Macbook Pro 13″ for Motion 4

[Mark Spencer]

Won’t work correctly. Motion requires the dedicated non-integrated graphics card.

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Mark Spencer
Freelance Producer/Editor/Motion Graphics Artist
Apple-certified Master Trainer
Author, Motion 4 from Peachpit Press
https://www.applemotion.net

[Arnie Schlissel]

Creating motion graphics can be hard enough when you can actually see the work that you’re doing. Why complicate it by working on the smallest screen possible? Get a big screen and a Mac with the GPU power to drive it.

Arnie
Post production is not an afterthought!
https://www.arniepix.com/

[Zak Peric]

What you need is at least 15″ MacPro. Al motion graphic software requires a lot of memory and graphic power from a graphic card Also think about the screen resolution the bigger it is the better it is for you I would say 1600×1000 is minimum you would need for motion. In your case buy mid range 15″ MacPro will be what you really need. Always look at the refurbish mac section on Apple’s website. They can have some really good deals.

[Justin Miller]

I hate to argue with a Motion expert like Mark Spencer, but I can confirm that Motion 4 will indeed run okay on a 13″ MacBook Pro. Mine has 8GB of RAM and handles Motion just fine (I also run a 20″ cinema display so I can actually see what I’m doing). In fact I used to run Motion on my black 13″ MacBook with 4GB of RAM and the cruddy Intel 3100 graphics processor; while the performance was much slower, it did in fact work.

Like the others here, I would recommend a larger MacBook Pro with discrete graphics if you are going to spend a lot of your time in Motion 4. However, if you’re just creating the occasional marketing video like I do for my company (https://www.peoplekey.com), a 13″ MacBook Pro may be all you need. Just my two cents.

[Mark Spencer]

It will work but things like lights and shadows won’t work correctly.

—
Mark Spencer
Freelance Producer/Editor/Motion Graphics Artist
Apple-certified Master Trainer
Author, Motion 4 from Peachpit Press
https://www.applemotion.net

[Patrick Simpson]

Has someone confirmed that lights and shadows won’t work correctly on a 13″ macbook pro?

20″ intel iMac, 2.66 GHz, 4GB ram
View my reel – http://www.youtube.com/patrickdsimpson

[Bogdan Chorub]

Hi,
I can confirm, that lights, shadows and reflections WORK PERFECT (even in HD projects – but slow) on Macbook Pro with 9400M graphic card. Generally for very simple projects it works.
Tested on 15” Macbook Pro (basic 1286M model – no 9600M graphic card) and many projects. The results should be the same on Macbook 13” and 9400M.
In https://www.ubermediahd.com/blog/?p=137 test (best quality, reflections – on, lights – on, shadows – on, motion blur – off) – 5-6 FPS.

[Mark Spencer]

Well that is good news. I know lights/shadows won’t work correctly on a MacBook, but I’m surprised that they do work on the 13″ MacBook Pro.

—
Mark Spencer
Freelance Producer/Editor/Motion Graphics Artist
Apple-certified Master Trainer
Author, Motion 4 from Peachpit Press
https://www.applemotion.net