After Effects Apprentice: Real-World Skills for the Aspiring Motion Graphics Artist (Apprentice Series)

Just started learning After Effects for some personal projects and this book has been incredibly useful in that process. The level of detail, the pace of the material and the way it builds chapter to chapter is really great. I'm only 100 pages in but feel confident enough to write a review at this point. I've also completed the AE essentials tutorial on Lynda, which is very solid, but this book has been more helpful than that. As another reviewer pointed out, the process for getting the project files is unnecessarily tedious, but I didn't take off a star for that because once you have them it's over with and that falls on the publisher.

Good info, really good pace and examples. Covered a lot of little things I wouldn’t have gotten by watching YouTube videos. Definitely download the course materials and follow along.

The book is good but you'll have to fight with the website to get your practice files (registering and then not being recognized by their system, requesting a token that never comes to your specified email address). I just sent them an email with my proof of purchase and requested they send me a link to download. Unfortunately the days these practice files came shipped with the book on a DVD are pretty much over and you'll have to do some fancy footwork to download your files. It is much a learning experience as learning the After Effects program itself. Also, if you receive this book outside of business hours you'll have to wait until the next workday for a response from Routledge. I created two registrations with two different email addresses and neither allows me access to my project files. Of note there must of been something wrong with the print drum when this copy was run off the press, look how garbled some of the headliners are above the paragraphs (see screen shot). I may have to buy another one. This was a new book purchased from a third party. I received a replacement from Amazon. Going through the book some parts aren't detailed enough like on Page 46 it says in the Layer panel click on the View Menu and select Anchor Point Path. I did that and there's no Anchor Point Path in the View Menu on the top of the menu bar. Obviously I'm choosing the wrong item or in the wrong panel but without a prior knowledge of After Effects I'm spending 45 minutes on each page Googling for more detailed instruction. By all means, if you can afford it, take an in-residence class to have immediate help when you can't find a particular function called out for in the instructions. It will save you loads of time and keep you from losing interest. Because I can't find this particular menu option called out for in Chapter 2 I'm not getting the results the book says I should. I'm just going to have to keep fumbling with it until I figure this program out. Unless somebody throws a big bag of money on my doorstep I'm not going to be able to pay for an in-residence Adobe certification class so i'm just going to have to keep pushing controls and clicking on options and using my Google fingers typing for more detailed help outside of the book here until I either learn this program or break everything. It's how I learned Power Point; I got pretty good at creating projects in that program. At the rate I'm going it will take 52 years to get through this book. I may be better off watching videos of how to work with After Effects and once I get a basic understanding then I can graduate to instructional books like this one. I'm not blaming the book; I'm just completely unfamiliar with this program and cannot follow through with the lessons as instructed simply because I can't find the commands called out for. Like, how do you close the Layer panel? I don't even know how to open it so I'm not going to be able to close what I don't know how to open. I'll subscribe to Lynda.com and watch Chris Meyer's videos and hopefully this will shed some light on this dilemma and learning curve issue I'm facing as I truly want to learn this suite but cannot afford an in-residence class that i get in may car three times a week and go to. Sometimes you just have to spend weeks sifting through videos and take a hands off approach until you have basic understanding of what is going on... and then and only then will you be able to complete these lessons correctly in their entirety.

A lot of reviewers stated they can’t log in. When (or if) you get past the code (security) question & complete your online set up-you’ll get an email with your username from the website. Use the username listed in the email-which is likely your email address to sign in to the website for the exercises. Hope this helps🤷‍♀️UPDATE: I'm working in AE 2020. Be ready to improvise during some of the lessons i.e. Google & Youtube. I was able to complete about 90% of the lessons but theres a few lessons where the software has been updated but of course the book has not-yet (Mocha & C4D for example). Also, these lessons can be found on Lynda.com with membership-in case you're more of a digital/"I learn by watching" person :) Lastly, a chapter can take a few hours to complete so I recommend starting in the morning time so it doesn't seem as long. This book covers tons of "OMG/WOW that's how that's done?" information. And I appreciate that someone or two, took the time to write it. Happy Designing!

Very in depth and a good reference book to have on my shelf. Great transaction and speedy delivery!

Overall the material and lessons in this book are informative and helpful. I have worked with After Effects for years and teach Animation. The previous Apprentice series of books were great for updating myself along with having some help in creating lessons for my students. The problem with this book is the MANY typesetting issues through out, especially the sidebar material. The letters for headers and body text in the Sidebar Sections are almost always jumbled making some almost impossible to read. Looks like the publisher should have checked the proofs before sending the book off for an official printing. I have included photos as evidence. One of the photos is hilarious because it is a sidebar for 'Typesetting Tips.'

This book explains all of the concepts it's having you exercise in the lesson files. I feel like I know what I'm doing and I'm not mindlessly reading a step-by-step lesson plan. You'll be able to easily take what you learn from this and apply it to your own projects. Great book. I read Adobe's AE textbook and it didn't bother explaining anything nearly as well. The biggest thing I learned in 300 pages was where some features were located.

I have purchased a number of books on After Effects by the Meyers. My rating is 5 STARS for the content and presentation of their material. My problem with this book is the availability of the associated Project Files. After a good 60 minutes, I still haven't been able to make my way thru the maze that one has to pass through to get access to these files. I gave up playing computer games many years ago when I realized I could never win Space Invaders on the Atari. I PLAY TO WIN. Now, my problem is: the instructions are not clear; undocumented clicks are needed to forge ahead; Sign-on info that I just setup is reported to be incorrect; Which is the first paragraph on a page that starts with a textual list? I cannot win this game today. I understand that the authors want to limit Project Files to those who purchased the book, but I give up. … Maybe, I should try again tomorrow. Maybe the computers that manage this access travesty are slowwwww.

Looks very good - but as with the other poster I can't access the project files either. The process is ludicrous. These are just some exercise files for goodness sake not the plans for a nuclear bomb! Don't buy until they sort this out.

These guys are terrific teachers... This book is the written version of their online course, After Effects Apprentice. I have to say, though, that learning AE via the book alone would be very challenging. In combination, very much easier.

Could not access project files.