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Chapter 1 Getting to Know Motion 125
Inspector
Every effect in Motion, from behaviors to particle systems to gradients, is controlled by
a collection of parameters that modify the various attributes for that effect. For
example, a Blur filter has an amount slider that controls how much blur is applied.
Some parameters are controlled with sliders, some with dials or pop-up menus. In fact,
there are thousands of parameters using many types of controls. All of them are
accessed in the Inspector.
Important: The Inspector is contextual—what appears in the Inspector is based on the
selected object. An object must be selected for parameters to appear in the Inspector.
Even objects without applied effects have many parameters that you can modify to
alter the nature of the object and how it behaves in your project. These include an
object’s scale, opacity, and position onscreen, as well as more obscure attributes such
as a clip’s pixel aspect ratio or field order.
The Inspector contains four tabs, each of which contains a set of parameters for the
selected object. The first three tabs, Properties, Behaviors, and Filters, are present for
any selected object. The fourth tab, generically called the Object tab, changes its name
and contents depending on the type of object selected.
Types of Controls
There are many different types of controls that may appear in the Inspector. Each one
provides you the opportunity to change the value of a parameter in a special way.