Summary: The Worst After Effects Book you can buy
Review: "After Effects Most Wanted" is easily the worst book on AE I have ever tried to sit down and use. The construction of each tutorial makes little sense, the plug in's used are not included, and most of the files you need are simply not on the CD. Those that are there are usually labelled incorrectly or corrupt.

I wrote the publisher about the missing files, and they pointed me to a site that gave me the suspect files for only one chapter, the rest are no where to be found.

The tutorials are badly written/organized, and incredibly tough to follow for even advanced users. The whole thing was an excercise in frustration and I hope this review can save you the same stress. If you want to learn some intermediate-advanced After Effects, definitely look elsewhere.

Rating:
Summary: [bad]
Review: ...It represents a new fashion in book publishing, where one author approaches a series of artists to share one of their projects and how they did it... The publishers love it because these books are so easy to do. The authors love it because no one person has to do the work. The result is a badly thought out, mish-mash of techniques and one total worthless book.

Too bad Amazon.com does not have a way to give "0" stars or even a minus category, like "I give this book -5 stars for failing on the most basic of criteria." These people should be drummed out of the profession for such rank amateur...

Rating:
Summary: If I could rate it 0 stars... I would
Review: Do not waste your time... period! Even if you get it at a discount price of $0.75. If it's that cheap? Well- buy it and look at it just for looks. The group that put this together is absolutely full of hot air. They boast about what they can do and blah, blah, but they do NOT teach you anything, because everything is misleading and missing files galore... JUST steo 2 of the book will throw you for a spinner. I wrote them an email and NO response about anything. Finally, in frustration, I put it down to grab the next After Effects book to start practicing on (since I have four different ones), and wouldn't you know it... It was "Revolutionary AE 5.5 enhancing digital video" by the same publisher "friends of ED". I gave that one a once over to realize it is a tiny, tiny bit clearer, and oddly enough it was published before this egotistical pile of garbage. These people who make these books are nothing but posers. "oh look what we can do!!!" They're in it for quick cash. I suggest buying toilet paper instead of these books. It's less harsh.

Rating:
Summary: After Effects Most Wanted
Review: Good Book.
It is good getting a range of practical experience .
If your keen to actually do things - rather than just read about them
I'd recommend it.

-mike

Rating:
Summary: hardcore effects
Review: If you are thinking about buying this book DON'T! I am an avid AE user, to date I own around 11 AE books and this one has disappointed me the most! I was psyched to get this book and anticipated it's arrival. As soon as I got it there was trouble. The most disappointing thing about software books is when the ... CD's content doesnt work or is non-existent. Granted some of the missing files are on the web site, but that is a pain to find and some of the extensions are messed up on sequence files. I am sure that the authors are talented and I know that FriendsofED puts out some good stuff I own many titles from this publisher that I enjoy. The only advice I have is fire your editors because they stink, how about you actually do the tutorials before printing the CD so you can catch the mistakes before people buy the books!

Rating:
Summary: Easily one of the better ones
Review: The book has some great examples, which the reader is talked through. Not all of them are great, but a lot of them are, and they're from the sort of projects that form the bulk of AE work. It beats most of the AE books out there hands down (most of the others are just a rehash of the manual). I noticed a few people on the list hated it, but if they're really that advanced, why would they be bothered reading "how to" books? My biggest gripe with the book is that there were not MORE examples in there (books are expensive these days) > but I could say the same for most books I see now. Anyway, the book helped speed up my AE learning time, which is the main thing I'm after - not just an illustrated rehash of the manual.

Rating:
Summary: hot & cold
Review: This book is a weird one. on one hand it's inspiring & not at all like a AE manual which I appreciate. On the other it is also borderline useless. None [bar one] of the projects featured have a simple Quicktime or Windows movie of the final piece that you can view what it is the author actually did. They have AfterEffects working files of which you have to export the movies yourself, BUT each project also uses different third party filters [no demo's on the cd] which throw error's soon as you load the AE project so you STILL can't see the finished product. Just plain stupid if you ask me. Most of the projects seem to have between 100%-50% of the working files missing. in the case of renescant all you get is the finished movie & nothing else. seeing as you are paying for the oppurtunity to 'pick apart' the files & explore I think it's fair enough they hand them over.
Overall I kind of like the book, but it is really on the whole disapointing & frustrating. I doubt whether I will by another Friend of Ed book based on this one. it really feels like a stooge job in the end.
PS I visited the FofED site to try & find files of which I found some for one project. but nothing else.
My advice is steerclear unless you REALLY want this book. I am sure there are others out there that do what this one does ALOT better..

Rating:
Summary: Totally useless and definately NOT wanted
Review: Wow, this book is really bad. I really can't tell who it was written for: all of these projects were done on a pc for starters, so whenever the authors leave the AE application to use an NLE, they refer to Premiere!... Who in the real world of motion graphics is actually still using Premiere? I don't know of any... AE and Final Cut Pro on a Mac are the norm for this kind of work (in the U.S., at least).
Also, the best 2 pieces of work in the book were created in 3D Studio Max and NOT AE!!

Most of the sample projects on the CD require plug-ins that are not contained on the CD (not even demo versions!) plus you have to locate/re-link nearly all of the footage just to open any AE project on the disk (Note: some of the footage doesn't even seem to exist at all) and there are few "final" example movies.
The tips/work procedure also seems to be dreadful too... I'm not sure if these guys actually know how to use AE - some of their procedures are so cumbersome that it's unbelievable.
This book is completely useless and NOT recommended at all.
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