(Page 1 of 2 pages for this article  1 2 >)

Filed under: Apple •Audio •GentryMedia Sister Sites •ProVideo Coalition •Motion Graphics •Tips •

Dipping Your Toes into Motion

So you’ve been working with Final Cut Pro for awhile now. And recently you or your organization upgraded to Final Cut Studio 2. You’ve heard about all these great new features of Motion, and you’ve been meaning to check them out. Really. But you’re always on a deadline, so you fall back on doing your graphics in Final Cut Pro or After Effects or something else you are already comfortable working with. Well, it’s time to take a look and see what this Motion thing is all about. Here are a few tips on how to create something snazzy in Motion without even really knowing what you are doing.

Let’s say you’ve edited a video in Final Cut Pro, and now you’d like to add an opening title sequence. While Final Cut Pro has several built-in text generators, as well as the capability to apply color mattes, filters, and other generators, this is a great opportunity to see if you can make something interesting in Motion. But you don’t have time to learn an entirely new application. Here’s a quick and dirty way to use it.

First, launch Motion, continue past the welcome screen, and choose a project preset that matches your Final Cut Pro project.

Click OK. If the default project duration of 10 seconds isn’t what you want, type a new value in the bottom right field. Then choose Mark > Reset Play Range. Now, press F5 to toggle open the Layers tab. This is where you’ll organize your project.

With your project now set to go, you can now explore different elements to add. Rather than give you a step-by-step of how to create something specific (there are lots of tutorials on the web and elsewhere for that), I want to point you in a few directions to explore:

Text: use the Text tool (“T”) to add text, then modify it with the HUD (press F7 if you don’t see the floating palette).

To further modify the text, check out all the options in the Text tab of the Inspector.

Now, animate the text with one of the hundreds of preset Text behaviors in the Library. Just drag one onto the text, and trim it to your desired length in the miniTimeline at the bottom of the Canvas.

(Page 1 of 2 pages for this article  1 2 >)

                   

 

You must be registered to comment. This is an effort to reduce spam. Please REGISTER HERE.

Name:

Email:

Location:

URL:

Smileys

Remember my personal information

Notify me of follow-up comments?

Submit the word you see below: