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Chapter 1 Getting to Know Motion 15
Timing Tools
The principal difference between traditional design and motion graphics is that motion
graphics is time based. This means that you are concerned with creating a well-
composed and readable layout, and you must also manipulate that layout over the
duration of the show. Motion provides a Timeline that contains tools usually found in a
video editing application (such as trimming, markers, slipping, and snapping) to allow
you to hone and compose the temporal aspects of your project.
Motion also supports audio files, including basic audio mixing, so you can create a
soundtrack for your project and make timing decisions based upon the audio as well as
visual components. You can animate layers, filters, behaviors, and other elements to
create elegant and precise compositions. Furthermore, you can smoothly retime your
footage using optical flow technology, or apply Retiming behaviors to clips for some
funky effects such as stutter and flash frames.
2D and 3D Compositing
Any time you have more than one layer onscreen simultaneously, you must employ
some version of compositing to combine the elements. This might mean moving the
layers onscreen so they don’t overlap, adjusting the layers’ opacities so they are partly
visible, or incorporating blend modes that mix the overlapping images in a variety of
ways. Compositing is fundamental to motion graphics work. Fortunately, Motion makes
it easier than ever before, allowing you to control layer and group order, lock and
group layers, and apply more than 25 different blending options to create unique
effects.
You can also mix 2D and 3D groups in a single project. This allows you to do basic
compositing with some elements of your project and complex 3D animations with
other elements.
Special Effects Tools
You can further enhance your motion graphics projects by employing many of the
same tools used in movies to combine dinosaurs with live actors, sink luxury liners in
the ocean, or create space battles. Motion provides many of these tools such as keying
(to isolate an object shot against a solid-colored background), masking (to hide wires or
other objects that should not be seen in the final image), and particle systems (to
simulate natural phenomena such as smoke, fire, and water). In fact, Motion can be
used to create special effects shots like these, but its real power is in integrating these
tools with the design and editing tools described above.