How To Cheat In Motion
The goal of How to Cheat in Motion is to provide a "cookbook" style of learning, presenting the user with specific recipes to achieve desirable outcomes. A cookbook is essentially "How to Cheat at Cooking". You don't have to be a master chef, just follow the recipe and you'll come out with a great result.
Much like a cookbook doesn't seek to educate the reader on the complex chemistries involved in making a meringue, this book doesn't delve into a lot of theory. That is not to say that it is strictly paint by number, but that explanations are provided in a manner that allows the reader to ignore them and still come out with a working project.
I concentrate on the projects which are, like recipes, essentially a listing of ingredients, order of combination, how long to bake, etc. I don't spend a lot of time hand holding -- I'll tell you to grab something from Library/Generators, I'm not going to tell you where to find the Library. In other words, I'll tell you to add 2. cups of flour -- I won't tell you what flour is or how to open the bag.
This book is structured around projects which are presented here as small "bite-sized" undertakings covering a few pages. They are single dishes, not meals. However, they may be used as "snap-together" concepts, allowing the reader to build them into more complex projects to suit their needs.
And just as your average home cook will, upon becoming familiar with their recipes, add to and expand them, it is hoped that the Motion user, after doing the projects in this book, will come to a better understanding of Motion and make these projects their own.
One way this book differs from a cookbook is that the Motion user interface is far more complex than any given pile of cooking ingredients. Multiple groups/layers/filters/behaviors/etc. are much more difficult to describe than "Add 2 eggs." I have attempted to evolve a standard, albeit of necessity terse, nomenclature to reduce the chance of errors. If there are any questions as to what is being referred to in the text, consult the accompanying picture. As a friend used to say when editing a scene, "This ain't radio." In other words, the images and their framing have been chosen to aid the reader. Don't try to go it on the written instructions alone.
I should note that unless otherwise specified, all the projects in this book are 720&times;486, standard definition NTSC dimensions. If you are using different project sizes, you may need to alter the values for some of the parameters specified.
Also, while the bullk of the projects in this book were designed in Motion 3, some are specific to Motion 4. This is noted in the project introduction. You will find final versions of all projects that have a disc icon in the right-hand side-bar on the companion disc. Sometimes additional variations on the project are included on the disc.
All images and clips included on the companion disc are only licensed for inclusion on the disc. They may not be re-distributed or re-used.
By no means is this book an alpha and omega of Motion instruction. While it has been over a year in the making (much to my publisher's chagrin), there are projects that I've had to leave out for lack of time. I'm reminded of my days as a software engineer.
Management, driven by market forces, had a tendency to want to release a project as soon as it was anywhere past the concept stage, untested, lacking features, and full of bugs. This meant that, left to themselves, they'd release perfect junk.
Engineers, on the other hand, would work forever, refining, removing bugs, adding features, not wanting to let go until the project was finished and free of flaws. This meant they would release perfect nothing. It was this tug-of-war between perfect junk and perfect nothing that always led to an imperfect but usable something that was released.
I've done my best to ensure that this book you now hold in your hands is that healthy compromise -- that usable something -- that enlightens, entertains, and advances your knowledge and abilities.
Now get started!
Patrick Sheffield North Hollywood, 2009
This book is dedicated to my father, Daniel Sheffield, who taught me this basic truth: Complexity is merely Simplicity put together. It may sound a bit silly, but I assure you it's been the basis for my learning ever since. Whenever a problem or a task or a concept seemed too complex to comprehend or complete, I would fall back on this. Break it down. Once the pieces are small enough to understand or master, march through all the pieces and you'll arrive at a solution.
I'd also like to thank my family: my wife, Chris; son, Reilly; and daughter, Parker, for putting up with the many many hours it's taken me to complete this book. Most of those hours were borrowed from time at home when I probably should have been doing something else.
Thank you too, to Matt Mahurin, best friend from high school onward. Without him I'd never have gotten started in this crazy business. He's helped me pull off a few other stunts as well.
And thanks to my friends from the online community at the Apple pro-video discussions: Travis Ballstadt, Peter Barrett, David Bogie, Nelson Brann, Jon Chappell, Brian Conner, Jim Cookman, Neil Ghoshal, Doug Gilmore, Michael Grenadier, David Harbsmeier, Michael Hoffman, Jerry Hofmann, Randy Holder, Nick Holmes, Tom Meegan, Andy Mees, Mike Mench, Shane Ross, David Saraceno, Adam Scoffield, David Slater, Craig Somerer, specialcase, Mark Spencer, and others too numerous to mention. I hope your heads aren't dented from my bouncing ideas off them.
Thanks also to Apple and their great group of engineers and tech-heads who make the fantastic software and hardware that make my job possible. Especially thouse in the Motion group.
Finally, thanks Mom! If it weren't for you, I wouldn't be anywhere.
Back background from LiveType. Recently, I used this to add some "sizzle" to mundane presentation graphics.
We'll be getting our animation from the a customized Cellular generator fed through the pixilate filter and overlaid with the Grid generator.
I should mention that most of the projects in this book, unless otherwise mentioned, are standard def -- 720x486.
Now set the Cellular generator's Size to 45, Speed to 0.16, and invert the gradient; then slide the black of the gradient down to about 26. Set the Blend Mode to Multiply. You should see a bunch of small blue dots.
After I started using Motion, LiveType fell into disuse. A friend recently told me how much fun he was having using LiveType doing the menus and backgrounds for his DVDs and I thought I'd take a look again at LiveType -- especially now that it's 2.0 -- and I realized something.
LiveType is a great enhancer to Motion. Just open LiveType (if you've got Final Cut Studio 1 or 2, you've got it -- Apple dropped LiveType for FCS 3). Now go to the Textures tab of the media browser. There are hundreds of fantastic, professionally designed textures that make great backgrounds, lower thirds, font/graphic fills, right there -- ripe for the plucking. And they're looping.
Set your outpoint to the duration of the texture (in this 3Now the crucial bit. Use the Edit/Project Properties case 5:00). Go to the "Background" section, set the opacity to 100, and click the Render Background.
COMBINED WITH SOME ELEMENTS from the Contents folder, you can make a pretty snazzy animated backdrop. In this, we'll be using the color cycle animation technique (see the Animation chapter for more details), a clone layer, and a pair of replicators to construct an animated grid. The Color Cycle animation technique is a handy, low overhead way to add animation to your project -- it scales well and thus lends itself to be used with replication.
Duplicate your replicator (Cd) and set it at 90 degrees to the first replicator. Then change the points to 16 (4:3 aspect ratio). Using the Adjust Item tool, drag the replicator to the full width of the screen. You can use this light grid just the way it is, or continue on for extra credit.
Select the Adjust Item tool to edit the gradient. Turn it so the black is on one end of our narrow rectangle and white is on the other.
Add Filter/Color Correction/Gradient Colorize and Set the Filter's Gradient to Blue Chrome. Set the Offset to 360, then Right/L-click on the Offset and add an Oscillate behavior.
Hit the Generate button to change the Random Seed in the Replicator tab until you get a light/dark pattern you like.
Set your tool to Adjust Item and drag the handles to the corners of the frame.
Now set the Arrangement to Random Fill, the Birth Rate to 0, Init number to 240, Life to 400, Speed to 0, Color Mode to Pick From Color Range. Set the Color Range gradient to the Light Metal preset. Set the Scale to 13%, and the Scale Randomness to 7. Click the Random Seed a few times to get a sky you like.
IWAS WATCHING THE 2006 Academy Awards and I really liked the elegant black and white motion graphics -- way better than flying chromium sparkles. I thought they might have actually been created in Motion, so I gave it a go. This is only from memory, but it looks pretty good and is at least similar. I started with a circle and did Make Particles. I used a Line emitter and a Select from Range for coloring, with additive blend and a slight ramp at beginning and end for transparency. I also added a Compound Blur filter. I inverted the map so that the lighter circles were sharper and the darker ones were more blurrier. Finally, I remembered there being a muted out of focus background, so I used the Light Dots2 particle emitter preset, took off the grid, tweaked a bit, and put that behind all the circles.
We want to start with the circles already onscreen, so grab your Circles group and slide it back 160 frames. Go the the end and press o to bring the duration back to the full project length. Return to frame 1. Add Filter/Blur/Compound Blur. Set the Amount to 9. Click the Invert Map checkbox.
Select the Circle shape. Press e to create a Particle generator. Change Shape to Line. Set Start Point to -325, 338; 325, 338. You want it to be just off screen (see inset). Set Emission Range to 5.7. Check the Interleave Particles box. Set Birth Rate to 5, Life to 6, Speed to 122, Speed Randomness to 122. Click the Additive Blend checkbox.
Go into the Library and grab Particle Emitters/Abstract/ Light Dots 02. Place it underneath your Circles group. Name its group Dots. Set the Opacity to 50%. Drag it back 15 frames like we did with Circles to lose the startup delay and trim the end to add what we lost at the head.
OKAY -- HERE'S SOMETHING I thought up to give more interest to photographs, but could just as well be used on moving bits or as background. We'll start with our base image and clone it. We'll use a particle emitter to generate a matte of moving boxes for the clone and use the particles to color the clone.
Start with a new project. Place your photograph or clip in the base group and name that group Image. Add a new group above your picture. Call it Mask. Press r to activate the rectangle tool. Draw a small rectangle in the center of the screen. Click the Drop Shadow button.
Furthermore, if a UE were to switch (via Enhanced Serving Cell Change procedure or via RRC configuration) to a Rel-9 capable cell that is only capable of single-cell or dual cell operation, the UE would need to support a reconfiguration to the Rel-9 HS-DPCCH format during the call.