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Motion functionality question

Is motion able to break down source material (video or otherwise) to create animations? Like splitting a skyline from a mountain range from the same video and animate them in a 3D environment?

Posted on Mar 24, 2023 6:32 PM

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Posted on Mar 24, 2023 8:02 PM

Yes, you can absolutely do this in Motion. Motion can do a wide range of animations or composting process almost the same as After Effects or other motion graphics/compositing software. The composites can be done in "2.5D" where you separate the clips on X/Y/Z and use a camera to move around them. I think that is what you are asking.

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Mar 24, 2023 8:02 PM in response to lary_renaud

Yes, you can absolutely do this in Motion. Motion can do a wide range of animations or composting process almost the same as After Effects or other motion graphics/compositing software. The composites can be done in "2.5D" where you separate the clips on X/Y/Z and use a camera to move around them. I think that is what you are asking.

Mar 24, 2023 8:09 PM in response to GFXZen

hmm depends on what you describe as 2,5D… Do you mean you can 3D animate materials with programmed with 2D mattes? I mean, I could use that, but what I’m referring to is having a 3D canvas and being able to split source material in bits from one file. Matting needs duplicates and duplicates need a lot of storage space, thus a lot of rendering

Mar 24, 2023 8:30 PM in response to lary_renaud

It's not really clear what you are trying to do. "2.5D" refers to taking flat 2D elements and moving them in 3D space. It might help if you have an example of what you are trying to do that you can link to to.


Matting does take duplicate layers, but that should't take up additional space on your drive. And no matter what, you have to render. Here's another example to see if this covers what you want to do. If I have a video of a room with a couch, a window and the outside. I could make three copies of that layer, mask out the main pieces (couch, wall with the window, outside). I could take these layers and offset them in Z to create depth. I could then take a camera in Motion and move it on X to simulate parallax. As long as I don't go to far in any direction I can make things look 3D. The duplicate layers don't take up extra space on my drive because the video source is only referenced for rendering. It's not until I export that the file takes up significant space.

Mar 24, 2023 8:39 PM in response to GFXZen

I get you. I’m just trying to make sense of the changes in FCP suite since I started working for large media outlets with top-down Avid. I’m on the trial version of FCP and wondering if I should commit straight away and buy motion or get Mediacomposer + Adobe. Apple is the most realistic option for price and quality… But 15 years ago I loathed Avid for workflow problems that I get from 2023 FCP

Mar 25, 2023 2:53 AM in response to lary_renaud

Perhaps you should start by posting in the FCP forum about these workflow issues you mentioned. Maybe it’s something of a deal breaker for you or maybe it’s just because you are unfamiliar with it. FCP is very different from Avid or Premiere, and if you try to make it work like these editors you will end up in frustration; but if you learn how it works you may change your mind.

Motion functionality question

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