Apple Motion 5 Cookbook

Apple Motion 5 Cookbook

By : Nicholas Harauz

Buy this Book

Apple Motion 5 Cookbook

By: Nicholas Harauz

Buy this Book

Overview of this book

Let's face it, people like images that move. Whether you see images on a moving billboard, walk into a bank with an LCD screen, watch TV, or surf the Web, motion graphics are everywhere. With an even greater demand to integrate motion graphics in just about every type of video or interactive content there is, this book will help you get there with Motion 5. It's all about creating eye-catching titles, transitions, and effects!"Apple Motion 5 Cookbook" contains exercises for the beginner and seasoned motion graphics user. You will learn how to navigate Motion's interface and quickly grasp the tools available to you while creating sophisticated and sleek animations in both 2D and 3D environments. Not forgetting visual effects, we will also explore motion tracking and green screen techniques that will help you composite like a pro. Let's launch the application, grab a cup of coffee, and get started on this exciting journey!The exercises will take you right from creating your very first Motion project through to export. You will learn how to navigate quickly and efficiently through Motion's complex interface and toolsets so that you can focus oncreating your masterpiece!You will learn how to create a new project and import material into that project from the File Browser and Motion's vast and rich content library. From there, you will learn to manipulate and animate these source files using Motion's behaviors, classic keyframing techniques, adding filters, and master the built-in tools such as particle systems that will knock your socks off! Last but not least, you will export your projects to a variety of different formats including DVD, as a Final Cut Pro generator, and the Web.The "Apple Motion 5 Cookbook" contains downloadable content for each chapter and is packed with screenshots and illustrations. After reading this book, you'll be creating motion graphics and visual effects in no time!

