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AE vs. Motion: Which is best for me?
Hello,
I’m getting near maxing out what I can do in FCP, and am interested in learning an effects program. I am currently using a MBP with 128 MB of VRAM, but plan to upgrade to a Mac Pro with a proper graphics card in about a year. I’m not asking which program is “better,” just which one seems more suited to me now and also which program would work best for me once I get a real video editing computer. I do not want to learn both programs, as each looks as if it would take hundreds of hours to really learn well, and I also don’t want to buy two sets of plug-ins.
1. Besides RT and FCP integration, what are the advantages of using Motion over AE, if any?
2. Is one program easier to learn than another? (Motion looks a little easier, but there’s over 20 times as many video tutorials for AE as there is for Motion, on this site alone, could make AE easier to learn for me.)
3. Does tracking in Motion work as well as tracking in Mocha (which I believe integrates with AE CS4)?
I am mainly interested in manipulating actual footage, rather than generating it. For example, I’m not so interested in really fancy titling or the kind of generated effects that one might see in a TV news or sports program. Here’s a few things that I’d like to do:
• Mask out a couch that’s shot with a static camera in a real living room (not green screen), then make it expand and contract as if it were breathing, in the same room.
• Adding “filmic glow” and other color enhancing effects to footage (beyond what FCP can do).
• Mask out the top of houses/horizon enough so that I can put alternate video in for the sky, or drastically change the color of the sky, using tracking with panning/tilting footage.
• “Build” a person or object so that it appears out of particles from the ground, perhaps using a shattered glass effect or particle system effect in reverse. (I would start with footage of a real person or object).Many thanks for your time,
Chris -
7 Replies
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I’m not going to comment on which I think is better, because of my obvious bias.
However, I will point out that you can download a trial version and try it out for 30 days.
(Note: The free trial version of After Effects doesn’t include some features that depend on software licensed from parties other than Adobe. For example, mocha for After Effects, some effect plug-ins, and some codecs for encoding MPEG formats are available only with the full version.)
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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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I don’t have much experience with Motion, but I’ve taught a lot of After Effects classes to people that know Motion well. They always tell me that Motion is “fun to play around in”, but if you’re going for a specific effect, it’s near impossible to achieve.
Personally, my brain can’t fathom a software application more “fun to play around in” than After Effects, and you have the added bonus of knowing that you can (usually) get it to do exactly what you want it to. I don’t think anyone would argue the fact that After Effects is by far the more professional app between the two.
Just my $0.02
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“I am mainly interested in manipulating actual footage, rather than generating it. For example, I’m not so interested in really fancy titling or the kind of generated effects that one might see in a TV news or sports program.”
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To me, this pretty much says After Effects. Motion is good for quickly generating backgrounds and other cool “one-click” effects, where After Effects is gonna offer more control over effects, and more specialty effects like better color correction, masking and tracking. You can do some of that in Motion, but as Todd said, After Effects is the more professional app, and you will get better quality from it. And I think as your skill set grows, you will outgrow Motion’s abilities, so you might as well learn the more powerful program.
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8core MacPro, 3.0 GHZ, 10GB RAM, OSX 10.5.2AE CS3
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Expect to find a strong After Effects bias on this list. That said, I’ve worked in both and use Motion periodically. What frustrates me about Motion is its obvious power and crappy UI. Its very difficult to achieve complex results using behaviors, keyframe controls and the HUD.
After Effects will take you a while to learn, so be prepared to invest some time on the basics. There are many worthwhile tutorials at VideoCopilot, AETUTS and here that will get you started.
Workflow between AE and FCP isn’t as simple as that between Motion and FCP. There are work arounds, (scripts that import FCP timelines) and 3rd party tools (Automatic Duck) that help. Color shifts are common, but you can color manage the workflow — look for the extensive thread on color management in this forum.
Given the choice, I’d choose After Effects over the current version of Motion 10 times out of 10.
I agree with Todd, download the trial version and take it out for a spin.
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Tod: Thanks for your reply, even if it is a little biased ;).
[Chad Perkins]
“…They always tell me that Motion is “fun to play around in”, but if you’re going for a specific effect, it’s near impossible to achieve…”[Brian Charles]
“…What frustrates me about Motion is its obvious power and crappy UI. Its very difficult to achieve complex results using behaviors, keyframe controls and the HUD…”[Jeremy Allen]
“…Motion is good for quickly generating backgrounds and other cool “one-click” effects, where After Effects is gonna offer more control over effects, and more specialty effects like better color correction, masking and tracking…”Hugh. Thanks for the info. Sounds sort of like you guys are saying that what makes motion easy for imprecise effects is that same thing that many makes it really difficult to achieve precision.
Jeremy, a lot of the Motion tutorials show quickly putting together the kind of computer generated stuff that you see in TV sports and news shows. Often, when doing effects with actual footage, the tutorials end up making things that look more like designs. Would if be fair to say that Motion is more for this kind of thing and AE is more for manipulating actual footage, in a way that sort of “bends reality,” rather than totally breaking from it?
[Brian Charles]
“…Expect to find a strong After Effects bias on this list.…There are many worthwhile tutorials at VideoCopilot, AETUTS and here that will get you started… Color shifts are common, but you can color manage the workflow — look for the extensive thread on color management in this forum…”Thanks for the heads up on the color shifts. The tutorials here are really cool but relatively advanced. I was going to go lynda.com for the first 15 hrs. of tutorials, unless you have a better suggestion.
I was noticing a slight bias here – wonder what response I would have gotten had I posted in the Motion section.
BTW, I’m up for any further opinions.
-Chris
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> The tutorials here are really cool but relatively advanced. I was going to go lynda.com for the first 15 hrs. of tutorials, unless you have a better suggestion.
For video tutorials, you can’t do any better than those here on the COW, especially those by Aharon Rabinowitz.
Adobe also provides a lot of basic material. I recommend working your way through the stuff under the “Getting started” heading on the After Effects Help & Support page.
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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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