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Stumped by Motion
OK, I AM behind in upgrades. I’m running Motion 1.0.1 on a G5 with 2.5G dual processer, 4G of RAM and FCP 4.5. The I/O card is a Black Magic Extreme. For two years I’ve been getting by on pushing FCP program itself to the limit and filling in with AfterEffects, but it’s do or die time for me and Motion. This whole setup has never really worked no matter how many Genius Bar sessions I’ve been to or how many tech support calls I’ve made. To recap how I understand that Motion is supposed to work, first you export your FCP timeline to a Motion project, Motion opens and all of your clips are there in various layers. Then you add an effect and that effect updates a master Motion clip in FCP and the effects you did in Motion are embedded IN that clip. Change your Motion timeline and your FCP Motion clip updates and so on. Great in theory, anyway. What happens for me is that I end up with SOME of the video clips in the Motion timeline along with various .tifs & the like. Mostly I just have RED checkerboards! NEVER ALL of the clips from the FCP timeline. It’s the most frustrating thing I’ve ever come across in my 26 years in The Biz. I can import the SAME digitized FCP video clips into Live Type and do what ever to them, but NEVER Motion. Not even when manually importing the EXACT same files. I just get those darn red checkerboards. I read the manual letter by letter and it simply doesn’t do what is says it should. I haven’t upgraded because I don’t wish to do so until I at least get the original software tuned up, if that’s even possible. It’s been over two years and like I said, NO ONE here in Buffalo knows squat! If only these programs would work together as advertised, I’d be the happiest editor on the planet! It would be fantastic to use Motion to do a light ray effect, for example. About 15 years ago I did the same effect using a reversed acetate type slide taped to a fish tank filled with water and just the right amount of milk backlit with a panning inki mole! I really would love to get with the new millenium. CreativeCow is my Final hope. I can’t even go back to the fish tank. It broke last year when we moved! Seriously though, I chose FCP over buying a new AVID system and have been frustrated every inch of the way, especially by Motion. So much capability and power, and so very little ease of operation to the point that I end up using Live Type instead. I’m not the smartest guy when it comes to learning buttons, but if this is more ME as the problem than the programs at this point then I’ll have to count myself washed up at the ripe old age of 44. There was a time when I could match anyone in programming an Abekas A53D. Please help me at least get ALL my clips from FCP to Motion and back again. And I’d also like to know what the whole upgrade package will actually do for me. All the Genius Bar guys can tell me is that “it clears up a lot of the earlier problems”, but they can’t be more specific. Lastly, my apologies if I’ve missed any answers conveniently logged in a FAQ or residing in a current thread I might have overlooked.
Mark LoPresti, Buffalo New York
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1 Reply
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You would probably be wise to do the crossgrade to Final Cut Studio 5.1 while the price holds.
Motion is a very interesting application that can revolutionize your workflow one you understand the basics. It is much like Photoshop in some ways because it uses Layers, but you can work while the project is in motion. it can be used much like After Effects except that you do not have to keyframe graphic movements because it uses Behaviors to move things around.
Motion is simple and complex all at the same time. It is not as feature rich as AE but can do some things in record time for a quick motion graphic.
Get your self a book or DVD training and jump in!
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