I consider myself a newbie to After Effects with very little programming experience. In my opinion, After Effects Expressions by Marcus Geduld is a well thought out and well-written book which would appeal to many different skill levels. Like many other designers, I have resisted learning coding and instead focused on the "fun stuff", all the while knowing that learning the programming side would be both desirable and necessary in order to take my skills to the next level of proficiency.
Although I do have a basic understanding of javascript, I have very limited actual experience with it. I have not yet gone through the entire book because I am still learning the basics of After Effects but what I have read so far has gone a long way in explaining a difficult subject in easy to understand language. The author does an excellent job of explaining a difficult subject in a way that even a newbie can understand and get excited about. Being a visual learner, i appreciate having so many images and illustrations to refer to for reference. Others may prefer less images and more coding, but for me having the pictures to follow along with are great!
The only negative that I can think of would be the lack of CD or DVD to accompany the book. I would prefer to have the source files readily available on disk rather than having to access the files over the internet.
I will be checking out other titles by this author and I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to take their After Effects skills to the next level!
Author(s): Marcus Geduld
Publisher: Focal Press/Elsevier
Year: 2009
Language: English
Pages: 438
City: Amsterdam; Boston
FRONT COVER......Page 1
AFTER EFFECTS EXPRESSIONS......Page 4
COPYRIGHT PAGE......Page 5
CONTENTS......Page 8
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS......Page 10
INTRODUCTION......Page 12
ABOUT THE AUTHOR......Page 20
PART 1 Using Expressions......Page 22
ADDING EXPRESSIONS......Page 24
DISABLING AN EXPRESSION......Page 28
BASIC EXPRESSIONS......Page 29
EXPRESSIONS IN WHICH ONE PROPERTY CONTROLS ANOTHER......Page 34
THE PICK WHIP......Page 42
WRITE-ON AND BEAM......Page 50
TRACKING AND BLURRINESS......Page 58
VARIABLES......Page 62
COMMENTS......Page 79
DIMENSIONS......Page 80
CHAPTER 3 Commands......Page 112
THE WIGGLE() COMMAND......Page 114
WIGGLE() WITH EFFECTS......Page 123
WIGGLE() WITH KEYFRAMES......Page 127
WIGGLE AND DIMENSIONS......Page 133
WIGGLE CONTROLLED BY TIME......Page 145
THE LOOPOUT() COMMAND......Page 150
THE VALUEAT TIME() COMMAND......Page 158
THE EASE() COMMAND......Page 168
COMMANDS IN EVERYDAY EXPRESSIONS......Page 187
COMMANDS THAT RETURN VALUES......Page 190
EXPRESSIONS GRAPH......Page 192
EXPRESSIONS MENU......Page 194
CONVERT EXPRESSIONS TO KEYFRAMES......Page 197
CONVERT AUDIO TO KEYFRAMES......Page 201
EXPRESSION CONTROLS......Page 215
DEBUGGING EXPRESSIONS WITH SOURCE TEXT......Page 237
SAVING EXPRESSIONS......Page 239
PART 2 Foundations for Advanced Expressions......Page 246
VARIABLES......Page 248
OPERATORS......Page 263
CONDITIONALS......Page 267
LOOPS......Page 277
FUNCTIONS......Page 289
LIMITATIONS......Page 291
DEGREES AND RADIANS......Page 298
SINE WAVES......Page 301
EXPONENTIAL CHANGE......Page 310
COSINE: ANOTHER WAVE......Page 314
ARRAY ARITHMETIC......Page 320
LOOK AT USING ARCTANGENTS......Page 321
LOOKAT IN 3D......Page 325
DISTANCE REVISITED: LENGTH()......Page 327
GRIDS......Page 329
SPACE TRANSFORMATIONS......Page 336
TRIGGERS......Page 342
STRING MANIPULATION......Page 357
ANOTHER LOOK AT WIGGLE()......Page 372
RANDOM()......Page 374
NOISE()......Page 392
ONE LAST LOOK AT WIGGLE()......Page 401
ORBITS......Page 404
BOUNCES......Page 410
JIGGLES......Page 419
BOUNCE AND JIGGLE......Page 421
SWAYS AND UNDULATIONS......Page 423
COLLISION DETECTION......Page 429
C......Page 434
J......Page 435
P......Page 436
S......Page 437
W......Page 438
