Motion 5 - Technical Specifications

Minimum System Requirements
  • Mac computer with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor or better
  • 2GB of RAM (4GB of RAM recommended)
  • OpenCL-capable graphics card or Intel HD Graphics 3000 or later
  • 256MB of VRAM
  • Display with 1280-by-768 resolution or higher
  • Mac OS X v10.6.7 or later
  • 2GB of disk space

User Interface
  • Dark look to enhance color perception
  • Single-window layout for all user interface panes
  • Onscreen controls for selected filters
  • Keyframe editor pane with a streamlined timeline view for intuitive time-based control
  • Center toolbar for tools; color-coded objects and inspector keyframe controls for easy identification
  • Unlimited tracks of movie clips, graphics, text, and particles
  • Project sizes up to 16K (8K resolution requires a graphics card with 512MB of VRAM; 1GB or more recommended; 16K resolution requires a graphics card with 1GB of VRAM)
  • Color bits per channel: 16-bit float for GPU rendering; 32-bit float for background software rendering of Motion projects in Final Cut Pro (float processing requires a graphics card with 256MB of VRAM; 512MB or more recommended)
  • Customizable nonsquare-pixel support
  • Semitransparent heads-up display with onscreen controls for layers, behaviors, and filters
  • Onscreen controls for 3D position, 3D rotation, 3D anchor point, skew, four-corner pin, crop, and text glyph manipulations
  • Enable/Disable viewing and rendering of Lighting, Shadows, Reflections, and Depth of Field
  • View color channels and alpha channels independently
  • Canvas alignment tools including dynamic alignment guides, 3D grid, and rulers
  • Pen-and-tablet gesture-based interface
  • 3D mouse support
  • Integrated File Browser for fast access to Finder content
  • RAM Previews for viewing complex animations at full frame rate
  • Save favorite settings, customized effects, gradients, text styles, and more in the Library
  • Over 1900 pieces of Apple-designed, royalty-free vector artwork, high-resolution images, and animated design elements
  • Instantly display and access all layers in the project using a single keystroke, similar to Exposé in Mac OS X.
  • Create, save, and remap custom keyboard shortcuts.
  • Show images outside the visible frame boundary for easily adjusting offscreen objects.
  • Automatically collect media used in a project for easy backup or moving to other locations.
  • Use Spotlight in Mac OS X to locate Motion projects by searching on any layer name or text string created in the project.

3D Compositing Environment
  • Position, rotate, and intersect multiple layers in 3D space.
  • Combine multiple layers into 3D groups for hierarchical 3D animations.
  • Add, animate, and cut between multiple cameras.
  • Walk-Camera intuitively operates like a first-person video game.
  • Adjust the camera’s near and far soft clipping planes to avoid object “popping.”
  • Apply Camera behaviors for easily creating and modifying complex camera moves.
  • Quad split view for displaying multiple orthographic and perspective views
  • Inset viewer for quickly checking alternative views while making adjustments
  • Multiple light sources including ambient, directional, point, and spot
  • Enable shadows for selected point or spot lights, define objects to receive or cast shadows, and control the shadow colors and softness.
  • Enable Reflectivity on most objects, movies, paint strokes, and more.
  • Activate depth of field to enhance realism and control focus.
  • Enable particles, Replicator elements, and paint strokes to animate in 3D space.
  • Create 3D text behaviors for character-by-character animations with full 3D position and rotation control.
  • Create 3D motion paths for layers, cameras, and light sources.
  • Apply behaviors like throw, orbit, and vortex with 3D attributes.
  • Isolate any layer to a Front view for easily modifying masks or editing text.

Timeline Editing and Layering
  • Layer list view makes it easy to change the stacking order of any layer, group, filter, or animation behavior.
  • Grouping for applying compound transformations and filters
  • Common “bring to front” and “send to back” functions
  • Opacity and blend mode display for quick access on every layer and group
  • Create drop zones for easy drag-and-drop image replacement.
  • Clone layers for linking instances of images that inherit properties automatically.
  • Solo tracks for easier viewing and refinements
  • Isolate selection for temporary framing and solo of an object to facilitate editing of an object in a 3D composition.
  • Composite with premultiplied or non-premultiplied Alpha channels.
  • Composite with premultiplied or non-premultiplied Alpha channels.
  • Mini-timeline built into the Canvas that displays a single track for the currently selected layer, group, filter, or behavior
  • Trim, slip, slide, and retime audio and video clips via the mini-timeline.
  • Retime clips using frame blending, motion blur blending, or optical flow.
  • Cache optical flow retiming analysis to change speed at any time without reanalyzing.
  • Full timeline with drag-and-drop editing to choose between compositing and assembling multiple clips.
  • Insert and overwrite editing directly into the timeline
  • Markers that can be placed in the timeline or on a specific clip with notes

