Motion 4: Opening a project from a previous version of Motion may not appear as expected.
Symptoms
When opening a project from a previous version of Motion in Motion 4, your project may not appear as expected.
Products Affected
Motion 4.0, Final Cut Studio (2009)
Resolution
Motion 4 works in a new color space to optimize image quality for broadcast and internet viewing of media. This new working color space has a different gamma value of 1/2.2 where previous versions of Motion worked with a gamma correction value of 1/1.8. As a result, opening a project created in a previous version of Motion may not appear as expected.
Areas that may be affected include composite modes (sometimes called blending modes), gradients, blurs, and tints applied to imported media. If this occurs, it can often be addressed by applying a gamma filter with a value of 1.22 to the media or object prior to processing, and another gamma filter with a value of 0.82 to the media after processing.
Cutting and pasting shapes, gradients, and other objects from a project from a previous version of Motion into new projects may result in a mismatch of values in the Inspector, as these objects will be tagged with the previous version's working color space.
If exact backwards compatibility is necessary, export the project to a file from the version of Motion the project was created in. The resulting exported file can then be imported into Motion 4 for additional processing.