Key topics and popular highlights for 'Visual Guide to Animation' include: basics of computer animation, 3D space, transforming 3D objects, time in animation, keyframes, Animation Editors: Dopesheet, Animation Editors: Graph Editor, tangent handles, interpolation types and ghosting, repeating animation using cycling, camera animation and motion paths, rigging, constraints, deformers, bones and skinning, hierarchies and forward kinematics, inverse kinematics, expressions, character animation, morph shapes, non-linear animation, motion capture, and additional information developed for artists learning the fundamentals of animation.