[Stephen Smith]

Peter,
Thanks for watching my tutorials, I appreciate that.

All of the tech guys that I’ve talked to recommend that you only have your applications on your boot/systems drive. With the Mac Pro you have extra slots for internal Serial ATA drive that are dirt cheap know. I bought a 1TB drive for like 200 bucks not to long ago. I would recommend that you buy one and put all of your project files, art work and music on it. I would put my capture scratch on the external drive. I think that is a ideal setup.

That being said, I’m not an engineer but under your current set up I would save everything to the Raid 5. If a drive goes out you still have your stuff. Plus your applications doesn’t have to compete with your project files and stuff.

Hope this helps.

Lone Peak Productions

Check out the TV Show Open I did.

Check out my DVD Money Making Graphics & Effects for Final Cut Studio 2

[Stephen Smith]

If you have say 5 layers in the psd and then you go back into Photo shop and add a 6th layer the psd is no longer the same and can’t be re-linked as far as I’m aware. If you change the order of the layers in Photoshop it will change the layers in Motion and mess things up as well. If you are only swapping out a layer or to I think you should re-import just those layers and make changes. If you want to swap attributes then you should select the layer with the attributes you want and select say the Rotation text in the Properties tab of the inspector. Drag it over to the other layer and it will take on the Rotation parameters. You can also just drag a new layer over the old one on the Project Pan, hover it over it until you get a hooked shaped arrow. Then let go and it swaps the old layer with the new one. Hope this helps.

Lone Peak Productions

Check out the TV Show Open I did.

Check out my DVD Money Making Graphics & Effects for Final Cut Studio 2

[Stephen Smith]

1. You can have multiple projects open in Motion. Which I think is a really cool feature. You can drag stuff from one project to another.

2. Yes. If you have not made any changes to the order and how many layers you have in Photoshop just save the new file as the same name and it will just reconnect everything. If you are adding one more layer (text layer) then import that layer into photo shop and add it to the group of other layers. Another great way to move attributes is to select the layer with the attributes you want and select say the Rotation text in the Properties tab of the inspector. Drag it over to the other layer and it will take on the Rotation parameters. You can also just drag a new layer over the old one on the Project Pan, hover it over it until you get a hooked shaped arrow. Then let go and it swaps the old layer with the new one.

Lone Peak Productions

Check out the TV Show Open I did.

Check out my DVD Money Making Graphics & Effects for Final Cut Studio 2

[Stephen Smith]

I use .jpeg, .tiff and .psd for photos. Tiff and psd being preferred over a jpeg. It may not look good because of your settings in Motion. Go to the View Pop-up menu and change the Render Quality to Best. If it looks great turn it back to Normal and keep working. When your done be sure to set it back to best or change the setting to best via export or FCP.

Lone Peak Productions

Check out the TV Show Open I did.

Check out my DVD Money Making Graphics & Effects for Final Cut Studio 2

[Stephen Smith]

Awesome, I’m so happy to hear.

Lone Peak Productions

Check out the TV Show Open I did.

Check out my DVD Money Making Graphics & Effects for Final Cut Studio 2

[Stephen Smith]

The best way to add a key frame is to select the camera or object in Project Pane or Timeline. Hit F1 to open up the Properties tab and then Option click on the Parameter you wish to ad a keyfraeme to. Check out this tutorial I did on Creating a Hologram. I know that is not what you want to make but it covers adding keyframes, I think it will be very helpful. Hope this helps.

Lone Peak Productions

Check out the TV Show Open I did.

Check out my DVD Money Making Graphics & Effects for Final Cut Studio 2

[Stephen Smith]

What do you mean by big files? Motion plays everything in real time so it is not generating any files. If you are talking about the Cashe files Motion generates when it does say a Ram preview the default it set to your systems drive. All of your Apps should be using up your systems drive. That is way I have an additional hard drive installed in my computer that is for Projects files, artwork, music, etc. I hope this response was of some help.

Lone Peak Productions

Check out the TV Show Open I did.

Check out my DVD Money Making Graphics & Effects for Final Cut Studio 2

[Stephen Smith]

It could have been maid interlay in Motion. No problem. As for the growing lines you may want to look at the pre-made ones that come with Motion. Go to the Library tab and select Content. Select Drawings, and enjoy the growing lines. There are other ways to build them but looking out how these where built is probably the easiest way to learn.

Lone Peak Productions

Check out the TV Show Open I did.

Check out my DVD Money Making Graphics & Effects for Final Cut Studio 2

[Stephen Smith]

If a plug-in was created for Motion to add 3D shadows and reflections I imagine people would pay 300 just for the plug-in. Getting that and a whole lot more for the small price of $299 for a upgrade is cheap. I can’t wait to play with the new version when it arrives.

Lone Peak Productions

Check out the TV Show Open I did.

Check out my DVD Money Making Graphics & Effects for Final Cut Studio 2

[Stephen Smith]

[Michael] I was wondering if anyone could point me in the direction of a good site/article for some trendy video editing technique

A lot of the video tutorials here on the COW cover cool techniques.

Lone Peak Productions

Check out the TV Show Open I did.

Check out my DVD Money Making Graphics & Effects for Final Cut Studio 2