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The Motion 5 update – do you feel excited?
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The “Motion Team” as they are often referred to are located in Venice, CA. My understanding is, they were all pulled off of Motion a few years back and put on the iPhone graphics detail, before returning to their original Motion development gig. I think they routinely get pulled onto other gigs, as I just can’t see Apple deriving a whole lot of revenue via Motion.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss ProductionsDavid is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.
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Hey Simon,
Not only is there still a strong Motion team, there also is a new Product Manager for Motion who seems very ambitious. And: what Andrew said.
– Ronny
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[Bret Williams] “Embedding a true 3D engine is no small update. In reality This FCP 10.2 update was a motion update in that regard. “
I absolutely agree that the 3D text feature is massive, and I’d also go so far as to say it’s comfortably one of the best implementations of 3D text that I’ve seen anywhere, in terms of ease of use+performance+good-looking results. (Shame 3D text is currently so profoundly uncool!)
However, I think it’s an illustration of my point that Motion is being used as a helper app for FCP X rather than continuing development as a product in its own right. Motion has 3D text because Apple wanted to implement it in FCP X and Motion is the graphics engine for X.
Like you, I have a very long list of bugs and enhancements that I’d like to have seen addressed – and I’d have much rather have had a few of these instead of 3D text. (Like a lot of Motion users, I’d already bought mObject for that purpose – but because none of my clients would countenance seeing 3D text in anything [you can’t imagine the derision that would ensue], I haven’t yet used it for any paying job!)
One of the most basic is the ability to map more commands to the keyboard which I’ve been asking for repeatedly for years – it’s basic stuff like which really makes a difference to productivity, and to my mind there’s simply no sign that Apple will ever address any of it at all. Unlike many users, I’m not asking for spectacular feature enhancements, just some very small attention to the many details that could do with being looked at – and have remained unlooked-at for years.
I find it extraordinary that some squeaky wheel user has been able to get the Timeline keyframe copy and paste feature implemented as the only real Motion-specific feature enhancement – this is so not a priority of any kind in my view. Keyframes in the Timeline are of very little value unless you have animated only one parameter. If you work with keyframes at all, there’s no excuse not to get comfortable with the Keyframe Editor. The Timeline is fine for quickly moving keyframes where only one parameter is animated, but otherwise it’s not the thing to be using.
And please don’t get me started on the “new generators” – complete embarrassment and utterly uncalled for. I can’t imagine what Apple were thinking in wasting even five minutes on implementing this utter nonsense, though if it took them longer than five minutes it would be a disgrace. (Who “designs” this stuff? In this case, none of it is even remotely demo-worthy, so what could the point possibly have been? To my mind, Apple simply look foolish by even mentioning that they’ve done this kind of thing.) If anyone was going to take a look at the Motion generators, the really big thing to address in my view is the Clouds generator, one of the most fundamental procedural textures with countless uses, and it’s one of the areas where Motion just doesn’t offer adequate quality – compare Ae’s Fractal Noise for how it should be done, same concept, different league altogether.
As DRW points out below, Motion is not a money spinner in the same league as FCP X and is never going to get the same love for that reason, but the complete lack of attention to it in its own right now goes back four or five years at least and that’s something that I think gets lost in the razzmatazz that accompanies new features which are only there because they service FCP X, the first and most obvious of those being rigging and publishing.
[Bret Williams] “And I appreciate your tuts! Probably going to get your new keyed for sure. I do a lot of green screen in Motion.”
Many thanks. I’ll be doing a keying tutorial for Motion shortly which illustrates some very useful high-end compositing techniques for getting better results with your keys. BTW, if you are looking at Hawaiki Keyer, I should just mention that it works in FCP X, After Effects and Premiere Pro, and not just Motion 5.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com -
[Ronny Courtens] “Not only is there still a strong Motion team, there also is a new Product Manager for Motion who seems very ambitious. And: what Andrew said.”
That’s great to hear – but of course, since I’m just a humble punter here with no inside track on any of it, I can only go on my perception of what’s been happening for the last five or more years. Or rather what’s not been happening.
Roll on Motion X, I say!
