When will Motion get some love?

Come on Apple...let's Shake this up!

xSEND Motion, mObject, etc.

What exactly are you looking for in Motion?

Motion should be where HitFilm is...HitFilm is a younger software, but I feel it's already surpassing Motion.
hitfilm.com/pro

Yeah, used it, system resource hog, bloated, not great on performance, unstable, and the GUI sucks. Been there, done that, my two cents.

So you think Motion should do the job of 3 or 4 specialized apps, all under one GUI, bloated, etc? That's it? Well, tell Apple to rewrite the pro apps from scratch.

But the question was what exactly are you looking for in Motion? Specifically in "Motion"? Not how it should be a whole different application. In which case, go use that whole different application, and be done with it.

Just my two cents, since you asked.

For the sake of not turning this into an argument....

I haven't used hitfilm, so it could be that their advertising is better, which makes it more enticing.

Anyway, for one, I'd like more compositing tools.

Schwyhart wrote: … I'd like more compositing tools.

Question is: is Motion meant for that?
I'm not shy to declare M5 as an 'extender' for FCPX, a plug-in maker - for those, like me, who are too dumb to use the 'real' plugin SDK...

So, any comparison to Nuke, Shake et al misses imho the point - After Effects can not create plugins for FCPX; motion has not the manyfold 'Photoshop for moving images' options as AE....

If you need elaborated compo - use AE, that simple.

... what I DO share:
Time for some MotionX... alone the UI needs, imho, some overhauling (never understand, why the layers are listed twice??); in FCPX, the Inspector/tabs are right, in M5 left; that tiny preview stamps!; new behaviours (Boolean, if…then…else); you have to click the loupe AND into the search-field before searching... yep, a minuscule, but that's what 'needs some love' is about...

Schwyhart wrote: For the sake of not turning this into an argument....

I haven't used hitfilm, so it could be that their advertising is better, which makes it more enticing.

Anyway, for one, I'd like more compositing tools.

I'm not sure why you got the condescension you did to a perfectly reasonable question.

It's regrettable that Motion hasn't got much in the way of love and even more curious because it is the backbone of FCPX. A more powerful Motion has a direct and immediate affect on FCPX and takes it to the next level too.

I love Motion, in fact, it allowed me to ditch AE many years ago but it needs a bit more than tinkering with the UI. In the era of high performance GPGPUs it is absolutely valid to wish for more functionality out of it. I'd be very happy to pay much more money for Motion if that meant Apple would develop it. Alas, the pricing of Motion is rather indicative of what Apple thinks Motion is, a glorified Title Deko.

I find the lack of Motion Blur phase extremely limiting for completing trivial composites in Motion. I'd like to see a full 3D environment like Element 3D, we could be slowly moving in that direction. I'd like more C4D Mograph like tools in Motion such as effectors and the ability to address individual parameters of objects in Replicator cells. Dynamics would also be very welcome.

The Rigging is great but what would be really useful would be a visual scripting framework like Quartz Composer inside Motion with enough granularity to build composites like Shake or extend Motion's features e.g. building your own Behaviours. There would be so much more scope for building amazing FCPX plugins and Titles.

I know this wish list is pie in the sky because while Apple can be very forward thinking they can also be very conservative. For what ever reason FCPX is the forward thinking Apple and Motion is the conservative short sighted Apple. So Schwyhart you are right to expect more, Apple should have more ambition for Motion. It's sell more Macs.

How do you delete posts?

I get the impression that Hitfilm was initially targeted at home movie makers who wanted explosions, muzzle flashes and laser beams for their budget VFX fan film 'epics'. Fim making enthusiasts having fun rather than professionals. I think they are trying to move beyond that now but are struggling with preconceptions much like FCPX is with certain factions of the video editing community. The name 'HitFilm' doesn't much help their case.
Motion is a somewhat more professional and established tool for motion graphics and VFX. ( It's been around for over 10 years now! ) It's not quite the powerhouse that After Effects is but by the same token is no slouch either. It offers many of the same core features. Compositing, keying, motion tracking, particle effects, text animations, filters, 3D etc.
For me, there's not much it can't do that AE can but then I'm working in fast turnaround television and don't usually have time to fully exploit the depth of control that AE provides. Motions particle system could do with an upgrade in terms of particle resolution and physics engine - I don't think Trapcode will be bringing Particular, Form or the rest of their suite to the FCPX/Motion ecosystem anytime soon. But, thanks to other 3rd party developers - we have Mocha tracking, 3D, objects, lens flares...Nodes anybody?
I'm not even personally that concerned about the FCPX - Motion - FCPX roundtrip although I can see why many are. I can develop in Motion, publish to FCPX and no longer need to roundtrip because everything is now right there in FCPX to use. The only annoyance is that if I need to later modify and add to the effect it doesn't change what I have on the timeline, only new instances of the effect in the browser....Wow! I didn't expect to waffle on so much when I started writing this...

mObject, xSEND Motion

Motion is QC compatible, you can bring those into Motion. But Vue is quickly over taking QC, and is promising in a future update to export compositions as FxPlug effects.

