re: motion control “photography” with apple motion

[Noah Kadner]

Err- can you elaborate a little on what you mean? Motion control is normally what’s referred to when you’re talking about doing composites or multi-pass photography with a computer controlled camera. What aspect of this process do you wish to use Motion for?

Noah

[Richard Harrington]

As a supporter of both… I am in the know here (also a certifed instructor for both.)

AE is MUCh better at this as it has pro features like exponential scale (which simulates an optical zoom). It also has 3D cameras whcih can work for layered Moco. (there’s a tutorial on the cow on how to use it).

Buy a copy of version 4 used on ebay for $100.. it’ll do what you need….

Panning larger images is not Motion’s strength and it doesn’t like layers super large due to the way it handles pieces through the video card.

Both are great programs… but not for this purporse

Richard M. Harrington, PMP

Author: Photoshop CS for Nonlinear Editors
Co-Author Final Cut Pro On The Spot & After Effects on the Spot
Check out the new DVD: Photoshop CS: Essentials for Digital Video from http://www.vasst.com

edit – produce – direct –

[Jayson Steckler]

“AE is MUCh better at this as it has pro features like exponential scale (which simulates an optical zoom). It also has 3D cameras whcih can work for layered Moco. (there’s a tutorial on the cow on how to use it).

Buy a copy of version 4 used on ebay for $100.. it’ll do what you need…. ”

Wasn’t 3D a 5.0 feature (and the Advanced 3D renderer came in 5.5 if I recall correctly)?

[Richard Harrington]

Yes.. but she doesn’t need them fir basic MOCO…

Plus 5.5 still cheap

Richard M. Harrington, PMP

Author: Photoshop CS for Nonlinear Editors
Co-Author Final Cut Pro On The Spot & After Effects on the Spot
Check out the new DVD: Photoshop CS: Essentials for Digital Video from http://www.vasst.com

edit – produce – direct –

[Peter]

Get a copy of COMBUSTION and call it a day

[Mike James]

“””Get a copy of COMBUSTION and call it a day”””

Peter, LOL! Funny, but not as nice and not as helpful as Richard.

I couldn’t get any real good comparisons from folks all over the net about the various compositors on the market. This was about 18 months ago. What I found was that most folks used one as their main app and knew it well. Some used two, but I couldn’t find anyone that really used all of them. So I decided to do that myself.

BTW, a very expensive and time consuming experiment. But I can safely say that after running through Shake 3.5, Combustion 3, After Effects 6.5 Pro and Motion 1 & 2 … they all have great features and they all lack features. The last app on my list I will get and learn is Fusion 5 which isn’t released yet and the most expensive of the bunch (and seems to have the most compelling all around feature set).

Of the four that I have run through over the last 12 months… Motion is the most intuitive to use.

Final Cut Studio Training
https://www.finalcutonline.com

[David H dennis]

The very best way to get AE is to buy that version for $100 and then upgrade. You want a shrinkwrapped, unregistered version so you can upgrade. You’ll get the latest version for a very reasonable price. I think the upgrade’s about $250-300.

You might want 5.5 because I’m not sure 4 will even install on a modern computer. When I got it, you had to boot up MacOS 9 to install it. Then I was able to upgrade.

I really like the After Effects interface, but it’s painfully slow, especially compared to Motion with a good video card. Even on a fast computer, you need to use the postage-stamp view to get anything even vaguely close to real time playback. You have been warned.

D

[Tom Valens]

While AE and other programs are probably better for this ideally, part of the question besides cost is the learning curve involved in new programs. If you feel fairly comfortable with Motion, I would suggest trying a test on a sample picture and see if it works for you. You can definitely do “motion control” (I assume by this you mean still frame moves, the “Ken Burns effect”) in Motion. You won’t be able to get much precise control, however, unless you use keyframes within Motion. I recently did a half-hour documentary with a number of still frame moves, and Motion worked fine for this (once I finally got the hang of remembering to set a new keyframe BEFORE adjusting the parameters, and realizing the interpolation paths affected the inpoint of the NEXT keyframe).

Tom Valens