Meanwhile here’s Ron Brinkmann again:
“And the features that high end customers need are often very very unsexy. They don’t look particularly good in a demo. See, here’s the thing with how features happen at Apple to a great extent – product development is often driven by how well things can be demoed. Maybe not explicitly – nobody ever told me to only design features that demoed well – but the nature of the organization effectively makes it work out that way. Because a lot of decisions about product direction make their way very far up the management hierarchy …. And so the first question that comes up is ‘how are we going to show this feature within the company?’ All the mid-level managers know that they’re going to have a limited window of time to convey what makes a product or a feature special to their bosses. So they either 1) make a sexy demo or 2) spend a lot of time trying to explain why some customer feels that some obscure feature is worth implementing. Guess which strategy works best?”
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com -
[Ronny Courtens] “Not only is there still a strong Motion team, there also is a new Product Manager for Motion who seems very ambitious. And: what Andrew said.”
I think if I were “on the Motion Team” skateboarding to work in Venice, CA, to meet up with my “ambitious new Product Manager”, I’d be pretty embarrassed that a bug like this one was still not fixed, however smug and superior I might be feeling about my shiny new “Nineties Vibe” 3D text thingy …
Here’s a blue wall, facing the camera and sitting on a red floor. Behind the blue wall are two green sidewalls, and despite what appears to be the case, the front edges of the green walls do no intersect with the blue wall, they are in fact 6 pixels back away from it in Z space.
Here’s the Top view showing the gap between the side walls and the front wall:
If we move the camera round just a bit, we can see that the problem lessens:
I call this the “edge on” bug because what is happening is that when planes are viewed more or less edge on to camera they will appear to poke through any foreground plane. Changing the angle of view makes the issue recede.
I first pointed out this bug well over a year ago and it is still not fixed in the latest release of Motion. (And yes, this is a genuine real world issue that is really tricky to combat, and yes, I do know a little bit about how Motion works.)
What does it say about a product’s development when a bug/design flaw as egregious as this remains unaddressed?
It’s all very well being super-confident about Apple’s future plans for Motion – how about being reasonably confident that they’ll getting around to doing a bit of basic bug fixing at some point?
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com -
[David Roth Weiss] “The “Motion Team” as they are often referred to are located in Venice, CA.”
I don’t know if it’s more depressing to discover that there actually is a current “Motion Team” rather than that there isn’t one.
At least if they didn’t exist, one could account for them having done nothing for the last 5+ years 😉
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com -
Simon, what do you want Motion to be?
Here’s how Apple positions Motion:
“An interface designed especially for editors. Smart templates for making changes on the fly during editing. And easy‑to‑use motion graphics tools for creating eye-catching titles, transitions, and effects. Motion is the perfect companion to Final Cut Pro.”
https://www.apple.com/final-cut-pro/motion/
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
[Walter Soyka] “Here’s how Apple positions Motion:”
Yes, I’ve noticed that there has been a distinct repositioning of Motion in the marketing blurb – as I have been trying to point, it’s now being positioned ever more firmly as the helper app for FCP X and Apple are in agreement with me on that.
Doubtless Motion X will change all that but for now this does seem to be the case.
What I’d like to see happen is very modest stuff indeed – just fix a few obvious things that could do with fixing (I mention a particularly egregious bug in another post here), and add just a few easily implemented features that would improve productivity.
Unlike many/most who ask for updates to Motion, I’m not expecting it to become Ae overnight or indeed ever, but I would like to see it treated as an actual live product in its own right, rather than the curious dormant zombie FCP X battery cell that it has become.
The first sign that all was not well for me was the crazy pricing of the Motion 5 release: Apple effectively telling us in the most obvious terms the value they decided to place on the product.
But of course Panglossian sources close to Apple tell me I’m flat out wrong to be talking this way and everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds, so I’d best shut up …
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com -
[Simon Ubsdell] “Unlike many/most who ask for updates to Motion, I’m not expecting it to become Ae overnight or indeed ever, but I would like to see it treated as an actual live product in its own right, rather than the curious dormant zombie FCP X battery cell that it has become.”
Herein lies my question. What does that actual live product look like? What use cases should they prioritize development around, if not being FCP X’s special helper?
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
I’m not sure I understand the question.
Isn’t that like saying what possible use could you find for Ae if not as a helper app for Pr?
But I’m sure you mean something more subtle than that …
Incidentally, I know of many, many Motion users who don’t use or own FCP X.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com
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