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Apple's Motion Now Shipping
gz76 writes "Apple's high-performance motion graphic design and production application lets you explore new creative territory using self-propelled behavior animation, character-by-character title animation and a powerful new interface. Motion integrates seamlessly with Final Cut Pro HD and DVD Studio Pro 3, making it quicker and easier than ever to create motion graphics for film, video and DVDs. About time!"
We got to get a sneak peek at WWDC this year, Motion is awesome for the price, the effects are just incredible.
:) but there is room for a Motion 2. Having said that don't let that detract - this is an awesome product, I couldn't believe how easy it was to build simply jaw-dropping effects.
:)
Interestingly Apple are experimenting with the interface, everything can be controlled by gestures, which should please those die-hard fans of this control-method.
There are some things it won't do, I'm not a video-guy so I can't fully remember and I won't attempt to
Might be worth the piffling $299 just to play with the thing even if you're not in video PP
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It will be interesting to see what Adobe does with AfterEffects 7.0 and if they include Tiger's upcoming Core image functionality.
Tea and kung-fu. Life is good. Rising Phoenix
maybe i'm coming off as a bit of an After Effects fanboy but it has to be said. Adobe addressed the rendering issues in 6.5 with the ability to utilize OpenGL in preview rendering. the behaviours type options you describe in Motion seem nice - but once you get really into the advanced functions of After Effects there are behaviours-like options available except just without the "easy to learn" terminology, part of the charm of using After Effect for an advanced user is that the options for effects and such are dealt with in exact variables so by initially learning the animation and manipulation variables outright you know exactly what to tweak and when. (albeit the learning curve for After Effects is akin to a vertical ascent of a sheer ice wall). much of the effort is just working out how to organize keyframing on the timeline and then everything else (the hundreds of possible operations per keyframe) falls into place.
although don't get me wrong it's really nice to see an app with less of a learning curve for motion graphics out and i'm really glad it works well for you. Adobe will have a run for it's money versus Motion when Motion can match the functionality and versatility of AE - not just the ease of use - the fuctions between premiere/after effects/illustrator/photoshop in creating elements to manipulate within compositions is still unmatched. Motion will be great for users seeking various basic effects and text manipulation but for commercial applications After Effects and related apps still take the cake in that the expanse of variables is painstakingly detailed at times.
for teams that tackle things like commercial graphics and film graphic design it is important to tweak everything by hand just to maintain a unique visual style and the more advanced features apply in those uses. I'm not really saying that Motion can't be used in that aspect but to video professionals it may become something akin to seeing an emboss/pixelate photoshop effect on an image for a graphic designer. Point: effects and preset only go so far, for a lot of uses it comes down to detailing (which After Effects still has plenty more of) - well that is just judging from the previews of Motion - inform me if i'm incorrect in this matter.
Seems BorisFX has had all this nailed for quite some time, and at a variety of price points- ranging from the OEM bundles all the way up to stuff like Boris Red. A lot of their stuff is OpenGL accelerated, so it should be just as fast, and it works on both Mac and PC NLE platforms...almost two dozen of them? Nevermind that BorisFX gives away the Keyframer authoring program so you can diddle and learn the interface or even work on projects on laptops, home systems, workstations other than your production rig, etc.
So I have to ask- what's the big deal here? It's been a couple of years since I looked at any of this, so someone please lay it out for me.
Please help metamoderate.
People who can do that are not video professionals.
any specific reason as to why you believe that statement to be true? people that do video for a living should know their hardware inside and out. for example i need to know details on everything from the cameras available on a project to the type of audio capture device (be it reel or MD or other) and I have to know the specific workflow that the project needs for completion and therefore customize hardware for the task. for example if a client has an old reel to reel filmstrip he needs to capture the normal mac setup won't cut it you'll need a film scanner and such. or else someone has a multiple source project you need a system capable of handling the multiple capture options (above the average 1394 devices).
i have never met a good video 'pro' who does not know his stuff concerning his workstation and the type of equipment he needs down to the last detail. if you can memorize the operation on maintenance of video cameras, audio capture and lighting fixtures a computer really isn't that far beyond that. many of my friends have realized that the mac line of "easy to use" and "productive" sometimes just doesn't cut it. so the argument that video professionals should just sit there and use a mac without question just because Apple says it is a more productive platform really falls flat - because those that have the motivation to try out different configurations of machines win out by getting the project done perhaps faster and cheaper.
Sadly,
Video editors on the PC side *DO* need to know both ends.
If you want to spend time tweaking your hardware when you could simply use the hardware that came to you, go ahead. Some of us would rather not ever have to tweak our machines. PCs, I'll tweak the hell out of, Macs -- I don't even bother with upgrade cards because its lost productivity to deal with it when if I need a new machine I just buy it.
