Would you buy my book?
After starting up this website you’ve been asking me same questions: where did I get my skills, what book did I read to learn expressions and After Effects, and is there anything I could recommend? Since I’m self-taught I simply couldn’t recommend anything else than online resources that I’ve stumbled upon.
I’ve been thinking about writing a book for a long time, and since you started to ask me those questions I started to consider it even more seriously. Unfortunately writing a book takes a lot of time which I already don’t have, and what I have I spent on recording tutorials for your enjoyment. Aside from that there are deadlines, publishers, contracts and lots and lots of things that simply get in the way of doing anything as well as writing the book itself. I just didn’t see myself in that situation. That was until today.
I found an online print-on-demand service that suits my position perfectly and I think it’s worth a try. If I’m ever going to publish it, it would probably cover programming basics, After Effects basics, lots and lots of expressions, tips and trick, and anything else that comes to mind. Haven’t really decided to do it, so I haven’t decided what should be in the book as well. I don’t like to count my chickens before they hatch, but I really get excited just thinking about it.
So the question of the day is: would you buy my book?
Great idea George to write a book.I have already have bought before 3 books about After Effects & they have very much helped me,i’m assured as this book will be very useful.I liked idea & i by 100% !!! Respect ;)
fReezEr. said this May 9th, 2008 at 22:22
nice Genius-M, yeah will buy it for sure.
Mark said this May 10th, 2008 at 4:41
I think, if u make a DVD with video tutorial, it wud be better than a book. I really love to see video tut of urs. If 1 DVD can’t cover the whole of the knowledge then may be u can go for 2-4 DVD’s series. Actually I really think, hands on training with a video tut is much easy to understand.
Plz make a DVD of some serious advance tutorials.
Mark said this May 10th, 2008 at 4:50
Wow Georage Nice Idea dude…
why not we will and i will also recommend your book to my friend and other peoples too because you are the most creative and expression man ;)
Regards,
UmairVFX (Mographic Artist)
UmairVFX said this May 10th, 2008 at 5:32
@ Mark:
I am agree with you… mostly peoples does want to read whole article they wants to see instead of reading… haha :)
UmairVFX said this May 10th, 2008 at 5:34
I would buy it cause I know it will be good
and the content you’re sugessting sounds good
tho I already have programming basics for coding in AEX im still noob/newbie
Karim Dehbi said this May 10th, 2008 at 12:19
Yeah, I would buy so faster as you publish
Bryce said this May 10th, 2008 at 20:08
@ UmairVFX:
hahahaha yeah, thats wat I mean it. Its easy to see n understand but anyways all Ideas r gud.
thnx n also can anybody tell me some freelancing site for graphix work so that I can earn some money to buy all these gr8 upcoming products.
I really wanna buy all these gr8 stuffs but NOT EARNING & thats a total SHIT of my problem.
Any HELP wud b gr8 frm all of my dear friends in this VFX community.
thanx & Regards, Mark
Mark said this May 11th, 2008 at 9:23
To be honest, I think I wouldn´t buy it. Most people at this Level you operate tutorials, already got an AE-Book.
Simply, because you have to understand the application somehow!
I got “Studio Techniques”, and although the book is very well written I hated it to work through, simply because of the non-interactivity of Paper. I don’t want only to read about how to create and animate, I want to see/do it right away!
Most of us became animators or designers, because we suck at maths ;-) . Ok, enough joking around, but my point is, that most animators don´t want to know how to programm expressions,
they want to copy and paste it.
Thats just my opinion! Anyway, good luck with the project.
Keep it going!
illd said this May 12th, 2008 at 3:42
Hey! Thanks for an honest opinion. I really appreciate it. It’s not the first opinion like that that I’ve heard. I understand that obviously this book wouldn’t be for everyone, maybe not for every motion designer, but I believe that compositors might like it.
It’s goal would not be to teach math, but to simply learn the reader how to look at things that are related to each other, and often how simple pickwip trick + expression like “something * slider” may save you hours of work.
Non-math people will never be good at math or like it. Damn… I’m not good at math. I just see the connection between things that may seem unrelated, and when I need to put a equation into the expression aside of an ordinary pickwip generated code, I usually google it because I know what I’m looking for.
Also I believe that everyone would like to get their job done quickly and more efficiently. Take the PixelSampler for example. Theres no magic there. Simple sampleImage expression that you can generate from the fly-out menu. It is just wrapped with a nice set of controllers.
take this for example:
http://www.dustfilms.com/images/movies/play.swf
it would take hours, if not days to do manually. sure there are looped pieces of animation and you don’t have to do it all by hand, but still it would take hours if not days to set up, and than additional hours if not days to animate, while by using expressions (simple ones) it would take like a maximum of one day to set up, and then the thing
would animate itself.
wouldn’t you want to learn how to do that?
So my goal is to teach people to look at things in a certain way rather than teach them how to program. There are other books for that.
Maltaannon said this May 12th, 2008 at 11:00
I would definitely buy your book! Expressions are kind of daunting and I think you could do a good job of making them accessible.
I’m not sure if it’d be better to do it as a DVD or book since expressions have so much text involved.
Nick said this May 12th, 2008 at 20:13
I’d buy it in a heartbeat! Especially if you did the print-on-demand book, and then offered a link to the project files somewhere on your site. Go for it!
Brock said this May 14th, 2008 at 15:52
That’s an excellent idea Brock as it combines on-demand-printing which I can afford, and it’s also good for people who just want to see results. If I really am going to write this book than I will surely provide project files to download for the buyers. Thanks again for the suggestion.
Maltaannon said this May 14th, 2008 at 20:00
What Brock suggested sounds even great to me ;)
illd said this May 15th, 2008 at 0:03
If u write a after effects book, sure ill buy it at the first moment available!
flatoshop said this May 16th, 2008 at 0:22
Are we talking the cafepress system? That’s a great one. Anyhow, there’s a decent chance I’d bag a copy. Go for it, buddy!
baublebob said this May 17th, 2008 at 17:04
I’m actually thinking about WordClay. Looks pretty decent. Thanks guys for all your support. I’m really thinking seriously about this. I just hope I’ll find enought time to make it happen. Wish me luck!
Maltaannon said this May 17th, 2008 at 18:23
I’d rather see a bunch of video tutorials than read a book. I do have AE books, but I spend a lot less time reading them than watching tutorials. I just learn and remember more from video tutorials than books.
Tim said this May 22nd, 2008 at 2:04
I understand that completely, but I do not plan to teach you how to create awesome visual effects. Instead I plan to explain how my thinking process works, any why it is good to think about things like that. After Effects is just going to be used as a tool, but the roles and other things that I plan to explain may be applied to any compositing application.
Maltaannon said this May 22nd, 2008 at 3:14
there are already so many books on the AE basics it would be silly to write another one…..expressions and 3d IS ANOTHER MATTER BUT IT WOULD BE SILLY TO GO TO TREE CULTURE FOR This. better a cd that was inexpensive and which could be downloaded. lots and lots of people will be doing this and the competition will be stiff and get stiffer…so you have to assume you will be only a small portion of the market….and only then if you can put out real gems like you find with say CC or VCoP or the MEYERS or sweet Angie…its competitive out there so its best to just for now relax and think about it a bit more…
AR said this May 25th, 2008 at 23:53
yesss i would but i agree that it should be supplemented by video tutorials. i would pay good money to have it!
Craig Hellen said this May 29th, 2008 at 12:38
go for it, you offer intelligent solutions that we could all benefit from.
I would say go for appealing to advanced users rather than basic users, as there is much already for basic users on the market. Maybe an emphasis on special FX, suggestions for recreating advanced techniques seen on motion pictures, etc.
Expressions is always beneficial, though i think the AFx expression community is really limited to those who have time to underdtand coding.
A print on demand soultion is the best.
Also I would suggest looking into http://www.lulu.com as I’ve used them for years and they do great work
Mike said this May 30th, 2008 at 17:50