[Alonzo Gutierrez]

Amazing. Thank you. I’ll try this. And thanks for the fast responses.

[Alonzo Gutierrez]

Thanks for the input. I’m actually shooting with a Panasonic G7. The 4K option records in MP4 so I assume that’s junks and needs to be recoded? There’s another option for avchd.
Any input on how I should set up my drives based on performance?

[Alonzo Gutierrez]

Thanks for everyone’s replies. Glad this community is very helpful. And that ‘greyscale gorilla’ link touched the point I was making. That a lot of people tend to rely on the plug ins and expressions and scripts now that they are readily available, opposed to doing the work the long way. For a seasoned designer I see the need, want, and ease of using these. To speed up workflow and to make some things that you know how to do, but may be tedious, a lot easier and faster.

For someone like me, who is still learning, I think I might get caught up in the mix of relying too heavily on it. But then again, I might be able to learn something from this motion v2 plug in. Applying it and seeing what it did by exact values, to maybe help me learn. I think I’ll wait though, and see how far I can get without that help, and stick to the traditional video and written tutorials, forums, and trial and error.

Thank you all who replied.

[Alonzo Gutierrez]

I’m sorry. It’s motion v2 from mt. Mograph. I believe it’s just a plug in. And it has a lot of effects that you can use to help with the workflow. I honestly don’t know much about it.
What I do know is that it has some effects that I have been trying to replicate, that I’ve seen in other motion designs, for learning purposes.

I asked because I feel like if I got it now, would that not be like cheating myself out of learning those effects and skills, and also maneuverability around after effects, and instead just picking an effect to use. Almost like the ones that come pre built into AE already.

Maybe I’m making a big deal about using it or not. Could I be cheating myself out of not using the tools, and making my design process easier?

One effect in particular is the circle/radial burst. I finally found a tutorial on how to do it. Took me about four hours of watching and replicating in AE and then redoing the project myself a couple times before I finally feel like I can open AE and create that effect without notes or watching a video for help.

That effect comes in the plug in package. And from the looks of it, you just click it and it automatically sets the values and then you can go in and play around and tweak it to your liking.

I notice that motion is a field where everyone shares and helps and that’s good. So one side of the track I feel like it’s there to help me and others make our learning and projects run smoother. But also, I feel like, say I start getting clients that’s want motion work in 6 months, and I didn’t really learn how to do that radial effect, I’m just relying on the plug in.

Are other designers doing this? Whatever helps you get the project done and finished is open game? Or would it be like tracing images in relation to illustration?

I’m sure the guy who created and is selling the plug in learned all that on his own and then figured why not expand and create a built in plug in for others to simply reuse the effects over and over instead of having to keep recreating the same over and over.

Sorry for this long post. And sorry if your not understanding me. Guess I just feel torn between using a plug in, and not usIng the plug in, if I don’t yet fully comprehend the software or how to actually make the effects without the help of a crutch/plug in.

Also I would post a link to the mograph site but not sure if that’s allowed.

Thanks to everyone who posted in regards to this.

[Alonzo Gutierrez]

Thanks for the reply. I’m going to learn it first. It’s enticing to want to just get it to make my work faster. But I’m not sure it will speed up my learning. Only make me rely on it too much. And like you said, if working from another computer without it, I would be lost. Thanks again.

I just wondered if getting it, and using it, before learning to do it the hard way, would make it seem like I work with a crutch.