My day job I program PCs for a living and managing a department that does the same. We have to work with the hardware at times to see why things aren't working correctly.
My side job as a music tech / audio editor -- I end up making enough that its easy to get new machines. I've never understood the guys that do it professionally that can't get these gigs -- especially since I don't hold any punches just because this isn't a full time job...if I want to call myself a professional, I charge as much as a professional (and sometimes more because I have enough other things going on that I try to bill out at a rate that weeds out the idiots -- I'm always being told someone is charging less than I do and I simply tell them if they think the other guys work is as good as mine and he's charging less, they should go with them and not bother me).
But again, a part time job that does add income to my life still affords buying a machine every year or two and I can get my work done just as well as anyone else -- even on these 'older' machines. Hell, I had an 8600 AV that I used until recently for certain tasks. It wasn't the most powerful, but it served its need and did so without needing tweaks.
Ease of use isn't just the OS, but the fact you don't need to fuck with the hardware. Certain geeks don't get this because they like working with the hardware and don't think that taking a work machine down for a few hours just to throw something new into it isn't a bad thing. I have friends that do the same thing to their cars...I helped a guy change out a perfectly good carb the other day for one that worked slightly better (he wanted one that didn't deal with having to calibrate dual webers ever few weeks -- even though I had the same ones in my vintage car and *NEVER* fucked with the carbs).
So, if you don't mind dealing with it, cool. you *STILL* need to calculate the time you work on this stuff when you charge your clients...if not for billing them, but so that you actually understand how much time you are dealing with this.
Then again, what do I know...I only work with this stuff part time. Maybe because I use Macs, I can get away with it and don't have to spend 20 hours a week to "try out different configurations of machines".
Sorry, but saying Premiere beats FCP out on performance is sheer lunacy. I make my living off of Adobe products (PS, ILL, ID, Acrobat, AE, but Premiere is a bad NLE and it's "real time" performance is laughable.
If you're going to tout the Wintel party line in terms of video post-production, please at least mention the Avid options. Avid is both Win & Mac and they offer a range of products that far surpass Premiere in terms of quality and power.
Pooty tweet
sorry for my knee-jerk reactions too dude.
and i see what you mean
the "surface customizable" line was a metaphor not an actual gripe. sorry if you took that that way
again, sorry about the WETA reference, it was mentioned earlier in this thread and I should have RTFA'ed again to refresh my memory on the subject instead of just using it.
funny that you say that though many of my friends LOVE to hack hardware and software to do things..for example one of my friends took courses and such so that he could mod audio tools and electronic instruments to better work in conjunction with his computer equipment - which meant actively taking apart audio capture devices and modifying them. standards are there to be broken for individual purpose, so whether you choose to or not is really...your choice.
i always am amazed by the perpetuation that "professionals" HAVE to be efficient or buy the standards.. but part of the fields are always experimentation for innovation - for example in the arena graphic design you ALWAYS try to muck around and come out with something that's great and sometimes that involves doing wierd things with equipment (like screwing with WACOM tablets and going back to traditional media to augment digital techniques)
Well, I got an excuse. I've been eyeing that 30" Cinema Display, which requires the fancy graphics card recommended to make Motion sing ($599). So I'll probably get the card, possibly even before I buy the display.
So we'll see how it does then.
After Effects actually stops displaying previews when you switch to another application. Motion keeps on running. It will indeed be interesting to see how the higher-end graphics card affects multitasking, but bear in mind that this was just an exercise done out of curiosity; you would normaly stop motion's playback before switching to other applications, thus solving the problem.
I've been continuing to use Motion and so far it hasn't stopped impressing the heck out of me. If you like motion graphics, you'll love Motion.
D
Interesting; thanks for the response. It's worth noting that Shake costs $2,995, which is way over my budget, while Motion is $299, which fits very nicely in my budget.
So it's cool that I can do all those things in Shake, but as long as animation is more a hobby than a business for me, Motion will have to do.
D
The odds of Adobe doing anything with Core Image anytime soon are really slim- AE is also a PC app, much like photoshop, which means that Adobe has to balance API-hooking against a portable codebase.
:P
That said, I use AE 6 and it's solid for a lot of things, but it's FREAKING SLOW on a 2x2ghz g5 with 2g ram. And it's time control / scrubbing functionality sucks ass. A BIG, SWEATY ass.
I don't want more features, I want a more tightly optimized app that handles as fluidly as Final Cut Pro.
And it doesn't look like I'll be getting that from Adobe.