After Effects region of interest

Chris and Trish Meyer have posted a free 48-page chapter (complete with project files) on the Focal Press website. This chapter is an addendum to the most recent edition of their excellent Creating Motion Graphics With After Effects. The most recent edition covers After Effects CS3, and this detailed chapter describes all of the changes from After Effects CS3 to After Effects CS4.

They’re kind enough to point out that they were helped by a post on this blog about new features in After Effects CS4 and a section in After Effects CS4 Help about changes to the user interface. I’m happy to help.

For more information about Creating Motion Graphics With After Effects, including more free PDF excerpts, see Chris and Trish’s CyberMotion website.

Chris and Trish also provide a brief overview of the changes and new features in After Effects CS4 on the ProVideo Coalition website.

In a recent blog post (“OpenSearch plug-ins available for your browser”), Marius Zaharia shows how easy it is to install a browser plug-in that makes using After Effects Community Help searches very easy.

Of course, you can also search After Effects Community Help from the search field in the upper-right corner of any page of After Effects CS4 Help on the Web. Just check the This Help System Only checkbox to limit searches to After Effects CS4 Help and not include the results from other websites.