Animation
  • Unique behavior animations for creating natural phenomena like wind, gravity, and vortex
  • Sophisticated simulations like attract, repel, and orbit, which create multilayered 3D animations
  • Text sequencing for automating complex title animations in 3D space
  • Auto-animated Parameter controls like oscillate, wriggle, and more
  • Parameter linking for driving secondary animations
  • Retiming behaviors automate ramping in and out of speed changes.
  • Audio behavior for syncing animations with audio tracks
  • MIDI behavior for triggering parameter changes via any MIDI device
  • Shape behaviors allow for tracking points on a shape or creating random wriggling animated shapes.
  • Complete keyframe-based animation tools
  • Keyframe editor with Bezier, Linear, Constant, and Ease In/Ease Out curve interpolations
  • Keyframe edit tool, keyframe sketch tool, and a keyframe box manipulation tool
  • Copy and paste keyframes from different tracks and parameters
  • Keyframe settings for ping pong, repeat, and progressive
  • Record Animation feature with keyframe thinning for recording animations in real time
  • Draw keyframes in the Keyframe editor using a freehand pen tool.
  • Squish, stretch, and move groups of keyframes using a transform box.
  • Save curve sets for quick access to common parameters.
  • View animated curves for easier navigation.
  • View keyframes in the timeline for quick positioning.
  • Enable/Disable keyframe and behavior-based animations to easily compare different results.

Particle Engine
  • Sprite-based particle engine with accelerated performance
  • Over 200 particle presets for easy access to sparkles, fire, smoke, and more
  • Animate particles in 3D space with Face-Camera control.
  • Apply multiple objects or video clips as emitters.
  • Apply additive blend mode for intense glowing results.
  • Animate emitters and cells independently.
  • Save newly created particles in the Library for reuse in other projects.
  • Choose between point, line, rectangle, circle, box, sphere, and more for emitter shapes.
  • Control birth rate, life, speed, angle, spin, scale, and gradient colors for particle cells.
  • Scale particles over their life or add behaviors like orbit and vortex for amazing 3D results with little effort.

Paint Effects
  • Paint with pressure-sensitive vector-based brushstrokes.
  • Select from over 140 customizable brush styles from traditional to abstract.
  • Modify brush width, color, opacity, and jitter over the stroke path.
  • Automatically draw on and draw off with full customization.
  • Edit brushstrokes as Bezier or advanced B-spline paths.
  • Rotate the stroke in 3D space with Face-Camera control for volumetric 3D strokes.
  • Assign pressure and speed to brush properties when using a pen and tablet.
  • Enable dynamics on paint dabs for particle paint type effects.
  • Apply Replicator-like sequencing animations that can cause the paint stroke to ripple through 3D space.

Replicator Tool
  • Automatic replication of any graphic, text object, or movie file along defined patterns
  • Over 200 Replicator presets that can be completely customized and resaved
  • Animate replicated patterns in 3D space with Face-Camera control.
  • Save newly created Replicators in the Library for reuse in other projects.
  • Choose between line, rectangle, circle, burst, spiral, wave, box, sphere, and more for Replicator patterns.
  • Define the number of rows, columns, and 3D ranks that fill or outline the pattern.
  • Control pattern size, cell size, angle, scale, and gradient colors for Replicator cells.
  • Change the offset for rows and columns, causing them to shift position across the defined pattern.
  • Control origin of animation from various points of the pattern.
  • Add random scale and angle setting for more natural replications.
  • Apply additive blend mode for intense glowing results.
  • Set color of replicated objects from a single tint to a user-defined range.
  • Add Replicator Sequence behavior for wavelike animations over various patterns.

Title Design
  • Vector-based text engine for creating clean type at any size
  • Import capability supporting Text and RTF files to create Motion text objects
  • Format text using size, rotation, slant, tracking, kerning, and more.
  • Animate individual text characters in 3D space using customizable text behaviors.
  • Transform single characters with the Adjust Glyph tool.
  • Select from a common set of blend modes, including normal, multiply, screen, and add.
  • Customize text styles with control over the face, outline, glow, and drop shadow.
  • Type-on and text-on-a-path layout/animation options
  • Scroll and Crawl layouts and animation options that support large amounts of text
  • Text field parameter in Inspector makes it easy to edit text even if text is obscured in the Canvas.
  • Fill text with solid or multipoint gradients.
  • Apply static images or video clips as textures to text faces.
  • Control textures using hold frame, offset, wrap modes, and opacity.
  • Support for Asian, Cyrillic, and other Unicode system fonts
  • Right-to-left and vertical text support for non-Roman languages like Japanese, Chinese, and Arabic
  • Search-and-replace function to find and modify specific text throughout a project
  • Shrink-to-fit option that automatically resizes text to fit into a given area

Tracking and Stabilization
  • Match move using single-point tracking or four-corner pinning
  • Create tracking data that can be referenced by multiple objects.
  • Track a filter’s onscreen position controls.
  • Offset tracking for creating a single track from multiple offsets
  • Tracking behavior highlights best potential tracking points, eliminating guesswork.
  • Advanced tracking algorithm maintains accurate analysis when patterns rotate or skew.
  • Smart retry feature resets the search region automatically for less user intervention.
  • Provide directional hints for fast-moving regions by using the look-ahead feature.
  • Stabilize using traditional point stabilizer or optical flow analysis.
  • Automated optical flow stabilizer bypasses selecting points and time-consuming setup.
  • SmoothCam optical flow analysis removes jitter and rocking from handheld shots while retaining overall camera moves.
  • Adjust amount of smoothing applied to transforms, rotation, and scaling in real time.

Accelerated Filters and Effects
  • Over 110 accelerated filters for real-time interactivity
  • More than 10 blur filters, including Gaussian, Channel Blur, Radial Blur, and Defocus
  • Simple and bevel borders
  • More than 15 color correction filters, including Color Balance, Gradient Colorize, Color Reduce, and Threshold
  • More than 25 distortion filters, including Refraction, Insect Eye, Glass Distortion, Ripple, Scrape, and Polar
  • Stunning glow effects for Light Rays, Bloom, Aura, and more
  • Keying filter that automatically analyzes the dominant color of the visible frame and presents onscreen controls for refining the sample color and edges of the key
  • Keying controls for filing holes, adjusting edge distance, spill level, and light wrap
  • Advanced keying color-wheel control for adjusting the tolerance and softness in the chroma and luma channels of the keyed region
  • Stylize filters like Vignette, Bad TV, Bad Film, Color Emboss, Halftone, Line Art, and Slit Tunnel
  • Unique kaleidoscope and tiling filters
  • Time-based filters for echo and strobe effects
  • Video filters for deinterlacing and broadcast-safe colors and luminance
  • Generators that automatically generate patterns, noise, colors, caustics, and concentric shapes and spirals
  • Text generators that create and animate text elements like numbers, currency, dates, and timecode or can generate text using the contents of a text file

Masking Tools
  • Bezier or advanced B-spline masking tools
  • Create ovals, rectangles, and arbitrary freehand shapes.
  • Control opacity, rounding, and edge feathering.
  • Combine masks using mathematical operations.
  • Track entire shapes or control points using tracking behaviors.
  • Create image masks from alpha, luminance, or RGB values of a second image.

Audio
  • Support for AIFF, WAV, MP3, VBR MP3, and AAC
  • Edit audio tracks in the timeline with trim, slip, and move.
  • Retime audio tracks with pitch change.
  • Scrub audio tracks for frame-accurate positioning.
  • Control balance, gain, mute, and solo individually.
  • Use master audio controls for global audio adjustments.
  • Trigger parameter changes based on audio frequencies or transient hits.

Final Cut Pro Integration and Third-Party Support
  • Create and save Smart Templates in Motion for titles, effects, transitions, and generators to make them available in Final Cut Pro for drag-and-drop application without rendering.
  • Rigs allow multiple parameters to be controlled with simplified sliders, pop-up menus, or checkboxes.
  • Predefined aspect-ratio snapshots make templates automatically fit the Final Cut Pro project frame size.
  • Define fixed durations for intro and outro sections in templates; Final Cut Pro adjusts the title body to fit the timing in the middle.
  • Rigs and parameters can be published in a template for simplified control in Final Cut Pro.
  • Import vector PDF graphics, Photoshop layered documents, BMP, GIF, JPEG, PICT, PNG, TIFF, TGA, or Open EXR files.
  • FxPlug 2 for GPU-accelerated third-party filters and effects, including support for shapes, paths, cameras, and lights
  • Support for Image Unit plug-ins

Export
  • Share feature to export and deliver content automatically to devices like iPod and Apple TV or to services like Facebook, Vimeo, and YouTube in a few clicks.
  • Export to ProRes, H.264, MPEG-4, and other QuickTime-supported codecs.
  • Export as movies or image sequences.
  • Export as OpenEXR format.
  • Support for progressive and field-based rendering
  • Accelerated motion blur with customizable shutter
  • Save custom export settings for easier selection.
  • Settings created in Compressor can be accessed directly from the Share feature in Motion 5 and Final Cut Pro X.
  • Send a whole project to Compressor for advanced encoding requirements.
  • Export Selection can render out selected objects.

 

Explore third-party plug-ins, tutorials, and other helpful resources for Motion. View resources.