[Jason Watson]

Without knowing anything else about the project it’s hard to troubleshoot, but my initial reaction is that it looks like the blending mode of something in there is set to Hard Mix.

Do you have any additional info?

[Jason Watson]

Jay-

Instead of copying a bunch of keyframes, it might make more sense to just replace the individual objects that comprise the stick figures.

What I mean is make a copy of the master, and then replace the left arm with the new character’s left arm, the right arm with the new right arm, etc. You’ll probably have to do some repositioning, but it might be easier in the long run. (You can even drag and drop from the file browser onto the layers you want to change which is nice.)

Barring that, I’ve found that to copy a bunch of keyframes from one object to another, it is often easiest to already have the keyframe parameters you are going to copy (i.e., position, rotation, etc.) already with some kind of keyframed value. In the Keyframe editor, just select any individual point and then paste the copied keyframes.

At least that’s been my experience.

Jason Watson
https://deviantmonk.com

[Jason Watson]

John-

not exactly, but you can achieve something that can be very near to it using the replicator tool.

***BIG caveat- this is how you do it in Motion 4. I’m presently on vacation and haven’t had a chance to get Motion 5 yet, but I expect it functions in similar ways. I apologize if it doesn’t, and others can feel free to chime in if things are radically different.

Other people may have other ways, but I get it by doing this:

1. Start in Photoshop and create your text there. Put a very slight drop shadow on it. (something like 10% opacity, 0 distance and maybe 5 for the blur. (You could also do this in Motion, but it may slow things down.)

2. Make sure you presently have a 3D project (i.e., add a camera), bring your text in and add a replicator to it.

3. In the replicator settings, change the shape to Line.

4. Change the Start and End Point values to 0 and set the replicator to be 3D.

5. Back up in the parameters, set the Z value of the End Point to whatever you want, and add to the number of Points until it looks how you want.

That’s pretty much it. It’s not true 3D, so you can’t fully spin around it or you’ll get some weird effects where you can see all the individual sides of the objects, but you can spin around it a lot more than using the Extrude method. Actually, since you are adjusting the replicated points along a Z axis, the text does have some actual depth, which can work out nicely if you use it judiciously.

Here’s an old example of something I made in Motion 3 or 4 using this technique: (Flickr seems to be the only place I put it, but it’s a video…)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/deviantmonk/3849838133/in/set-72157604463190472/

Hope that helps.

Jason Watson
https://deviantmonk.com