Product OverView

Motion 2 is a powerful upgrade to Apple’s award-winning professional motion
graphics application, offering breakthrough functionality and seamless workflow
to artists, editors, and independent producers. Whether you’re animating broadcast
graphics, corporate presentations, feature film titles, or DVD menus, you’ll find an
original, fresh toolset including:
Real-time design engine. Motion 2 encourages spontaneity in design with a real-time
design engine and a streamlined user interface. The focus is on the imagery that you
create and not on managing windows, palettes, or a never-ending list of menu items.
Now you can sit with your creative directors, clients, or other collaborators and
interactively design a motion graphics project on your desktop. Preview your project
at 16-bit float or 32-bit float for full film quality or export to high-resolution formats
in record time with GPU-accelerated rendering.
Advanced animation tools. Drag a “behavior” onto type or graphics to create
natural simulations or random movement, like bouncing balls or swirling vortexes.
For frame-by-frame control, Motion includes a powerful Bezier-style Keyframe Editor.
Flexibly combine the precision of keyframe animation with the free-flow movement
of behaviors to create just the effect you want-without programming.
Breakthrough effects. It’s easy to create stunning, one-of-a-kind designs by experimenting
with an extensive selection of innovative filters, effects, and design tools.
Automatically set up mesmerizing patterns of repeating movies or graphics with
Replicator. Select from more than 150 presets in the particle generator to apply
sparkles, fire, or fog. Accelerated filters let you create amazing effects at full 32-bit
float film quality.
Intuitive yet powerful user interface. A click of the mouse or a swipe of the pen
puts all the features you need at your fingertips without obscuring the Canvas. Use
the translucent Dashboard to control behaviors by moving sliders or manipulating
other visual controls. You can even use a MIDI control surface to trigger multiple
parameter changes simultaneously.
Seamless workflow. Motion 2 can work as a stand-alone motion graphics application
or can be opened from the Final Cut Pro 5 Timeline, making it much easier for graphic
designers to create standard motion graphics sequences for a program while preserving
the flexibility to make last-minute changes in the editing bay. Continue to use
familiar tools and effects by taking projects round trip between Motion 2 and Adobe
After Effects 6.5.
When you’re ready to render your finished work, all of your compositing operations,
filters, and effects can be output at the highest film quality with 32-bit floating-point
rendering. Through intelligent float rendering, even 8-bit video output looks beautiful.
New in Motion 2
If you’re already familiar with Motion, you can look forward to exciting new features
in Motion 2, including:
Enhanced Real-Time Design Engine
Motion was designed to take full advantage of the Power Mac G5 and Mac OS X to
produce real-time onscreen responsiveness and interactivity that feels like a dedicated
system. Motion 2 now goes even further to create astonishing quality for rendered
output as well as expanded power for real-time playback.
  • GPU-accelerated 16- and 32-bit float rendering. Motion 2 is the world’s first motion graphics software with GPU-accelerated 32-bit float rendering for true film quality. 32-bit float rendering produces extremely fine color accuracy, reduces banding artifacts, and even improves quality when rendering to 8-bit formats. You get great detail, quality, and range of color that automatically scales with new generations of GPUs and CPUs.
  • Access to all the RAM your system can handle. Motion 2 can take advantage of more than 4GB of RAM, with no upper limit other than the amount of RAM installed in your computer. This lets you maintain real-time performance across longer, more sophisticated projects than ever, including compositing more graphics-intensive high definition video layers.
New Breakthrough Effects
Top motion graphics artists are valued for their originality as well as for their ability to
execute flawlessly. Motion 2 makes it easy to create one-of-a-kind projects with a wide
range of powerful design tools and unusual, compelling effects.
  • Replicator. Replicator is an amazing design tool that allows artists to generate multiple copies of a single graphic, shape, or movie and animate them in mesmerizing patterns. Just drag and drop the Sequence behavior to produce wave-like animations along grids, swirls, burst shapes, or any user-defined layout.
  • New filters, effects, and particle presets. Motion 2 offers more than 500 filters, effects, and particle presets, each and every one designed to take advantage of the stunning quality produced by 16- and 32-bit float rendering. Apply filters like 3D Rotate, Extrude, and Vignette that are fundamental to almost every project; explore unique Caustics and Membrane generators; or apply and modify dozens of new particle presets to produce animations that will stand out from the crowd.
  • FxPlug. Motion 2 has ushered in a new breed of third-party filter effect plug-ins. With FxPlug, leading third-party developers can create Motion filter effects using full 32-bit rendering and real-time GPU acceleration. FxPlug effects are designed for professional video applications with support for animating parameters. These plug-ins can use onscreen controls and Dashboard parameters just like the accelerated effects that are built into Motion.
Innovative Advanced Animation Tools
When animation software makes it easy to execute difficult or time-consuming tasks,
there is more time and energy to be creative. Motion 2 has built on the strengths of
its intuitive yet powerful user interface to create even more natural ways to generate
and shape animations.
  • MIDI behavior. Motion now lets you move beyond a single hand on a mouse or pen to enjoy the flexibility of multiple fingers on a MIDI control surface. You can assign any number of filters or transform parameters to a MIDI knob, fader, or pad with Learn mode. Because you get real-time, dynamic response to simultaneous inputs, you can even “play” Motion like a musical instrument for spontaneous live performances.
  • Refined keyframe animation tools. The powerful Keyframe Editor in Motion now offers even more flexibility, precision, and control. Smoothly manipulate an object’s speed along a path by setting custom parameters with the intuitive Dashboard controls. Then for even greater precision, open the Keyframe Editor to fine-tune the acceleration curve. You can record a keyframe animation automatically, based on only the parameters you select, then make fine adjustments in the editor with either visual or numerical settings.
Expanded Workflow Options
Motion has always maintained a streamlined workflow within its own user interface
as well as in combination with other Apple professional production applications.
Motion 2 now offers even higher levels of workflow quality and convenience.
  • Motion 2 and Adobe After Effects. Professional motion graphics artists can now use Motion 2 in conjunction with Adobe After Effects 6.5. All of the particle effects, Replicator designs, and animations in Motion 2 can be added to an After Effects “comp” without rendering. Making a change is as simple as selecting “Open in Editor” from the After Effects edit menu.
  • Native HDV support. When you’re ready to work in HDV, you’ll want to be sure you can produce the best quality possible. Motion 2 lets you step up to HD without switching applications and without sacrificing quality to a lossy codec. Because Motion 2 supports native HDV files end to end, there’s no need to convert to an intermediate format. The purity of native HDV extends all the way through the seamless round-trip workflow with Final Cut Pro 5 and DVD Studio Pro 4 as well.
  • Instant access to iTunes playlists and iPhoto albums. When you’re working fast, you want to have everything you need at your fingertips. Motion 2 has extended the efficiency and convenience of its Library interface by including access to your iTunes playlists and iPhoto albums. Quickly select music and images without having to go out to the Finder.
For more information on Motion, click here
Technical Specifications