VIDEO COPILOT announces Element3D for AE

First things first; the Element 3D AE plug-in looks awesome.

Andrew Kramer is clearly an AE guy like stated above, and he's an Adobe PR blessing. It's a shame that nobody like Andrew has come out in the Motion field. Yes, AE can do tons of things more than Motion, but Andrew's creativity, passion and attention to detail makes it look even more so. Mark Spencer has some really good Motion tutorials but they don't look anywhere as professional as Andrew's.

On the other hand I believe Apple is not really looking to go head to head with AE with Motion. AE has a broader scope with more functions, and Motion is much more targeted in workflows.

I really like both tools and I see them going in different directions.

Andrew did a couple of Motion tutorials and of course many of their products are independent of the software used, but it would be awesome if he did more tutorials on Motion and brought some of the plug-ins over.

The guys at Motionvfx do some great quality work on Motion, too bad they don't have tutorials like Video Copilot (the only tutorials are on using their plug-ins).

I think the biggest problem is that Motion can't do some cool stuff and look as good as what After Effects spits out.

Lets hope that we can see new staff for motion maybe not what AE is offering but still something we can fight Back with it
when motion 3 came out it had the DOF and Shadows and Reflections Then I thought it going to the AE direction- But today we don't really know were its going ???
I must say that the rigging /publishing thing is nice but its more for broadcast tv fast were you need to crate then use then change then re use
not really for "creative" one of a kind Job
SO COME ON APPLE THAK IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL (and don't kill it please)

I suspect Apple wants to cherry pick the best of Motion, put it in FCPX then kill Motion as a standalone product.

Rigging is definitely useful in the broadcast arena but I think its absolutely useful for creative jobs.

I don't think they'll kill Motion. It seems strange to put so much work into rigging/publishing for FCPX then kill it. I've wondered in the past if they may want to go the route of making Motion more of a developer tool, but I've also been curios as to how FCPX/Motion integration could evolve.

No there are not going to kill Motion... I would make sense if they wanted something like Smoke but this would have already happened.

I hope you're right. It just seems they've put a fair amount of effort into running Motion code directly inside of FCPX...yet have put seemingly no effort in "sending to" motion

There is a huge list of things to be done, and coding applications is a very long, slow process. They dev team has to prioritize what gets done first. I'm sure we'll see enhanced round trip to/from Motion & FCP X eventually. At the moment FCP X is the priority.

As for rigging, it's super useful for more than just FCP X templates. It's an awesome way to link elements in complex ways and keyframe them all together with one control. Something I've been wanting in Motion for awhile.

I see no "logical" reason to suspect Motion will be dropped. Again, why put so much effort into it? Its going to be Motion for a long time, I doubt we'll see it change form or direction.

BenB wrote:
I see no "logical" reason to suspect Motion will be dropped. Again, why put so much effort into it? Its going to be Motion for a long time, I doubt we'll see it change form or direction.

This is true but if you look at Apples track record it has happened before. :huh:

If apple didn't have longer term plans for Motion, then it wouldn't have survived the AppStore transition like SoundtrackPro or Color. And they certainly wouldn't have gone to the effort of recoding it for 64bit and redesigning the UI to match FCPX.

Both Shake and Color were acquisitions that Apple EOL'd without putting much custom work into them. I honestly think they were both technology/talent aquisitions, with their ultimate goal being to integrate functionality into the remaining apps.

Scrubelicious wrote: This is true but if you look at Apples track record it has happened before

Apples track record is to drop apps they've not done much work to.

True like Soundtrack Pro, iWeb, AppleWorks, LiveType to name a few.

@Scrubelicious But if you look at the apps you named it makes sense.

Soundtrack Pro - Alot of it has made it into FCPX what hasn't is in Logic Pro (hopefully we will get a nice round trip feature to do mixing in Logic)

iWeb - was created to sell .Mac/Mobile Me which is now iCloud which sells for free. Why would Apple try and continue to to website hosting for $99 when you can get the same functionality out of iWeb for 50$ with a godaddy hosting plan. Since they are not selling .Mac/Mobile Me anymore why keep working on it.

AppleWorks - Has been replaced by iWork (Pages, Numbers and Keynote)

Livetype - Has been moved into motion. You can even use LiveFonts (To create custom livefonts what such a pain, that is also why you do not see a 3rd party market for it)

Also just to bring up iDVD - Apple wants you to share things to iPad/iPod/iPhone this is how they make money. And many of the new Apple Macs no longer come with SuperDrive. So there is no reason to still support it.

I think apple is still working on Motion, and it will only get better.

SoundTrack Pro is still selling as part of the boxed Logic Studio in the online Apple store.

Mikeybouchereau wrote: But if you look at the apps you named it makes sense.

Soundtrack Pro - Alot of it has made it into FCPX what hasn't is in Logic Pro...

Livetype - Has been moved into motion. You can even use LiveFonts (To create custom livefonts what such a pain, that is also why you do not see a 3rd party market for it)...

This is true but as you mentioned they could move a few options from Motion into FCPX and cancel out Motion.

Some of the small options made its way into FCPX but not what really made Soundtrack... I want a Frequency Spectrum viewer but we will see what will come on the next update.

Not saying Motion will be killed or not, which I don't think. But as you stated it can happen its all about the business right. "iWeb is one of the best examples"

BenB wrote: SoundTrack Pro is still selling as part of the boxed Logic Studio in the online Apple store.

True like Shake was when it was announced EOL.

Sorry if this was mentioned in this topic, but I didn't read through all 3 pages of it. Just wondering, is there plugin that I can buy that will allow me to use element 3d in Motion? or is it only for AE? Thanks!

BenB wrote: SoundTrack Pro is still selling as part of the boxed Logic Studio in the online Apple store.

And the bundle includes MainStage and Waveburner (or at least it did when I bought it last November for $500 (ouch). Mainstage is also available in a newer standalone version on the app store.

Only for AE.

I love Motion for, well... motion graphics. But it's giant blind spot is 3D motion tracking and geometry. Hopefully we'll either see Apple integrate 3D motion tracking to Motion itself, or that a 3rd party will release a plugin like Foundry's Camera Tracker. But it's an uphill battle, I think. AE has the unquestionable upper hand in this arena, with built in as well as lots of 3rd party support.

I don't even know if a plugin like Element3D could conceivably work within Motion. Element is basically a particle emitter.