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Errata page

Some minor problems inevitably crop up once a book is printed. We'll post any important stuff below. Here are a couple of general issues first:

There has been a problem with readers accidentally cracking their CDs or DVDs by leaving them in the sleeve in the back of the book - this is another reason why we encourage you to copy its contents to your computer's hard drive and/or make a backup copy. If you have a blank CD or DVD jewelcase, you might want to move the CD or DVD out of the book to a safer place. Contact us if you need a replacement DVD and we will put you in touch with the correct person at Focal Press; there might be a small charge to cover postage etc. Be sure to include a descriptive subject line (such as "Need Replacement Book DVD") to avoid falling into the ol' spam filter.

Creating Motion Graphics: 4th Edition, AECS3 (2007)

On the DVD that comes with Creating Motion Graphics 4th Edition, two files contain asterisks (*) in their name, which may cause some issues for Windows XP users. In many cases, Windows will merely replace the asterisk with an underscore and perhaps add some extra characters to the file name, but there has been at least one case where a user has reported problems copying these files off the disc because of these file names.

The problem files are both in the Chapter Example Projects folder:

• 14-Cameras > 14_Chapter Sources > building*starter.jpg (mentioned in Step 1 on page 254)
• 38-3D Integration > 38_Chapter Sources > Cinema 4D Projects > C4D videowall > C4D videowall*starter.c4d (mentioned at the end of page 604)

In both cases, you can replace the * with any other legal character such as _ and they will work fine. If you are unable to copy these files from your disc, click here to download a ZIP archive (asterisk.zip) with replacement files. We apologize for any problems this might have caused.

Creating Motion Graphics: 3rd Edition, AE6.5 (2004)
Volume 1 – The Essentials

Chapter 1, Pages 27-28: Step numbers 49, 50, and 51 were used twice. The text and figures are all in the correct order, just the step numbers are off: The final 4 steps at the end of the tutorial should have been numbered from 52 through 56.

Chapter 3, Page 60: In the figure caption, the shortcut for Windows should have read Alt+Shift+P to turn on the stopwatch for Position. (Needing to use the Shift key is new. Mac users can continue to use Option+P, as least through v6.5.)

Chapter 3, Page 77, 2nd paragraph, 2nd line: Should have read "for two seconds from 00:00-02:00", not one second.

Chapter 4, Page 103: In the second to last paragraph, the reference to [Ex.18c] should have read [Ex.18b].

Chapter 11, page 164, "Simple Selection Moves" sidebar: The 4th bullet point should have made clear that this tip only refers to editing masks in the Layer window. If you are editing masks in the Comp window, the Layer and the Mask itself needs to be selected if you are going to marquee, otherwise After Effects will assume you are just selecting a layer as normal.

Chapter 11, page 180: In Step 2, the reference to [Ex.06c] should have read [Ex.17].

Chapter 25: "Textacy." In the AE Project file, there is an incorrect setting saved in example comp [Ex.07b]. In the Text layer, the Randomize Order setting should be OFF in Range Selector 1>Advanced section. (Note that this was fixed in the 2nd reprint edition (Sept. 2005).

Creating Motion Graphics, 2nd Edition, AE5.5 (2003)
Volume 2– Advanced Techniques

Chapter 10: "The Blue Riders." Page 158, under "Fixing it in the Mix" section. 4th paragraph: the Channel Mixer effect is found under Effect>Adjust>Channel Mixer (not the Channels submenu).

After Effects in Production, 2nd Edition, AE6.5 (2005)

Tutorial 2: "RoboTV". Page 51, Step 11: There is no folder in the Project window called video sequence (despite what the text says...) Look for the comp [video sequence] inside the _RoboTV * prebuilt > _compare comps_after Step # folder. Likewise, on Page 53, Step 14, you will find the video sequence sources inside the _RoboTV * prebuilt > Sources > video clips folder. Sorry about any inconvenience.

And yes, no doubt there are several other little typo errors as well, but we assume you were able to read through those. We're mainly concerned with posting errata that could prevent you from learning something. However, please continue to email Trish & Chris if you find any error, as we'll correct these in future reprints, or through this errata page.

Note to Windows users: any material copied off a CD-ROM will likely have its Read Only (R) attribute set. If you want to save over these copied files, select them, type ALT+Enter, and turn off the Read Only switch. (You can do this to multiple files at once.)

Further Tech Support:

If you have problems not being able to read the CD or DVD that came with a new book, or if the CD/DVD was missing, you should work with the vendor you bought the book from to make good on your purchase. If you later encounter problems reading from a CD or DVD, and you're sure it's not your drive, again, you can get a replacement (see above). There may be a small shipping and handling charge. Be sure to include a descriptive subject line.

Obviously, we are not in a position to provide technical support for After Effects itself. If you are having problems with the applications used by or included on the CD, such as any Adobe product, or your operating system such as Apple MacOS or Microsoft Windows, please contact those manufacturers directly.