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In this lesson, we'll dive right into Motion and explain where everything is and
what things are called. The Motion interface comprises four main sections.
When you first launch the application, two are visible:
the main Canvas window and the small Utility window to its left.
The Canvas window is where you will view your composite as well as select
elements you want to modify. At the base of the canvas is the Mini-Timeline.
The Mini-Timeline enables you to quickly set an in and out point for real-time
previews and solos the timing properties of the currently selected group,
layer, filter or behavior. Here, a camera is selected.
Buttons at the top of the Canvas provide access to important tools in Motion.
Those with the triangle in the lower right corner expand to reveal a menu of
additional tools when you click and hold the pointer over them.
The View bank of buttons begins with a menu of Selection and Transform tools
including Shape Editing tools. The second button switches to 3D transformations.
We'll cover this in the lesson on working in 3D.
Following this are buttons for panning and zooming, then a special camera,
Walkthrough Navigation tool again covered in the lesson on 3D.
The Create bank of buttons provides geometric shape, free-form shape, paint
and text tools. When using free-form shapes, you can choose
between standard Bezier shapes and Motion's powerful tension adjustable B-splines.
The Mask buttons have the same functionality as their Create counterparts that
are applied directly to a selected layer as a mask.
In the upper right corner of the Canvas, are buttons for adding various elements
to your project and for opening and closing additional panes.
Moving back over to the Utility window, you will find three main sub-tabs.
The first, the File Browser, gives you quick access to the contents of your hard drive.
It's where you go to import footage into your project.
The top pane of the window gives you access to common locations in your hard
drive while the lower pane shows you the contents of the current folder.
A Preview window at the top of the Utility tab shows a thumbnail of any clip
you select in the lower pane. The second tab in the Utility window is the
Library. The Library gives you fast access to all the
building blocks in Motion. From Motion's unique behaviors to its real
time filters, to particle presets and text effects.
Here, we'll change to viewing the Presets of thumbnails.
By selecting Content, you can also access a wealth of Apple designed vector art,
animated graphics and royalty free stock images that can be used as design
elements in your projects. The final tab of the Utility window is the
Inspector. Once you begin working with project elements,
all the parameters for fine-tuning how these elements look and move can be accessed
here. There are two sections to the Motion interface
hidden by default. These are the Project pane and the Timing
pane. Let's look first at the Project pane.
You can open the Project pane by clicking its icon at the top of the Canvas or
by pressing the function key F5. This will show or hide the Project pane.
The most important part of the Project pane is the Layers tab which provides a
way to select project elements, organize them into groups and enable or
disable them as necessary. The Project pane also includes the Media tab
to access the properties of individual media files and an Audio tab for
adjusting and organizing sound files used in the project.
Now let's take a look at the Timing pane. Open the Timing pane by clicking its icon
at the top of the Canvas or by simply
pressing the F6 key. The Timing pane includes the Timeline similar
to the Timeline found in Final Cut Pro. The Keyframe Editor, used to tweak the shape
of keyframe curves and the Audio Editor, useful for editing individual audio
waveforms.
You will notice at the top of the Canvas, the option to adjust the Scale of the current
view. If you are working with a smaller display
resolution, you may want to choose the Fit in Window option.
This forces the Canvas to resize so that its entire image is visible regardless
of which panes are opened.
Shift+Z is the keyboard command for this. Option+Z will quickly set the Canvas back
to 100% Scale. To pan around the Canvas area, hold down the
Spacebar and drag. Hold down the Spacebar and Command keys to
interactively zoom the display.
Again, press Option+Z to set the Canvas back to 100% zoom.
You may have noticed that Motion also includes a semitransparent
heads-up display or HUD. The HUD provides intuitive controls for the
most important aspects of a selected project element, filter or behavior.
Here, I'll go ahead and select the Camera and switch back to the Standard Select tool.
The parameters of the currently selected item, in this case the Camera,
will populate the HUD. So clicking on something else, say a Group
will change its contents.
The HUD can be revealed or hidden by clicking its icon at the top of the Canvas
or by pressing the function key F7.
That's it for now. Don't spend too much time memorizing what
everything does. We'll be going over everything in the coming
lessons. You may want to revisit this video in a few
lessons though, just to reacquaint yourself with the names and locations of the
various interface elements.