X and Motion as a Flame “front end”

[Simon Ubsdell]

[David Mathis] “1. If then conditions. For example, have particles per second be set to 0 at a certain time, or position of another layer; could also have the particles move in the opposite direction of another layer, such as a text layer.”

Not sure I quite understand your instructions here but it all sounds pretty doable with some simple linking – remember that you can have a negative link Scale for example which will invert the result but there are many other tricks you can pull to achieve this kind of thing.

[David Mathis] “2. The ability to add sliders to add to an expression. For example, have an object move around like it is a bit crazy. Then with the slider controls I can keyframe the values that go into the random expression.”

In this case, you can do exactly the same thing in Motion, given that the sliders in a Motion rig are essentially identical to Ae sliders. You can very simply rig the Wriggle or Randomize Amount value to a slider (Widget) and keyframe away to your heart’s content if that’s what you want to do (although it doesn’t strike me as being an entirely necessary process as you could simply animate the Amount directly with the Wriggle behavior.)

On a general note, although the theoretical limit of what you can achieve with expressions is clearly infinite, in practical terms you can achieve some satisfyingly complex results in Motion with the right combination of interacting behaviors. Remember that linking to null objects can give you a lot more flexibility that you might at first think and is often the key to creating complex interactions – for an example, have a look at what I did with parenting in this tutorial (from about 9 minutes in):

https://youtu.be/u2X3cIKY3Y0

EDIT: Just for fun, why not also try out Custom behaviors? For example, you could decide you want your Wriggle to turn alternately on and off every second. Create a Custom Behavior for a null object that animates its opacity from zero to 100% over 1 second, set its Interpolation to Constant and its After Last Keyframe behavior to Repeat. Now you have a ready-made trigger to which you can link your Wriggle Amount. If you want the on/off pattern to happen faster or slower simply shorten oR lengthen your Custom behavior. Remember you can always save this to the Favorites library so you can call it up at any time for any similar purpose.

Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com

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[Tony West]

[Charlie Austin] ” without promo stuff Hollywood movies can’t get made. But… the movie was cut on Avid.

Now, they may well be using FCP X in the coverage of the World cup, but this article was about a (really, really cool) promotional spot. “

I just wanted to drop in here Charlie, I see the point you are making, I would only add that in coverage of these large sporting events (I have done many) the front end promo stuff like Bill showed is really the
“heavy lifting” editing of that type of production. You really don’t have a lot of time to spend cutting on these live events.

While I believe X would be right at home on these live events, (I have said so from the start) I’m actually more impressed with the example in the article. I figured it would make it to the remote trucks more often and quicker than these nice promos.

So in spirit you make a good point but in the sports world, I don’t think your movie example fits.
It’s a different beast.