With its promise of real - clip compositing , colouration correction , and a drag - and - drop-off interface — not to mention its $ 299 price — few political program have been as eagerly anticipated as Apple ’s Motion 1.0 . Video editor program and motion - nontextual matter pros wondered if Apple ’s Modern product would provide an choice to their current compositing software , be it Adobe After Effects 6.5 (; November 2004 ) , Discreet ’s Combustion 3 (; September 2004 ) , or Apple ’s own Shake . The answer is no — the program is not an outright renewal for those far more expensive tools . But after using Motion for just a few days , you may be surprised at how much of your compositing and graphics workload you will choose to move to this first-class newfangled contender .
While Motion does n’t provide any features that the contender does n’t already handle , its combination of nearly genuine - meter performance and a simple interface will cause energizer , titlers , and setter to take a serious look at its capabilities . The program is so tightly integrate with Final Cut Pro HD that video editors who have been look for a more powerful titling tool than the one built into Final Cut will find an excellent solution in Motion .
Interface in Motion
Motion ’s interface derives elements from many different Apple apps , but with its tabbed filing cabinet internet browser and pop - up menu panes , it most tight resemble DVD Studio Pro 3 . It extend several ways to perform most cognitive operation : you could tangle and drop items to window or interface component , select toolbar buttons , select menu options , or tweak parameter in Motion ’s comprehensive Inspector window . you could perform the same complex masking operations in Motion with a simple retarding force and drop that would require a hatful of conformation in other compositing applications .
Though Motion provides a distinctive timeline - based interface for layering and animating elements in a composite , its interface is more compelling because of the improver of behaviors . Say you desire to animate an aim to make it vaporize across the screen . Instead of setting freestanding start and terminate point on the timeline , you’re able to just drop a Throw behavior onto the target from the Behavior library . A semiopaque pappa - up Dashboard lets you control the Throw behaviour ’s counseling and hurrying .
Behaviors are not a replacement for traditional keyframe - found animation ; they ’re simply a very powerful crosscut . At any time , you’re able to transmute an applied behaviour into a set of keyframes that you’re able to easily edit out and custom-make using Motion ’s timeline .
Motion include a robust exercise set of behaviors , including natural philosophy - establish behaviors such as gravitational force , Collision Detection , and Wind burden . Most behaviour admit dozens of editable parametric quantity that let you to customize , combine , and transform simple behaviors into complex actions .
Compositing in Real Time
The big attraction of Motion ’s interface is that you perform all your operation while your television is playing . you may adjust the reply of a behavior , tweak the setting of a filter , or interchange any parameter of any layer — or any operation at all — and the telecasting playback will immediately update to show your new result . Motion ’s workflow is completely smooth and interactive in comparison with the traditional , tedious motion - graphics work flow . The combining of real - time performance and a behavior - based interface get you have a lot more fun experiment in Motion than in any other compositing app .
Motion ca n’t always rally a full 30 frames per second , but even if playback drops to half that speed , it ’s still good enough to evaluate the overall impact of an effect , to synchronize preferences on multiple bed , or to adjust your composite to fit a voice - over .
Motion let in a advanced particle organisation that reserve you to make pot and flaming effects , rain , or simple cascades of visual element . Motion ’s particles are easier to use than those of any other competing subatomic particle system of rules . The add together reward is that you could configure them in real clip .
Dollars in Motion
If the prospect of tangible - time motion graphics for $ 299 has you drooling , bear in creative thinker that it requires a sealed point of hardware . We tested Motion on both dual-2GHz and dual-2.5GHz Power Mac G5s , with varying RAM configurations and video card . Though RAM and processor hurrying did make a difference , our mental test showed that the video identity card had more to do with Motion ’s public presentation than any other agent .
With an Nvidia GeForce FX 5200 , playback stuttered frustratingly on a complex composite . Upgrading to an ATI Radeon 9800XT smoothed out playback decent away . So Motion ’s Mary Leontyne Price might be a little higher when you factor in the pauperization for a degraded video card .
Though Motion has just about everything you need for most compositing project , it still miss some primal element . It provide only 2 - viosterol compositing and it has no painting potentiality , so you wo n’t want to use it for serious rotoscoping . And because it lacks a motion tracker , you wo n’t be able to execute any figure of speech stabilization . In improver , though its colouration - correction filters are very near , you will most in all probability desire to use Final Cut Pro HD for high - end colour correction .
Macworld’s Buying Advice
Apple ’s Motion 1.0 is going to meliorate a tidy sum of motion - graphics workflow . It not only offers an first-class user interface with nearly real - time , interactive playback ; it ’s also fun to practice . Give it a endeavour . If you do lots of motion graphics or compositing , you ’ll belike find yourself go toward Motion .
[ This article has been cut to bump off faulty information about 8 - bit color support.—Ed . ]