Apple never has, and from what I've been told, still isn't aimed at being a 3D modeling app.

I, too, wish Motion got more development. Although I hear this a lot, I rarely hear realistic specifics folks want. Just asking a reasonable question. What specifically do you want from Motion, that we don't already have in one form or another? Very reasonable question.

"To be more like..." is vague. I'm not arguing with anyone.

Apart from a more powerful particle engine bringing some Trapcode like power ( Particular, Form, MIR and TAO et al ) I struggle to think of things it needs. I think if people look under Motions hood as it were rather than wait for someone to develop a template or effect for them they would find just how much untapped potential it has.
Ben, you wanted specifics...Complex wind, rain, fluid and bounce simulations. Mappable immortal particle grids, 3D geometries along a path ( Zaxwerks - yes - i know ).

Sorry folks, but if you want more powerful tools go to "Blackmagic design" site and download Fusion 8 for free. End of discussion!. But if (and here agree with Ben) you want a more integrated system with FCPX have to ask some specific tools to make our work easier. Apple with introduction of "title 3D environment" has open a door, but "Motion 5" remained the same as before: a 2,5 D program. So for work properly should be rewritten much of the program’s code.How many people at Apple are working to Motion? I don’ know. I am exploring in depth the possibilities offered by the program, especially on the 3D side, and often I have to acknowledge that the program allows you to do things that I thought was impossible. At first I bought mObject, but I left for its cumbersome and limiting imposing: you can not share the work with others and you can not do complex things, e.g. when I realized the quadcopter, it was impossible to create four different centers of rotation for the engines, in 3D text was very simple. The mere fact that more or less we can do almost everything we do with After Effect at a fraction of its cost makes me say that is a little gem.
Ben I think you meaning Vuo, Vue is an other beast
With friendship Pielle

BenB wrote: mObject, xSEND Motion

Motion is QC compatible, you can bring those into Motion. But Vue is quickly over taking QC, and is promising in a future update to export compositions as FxPlug effects.

Apple never has, and from what I've been told, still isn't aimed at being a 3D modeling app.

I, too, wish Motion got more development. Although I hear this a lot, I rarely hear realistic specifics folks want. Just asking a reasonable question. What specifically do you want from Motion, that we don't already have in one form or another? Very reasonable question.

"To be more like..." is vague. I'm not arguing with anyone.

I remember clearly Apple deprecating QC support in Motion and clearly said QC support could disappear at any moment. QC is effectively deprecated too with long standing bugs never being addressed. Every OS update fixes/breaks QC in equal measure and it's stability cannot be trusted.

I never said anything about Motion becoming a 3D Modelling App rather I fully make good on the promise it has a a Motion graphics application. A fully fledged 3D environment like Smoke would be most useful.

Motion is limited in its image processing capabilities, e.g. there's no way I can get access to the individual YCrCb channels of an image, perform image processing on one channel, recombine the channels and convert back to RGB colour model.

Another example, I wanted to apply and modulate the blur on sections of an image selected by frequency or even a lumakey. Again impossible in Motion. The compound blur doesn't accept a group or clone as an input. So no way to create an effect I wanted for a particular job. A 5 minute job in Fusion and Shake before it. I've used Conduit in the past but unfortunately that is no longer being actively developed so it can't be relied upon.

Matchmoving a scene in Syntheyes, sending it over to Motion to add some simple 3D Text animations, there's no way to add motion blur and adjust the phase so there's a choice, no motion blur or motion blur with swimming text animation. I've repeatedly requested this feature for years but it's clear it's not going to happen.

Specific enough examples?

If Apple would give us more granular access then the logical next step would be to give us a nodal programming environment to connect all the bits and with rigging would make for exceptional flexibility for knocking out effects. This won't happen because Apple isn't going to go to these lengths for $50 application it sees as a Titler with tinsel.

QC is not an option because Apple has thrown that particular baby out with the bathwater much to everyone's dismay in the realtime visuals world. Vuo offers some hope but is certainly not overtaking QC by any means and still requires a lot of development to fully realise its promise. The Vuo team are incredibly switched on (and nice people) and are delivering an excellent tool which I hope the FCPX community embraces.

I'm on the QC listserve, and work with folks who program in QC daily, and work with QC occasionally myself. It still has a strong following, and Apple still have developers who work out bugs, just as a secondary concern. It was never an official product, just thrown out there for folks to play with, unofficially. It isn't strongly supported, but it hasn't been dismissed by Apple, and no QC support for Motion has ever depreciated or gone away. There are some very popular 3rd party plugins that are from QC. But, Vue is taking over and much better.

