Noob softwares question

[Tom Wolsky]

I think you can do animated line graphs and charts in Motion. It will, like any of these applications, require considerable study, as they are all fairly complex.

All the best,

Tom

Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP7,” “Basic Training for FCS” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Coming in 2011 “Complete Training for FCPX”
and “Final Cut Pro X for iMovie and Final Cut Express Users” from Focal Press

[Aindreas Gallagher]

After effects would generally be considered the natural home for those kinds of animations, but its pretty highly complex overall as software. You’d need to set aside quite some time for software training – and that’s not even getting into the design training/awareness aspects of producing the kind of work you’re describing.

http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics

[Chris Jacek]

After Effects is the Swiss Army Knife of effects and animation. It also offers the most control of what you want to do, especially if you like a timeline style of interface, It does take some time to learn, but it’s not that hard to pick up the basics fairly quickly. There are oodles of good online training, too.

Professor, Producer, Editor
and former Apple Employee

[Aindreas Gallagher]

that’s very true – after effects has absolutely oceans of free training, articles and advice – there are about a bajillion tutorials on the cow alone.

http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics

[Walter Soyka]

I agree with the others that AE is the natural choice for serious 2D/2.5D motion graphics work.

I’ll add that AE is not a true 3D application, so you need two different packages for the work you’re describing. Though you can do some 3D work inside of plugins like Zaxwerks within AE, it’s not as flexible as a dedicated 3D application. I like Cinema4D, because it offers excellent integration with AE and a very nice motion graphics toolset.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Chris Walsh]

It depends a bit on your source material. If you have a lot of video files (lectures, demonstrations, stock footage), then FCPX will very helpful for cutting everything together, and adding audio. If you are using mainly stills and text, you will eventually want more control than FCP can give you. Both Motion and After Effects can give you great results, but they do have a steeper learning curve. There are template projects available that can save you time (just google royalty-free After Effects templates to find some), but it can be tricky to modify some of them.

If you’re going to be doing a lot of text animation, consider a plugin from Yanobox called Nodes. They haven’t released an FCPX version, so you should email them if you’re going the FCPX route, but it works in After Effects and Motion as well. Nodes is great for building big, text heavy animations very quickly. It has a learning curve, and the documentation is little obtuse, but if you spend a day messing with their built in presets, you’ll get the hang of it. They have another plugin called Motype that might be helpful — it works best for single words or short phrases. If you’re making a list, you’ll end up stacking a bunch of Motype layers.

A completely different approach, that you may have already considered since it’s popular with educators is prezi.com, that let’s you build animated presentations combining video, stills, audio, and text. You’ll have to experiment a bit to find the tools that are right for the job you want to do. No one tool is perfect, and the choice is about personal comfort as well as features. I’ve built a lot of multi-layer animations in FCP 7, that would have better suited to AE or Motion, but I simply wanted to stay in FCP 7.

So consider your message and audience….does your audio carry the most important information, and the video enhances it? Then use a tool like FCPX (or even FCP7 or Express if you have copies of these older versions). Audio will be easier to handle and sync with visuals in a video editor, even if you visuals are less whiz bang to start. If it’s all about the animations communicating new ideas or relationships, then go for After Effects and do the lynda.com training. It will take longer to get up to speed, but you’ll have the tools you need.

Chris Walsh

http://www.musicfog.com
Silver Spring, MD
Final Cut & AVID MC5
Former Windows User and edit* lover

[Chris Walsh]

Also forgot to mention to use the free trial of After Effects (and any other software) to test drive it and see if it works for you.

And personally, I wouldn’t start with 3D software yet unless you need to create complex biological, medical, or real world simulations. There’s always time for that later, once you’ve got your basic workflow established (e.g. record audio, edit in FCPX or Premiere, animate in Motion or After Effects, output and bask in the glory).

Chris Walsh

http://www.musicfog.com
Silver Spring, MD
Final Cut & AVID MC5
Former Windows User and edit* lover

[Shawn Miller]

I agree with the prevaling thought that AE would probably be your go to application for motion graphics, though there is a fairly steep learning curve involved. You mentioned that you’ve used 3DS Max in the past, so (IMO) the possiblility of picking up a new 3D application may not be out of the question. Truthfully, if you’re looking to adopt a workflow and capability that will scale as your abilities grow, I (personally) would consider Cinema 4D Broadcast edition with Adobe’s Creative Suite (Premuim addition). I say this because C4D is a bit easier to learn and it has a motion graphics module that is out of this world. I recommend using the CS5.5 suite with it because of the integration between AE, Premiere, Photoshop and Audition. C4D can also export a special AE project that supports render passes, 3d nulls and lights. I believe it will also output Motion project files, but I don’t know what features it supports.

Thanks,

Shawn

[Shawn Miller]

Oops, forgot to include a link to Maxon’s mograph reel.

https://www.maxonpodcast.de/movies/broadcast_edition/nab2009reel_web.mov

[Ian Bailey]

After Effects generally only gives you 2.5D animation (2D objects in a 3D space), although Video Copilot’s Elements is challenging that. After Effects is essential for compositing video and animated elements. If money is no object, then I would suggest Maya for 3D work. Depending on what you’re doing you might also want to consider something like Syntheyes for camera tracking.

Presumably you can export ProRes movies or image sequences from FCPX, so it shouldn’t be a problem using it in your workflow.