Apple Motion 5 Cookbook

Credits

About the Author

Acknowledgement

About the Reviewers

www.PacktPub.com

Preface

Free Chapter

Getting Around the Interface

Introduction

Choosing a Motion project

Importing files to the Canvas, Layers tab, and Timeline

Importing Photoshop and Illustrator files

Making selections with Expose

Changing the layer order

Groups versus layers

Making changes in the Properties tab, HUD, and Canvas

Moving and trimming layers in the Timeline and the mini-Timeline

Launching and customizing a template

Keyboard customization

Looking under the hood – key preferences for your workflows

Sequencing stills in the Timeline

Managing the Layers tab

Looking at Motion's Library

Introduction

A brief tour of the Library tab

Importing files from the Content library

Applying a Glow filter to a layer

Copying filters and applying filters to a group

Controlling the filter order

The power of cloning

The power of blend modes

Customizing a gradient generator

Applying a blend mode to a gradient

Adding a frame and changing a drop zone's content

Adding a Flourish and applying filters

Making It Move with Behaviors

Introduction

Applying a Fade In/Fade Out and Grow/Shrink behavior to a still

Customizing a Motion Path

Spinning and throwing a ball

Adding an Attractor and Attracted To behavior

Adding Edge Collision and Gravity behaviors to a ball

Creating Random Motion using the Randomize behavior

Stop, Wriggle, Rate, and Quantize

Using the Link behavior

An intro to Text behaviors

Writing on your shape's outline

Creating constant and variable speed changes

Holding and looping your animations

Making It Move with Keyframes

Introduction

Moving a still's anchor point and keyframing its scale

Deleting and disabling keyframes

Keyframing a group

Autokeyframing multiple parameters on a shape

Working with multiple parameters in the Keyframe Editor

Moving keyframes in the Keyframe Editor

Reversing keyframes

Understanding and changing the interpolation

Converting behaviors into keyframes

Combining keyframes and behaviors – animating a Photoshop file

Combining keyframes and behaviors – animating a clock

Let's Make Text

Introduction

Changing the text format

Changing the text style

Changing the layout and creating text on a path

Adding and trimming multiple text behaviors

Sequence Text

Using the Transform Glyph tool

Saving your favorite text animations and styles

Using vector images from the Special Characters library

Using videos and textures to fill text

Creating a lower third for FCP X

Paint and Masks

Introduction

Using the Paint Stroke tool

Changing Shape Style and Width Over Stroke

Using Sequence Paint

The relationship between shapes and Paint

Using shape masks

Creating a garbage matte for a green screen

Adding a video to a television screen

Applying multiple masks to an image and changing mask modes

Using image masks

Creating an advanced logo effect with shapes and masks

Let's Make Particles

Introduction

Making particles and changing values in the HUD

Tweaking particle parameters in the Inspector

Adding randomness values

Working with particle behaviors

Working with particle presets

Working with particle presets in 3D

Using an image sequence in a particle emitter

Working with and manipulating multiple cells

Creating a tunnel through the frame effect

Creating your own Bokeh

Replicators – It's No Fun By Yourself

Introduction

Creating a replicator and changing parameters in the HUD

Tweaking replicator parameters in the Inspector

Working with the Sequence Replicator behavior

Keyframing the replicator's parameters

Working with replicator presets

Making it 3D! Looking at 3D options for replicators

Adding a camera to interact with your replicator

Creating your own video wall

Faking 3D extrusion with shapes

Motion Tracking and Keying

Introduction

Stabilizing a clip

Analyze and Match Move

Offset tracking

Match Move Four Corner

Luma-keying a logo

Keying a green screen

Advanced green screen techniques

The Pleasantville effect

Intro to 3D

Introduction

Making it 3D

Moving a camera versus moving a layer

Where am I again? Controlling the view of your world using viewports

Adjust Around

Integrating 3D and 2D

Using the Framing camera behavior

Let's add some light

Creating reflections

Turning on Depth of Field

Publishing Your Work to FCP X

Introduction

Opening and changing text from FCP X in Motion

Publishing a Motion 5 generator and its parameters to FCP X

Creating an effect for FCP X

Creating a transition for FCP X

Publishing parameters versus publishing rigs 101 – part 1

Publishing parameters versus publishing rigs 101 – part 2

Combining a slider, checkbox, and pop-up rig – part 1

Combining a slider, checkbox, and pop-up rig – part 2

Combining a slider, checkbox, and pop-up rig – part 3

Customization and Exporting

Introduction

Changing your background, color, and safe zones

Creating your own project presets

Exporting a full-resolution copy of your project

Exporting to DVD

Exporting a still image and image sequence

Exporting an alpha channel and video separately

Exporting using Compressor

Saving a template

Index

Customer Reviews

5 star

4 star

3 star

2 star

1 star

Looking under the hood – key preferences for your workflows

Like Final Cut Pro X, Motion 5 has a number of preferences we can change to modify the way it works from its default settings. Let's look at a few key preferences we can change which may be able to assist us in our workflows.

How to do it...

With a blank Motion project open, go to frame 10 of your project by clicking Shift + the right arrow.
Press Command + 2 to open the Library tab.
Navigate to the Content folder near the bottom. Select Particle Images | AquaBall and click on the Apply button at the top of the window. The following screenshot shows the AquaBall image being added to the tenth frame in the mini-Timeline:
There are two default preferences at play here that we should be aware of. The first is that when you import a layer into Motion, it will always get added at the playhead position. When you're first starting to use the application, this can be very frustrating. Second, this was a still image and, by default, if you drag it 10 frames to the left, you'll notice it matches the length of the project. Let's change this now. Select the AquaBall image in the Layers tab and press Delete.
Go to the Motion menu and choose Preferences. Click on the Project tab.
Under the Still Images & Layers settings, notice that Default Layer Duration is set to Use project duration and Create Layers at is set to Current frame, as shown in the next screenshot. Set Default Layer Duration to Use custom duration and set the length to one second.
Set Create Layers at to Start of project.
Let's close the preference window. With your playhead still at 10 frames and the AquaBall visible in the Library tab, apply it to the project again. Notice its length and where it gets added, as shown here:
Go back to Motion | Preferences and change back the preferences to their defaults.

There's more...

We've only scratched the surface of some of the preferences available to us in Motion. Go back to the Preferences menu and get more familiar with some of the other preferences under the different tabs.

For instance, under the Canvas tab, the grid and ruler controls refer to items we can turn on under our View menu (View | Show Rulers and View | Overlays | Show Grid) to help us align objects in the Canvas.

Apple Motion 5 Cookbook

By : Nicholas Harauz

Apple Motion 5 Cookbook

By: Nicholas Harauz

Overview of this book

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Current Title:

Apple Motion 5 Cookbook

Looking under the hood – key preferences for your workflows

How to do it...

There's more...

See also