Apple never publicly said anything about depreciating QC, nor anything about it in relation to Motion. When/where did that clearly state that?

Motion is what it is, FxPlug is powerful, especially when combined with QC, even today, but again, no one is expecting much growth from Motion any time soon.

Between Fusion for free, and Vue, I'm happy.

I've tried hitfilm express, and nothing in it enticed me to buy hitfilm pro, It just felt clunky and confusing, and trying to be two things at once, If I was going to be doing that kind of thing, I'd use AE or Fusion.

What I'd like to see in Motion, Is simply for it to get better at what it already does.
Bug fixes, especially for keyframes, and particle systems.
3D Vector shape extrusion.
Proper interaction between 3D and 2D objects.
More behaviors for particles and replicators.
Better implementation of how effects affect 3D objects
and that's about all I can think of, although a 3D tracker to track 3D text into a scene would be pretty cool.

Solid wishlist. I bought Typepetool 3 to turn vector shapes into font characters and give myself vector shape extrusion capabilities. It would be nice to not require a 3rd party workaround for this.

BenB wrote: I'm on the QC listserve, and work with folks who program in QC daily, and work with QC occasionally myself. It still has a strong following, and Apple still have developers who work out bugs, just as a secondary concern. It was never an official product, just thrown out there for folks to play with, unofficially. It isn't strongly supported, but it hasn't been dismissed by Apple, and no QC support for Motion has ever depreciated or gone away. There are some very popular 3rd party plugins that are from QC. But, Vue is taking over and much better.

Apple never publicly said anything about depreciating QC, nor anything about it in relation to Motion. When/where did that clearly state that?

Motion is what it is, FxPlug is powerful, especially when combined with QC, even today, but again, no one is expecting much growth from Motion any time soon.

Between Fusion for free, and Vue, I'm happy.

As someone who creates interactive live installations and performance visuals I can say there's absolutely no user or developer that isn't aware that QC is EOL, a dead man walking. It's still heavily used because it's so useful not because there is any official support going forward. It would be great if Apple could open source it but it seems it relies upon private APIs so would be difficult for that to happen but there are plenty of people in the RT visuals community ready and willing to take it on.

I seem to remember in release notes of Motion mention QC being deprecated but I can't see it in the online docs, there was also a Ripple Training video with Mark Spencer saying QC effects were deprecated and support could go at any time IIRC. Apple themselves removed their QC effects from Motion 5 early on in its life.

To those saying simply use another Application if you want more power, well that's such an obvious point it didn't need to be said and misses the point I'm trying to make. The more powerful and feature rich Motion is the more powerful and feature rich FCPX becomes. It concerns me that the same boneheaded thinking that has allowed QC to atrophy is repeating itself with Motion.

Vuo while interesting, showing progress and really worth supporting is no complete replacement for QC at this time. I hope people will get on the Vuo ride and help fund and direct its development in areas that would better suit FCPX.

To those saying simply use another Application if you want more power, well that's such an obvious point it didn't need to be said and misses the point I'm trying to make. The more powerful and feature rich Motion is the more powerful and feature rich FCPX becomes. It concerns me that the same boneheaded thinking that has allowed QC to atrophy is repeating itself with Motion.

I agree completely. I had to stop myself from writing a rather annoyed post yesterday about how saying 'Sorry, If you want more power, use Fusion instead, end of discussion' is not really appropriate in a Motion forum thread discussing ways to improve Motion. I was like "Don't tell me you're sorry but i should expect nothing more from Motion, should change the software I use and should cease any further discussion about the subject, just because Fusion 8 has dropped and it's free and it's is node based!" - What are you the software police?" :lol:
In retrospect I don't think the comment was being intentionally antagonistic and wasn't meant quite the way it came across. It's all good

I don't think anyone said if you "want more power", it was "if you want a true compositor, use a true compositor". Or "if you want a 3D modeler, get a 3D modeler, which Motion isn't." Very different statements.

Motion is not a dedicated compositor, it is not a 3D modeler, it is a basic motion graphics app, always has been, that's all it ever will be.

No, Apple never officially said QC was depreciated for Motion.

Since you quoted me is right to respond to your comments. Have you stopped to comment on the first sentence of my post ,that was clearly provocative. The real meaning was: stop asking random things difficult to achieve, given that we do not know how many people are employed in Apple for Motion development, rather formulate possible desires As said by MarkNelsonMovies who grasped the meaning.. I more than you would like to have better tools, but I've seen Apple. in the years to follow strange paths not all understandable. Therefore if we focus on specific and achievable topics,I think that something will get.
Pielle