Motion 5.1.1

Well, most obvious update. You can now export out of Motion with 4444 XQ. For pure animation, I don't quite see the need for this as you can control luminance in Motion just by messing with stuff...but for compositing using high-res camera files, than this is good.

In the sequence text behavior there is now something called Select. Which I believe is mainly so you can assign which words, characters, lines, will animate and which ones will not. Start index being a number you move so which character, word, line to animate. So, if you have 20 words in your animation and you only want the last 2 to animate, put start index at 18. And on that note, leave end index to 20...since there are 20 words in your text.

Contrast filter now has 2 extra checkboxes. Smooth Contrast and Luminance Only. Luminance only contrasts the luma channel.. which is useful since now we have control of luminance data with the 4444 XQ codec. Smooth contrast just makes more of a curve to contrast adjustments instead of a strong cutoff...but it actually puts a max on contrast to 2.0. Interesting.

Color Balance filter now has a Boost feature. It looks to affect Luminance similar to the contrast filter.

Thats all I could find. Still so minor.

Features I have heard requested by numerous peeps:

Send to Motion from FCPX
Templates should carry audio over to fcpx, not just video.
Timecode of the source material in the timeline
Better tracking tools
the ability to change frame rate inside of Motion
camera controls in rigs for FCPX users (switch cameras)
an update to emitter/replicate
possible expansion into a more 3D application, than just 2.5D

Motion version 5.1.1 update adds the following features:
- Support for Apple ProRes 4444 XQ
- Improved Sequence Text behavior for animating characters, words, lines
- Enhanced Contrast filter parameters for refined adjustments

It is disappointing that we haven't seen a substantive feature update to Motion since the launch of Motion 5 in 2011.

I would be worried for the app's existence, except that it's so indelibly tied to FCP X that, unless Motion is eventually just wrapped in to X, it will continue to exist even if it's feature-set does not improve.

A really good integrated 3D tracker is my most requested feature- whether it's from Apple or a 3rd party, I don't care.

Honestly, I think many of the additional functions that we'd like to see might be better handled by 3rd parties just like in AE. I do not believe Apple would put the effort into 3D model integration as good as mObject does, or 3D tracking as good as SynthEyes would be if it was better integrated, or Particle effects as good as Trapcode Particlar if they would only produce it for Motion.

I'm very much hoping FXPlug3 support enables this. It was one of the headline features of FCP X 10.1 and Motion 5.1- hopefully it means something substantive, but we haven't seen anything big out of it yet (as far as I can tell).

Disproportionate Pictures wrote: It is disappointing that we haven't seen a substantive feature update to Motion since the launch of Motion 5 in 2011....

From my - amateurish! - p.o.v., M5 leaves an 'undeterminate' impression - what is it? What is the concept io M5?

For a stand-alone 'effects' app, it cannot compete with that beast AE.
For an 'animating titles' app, it offers way too much features.
For a 'plug-in maker' app for FCPX, it again lacks popular features (access of tracking like TrackX)

mObjects demoes, M5 could be a 'beast' too. And it looks like, Apple very wisely decides, what they implement in its apps, and what should/could be done to 3rd party manufacturers.

... but M5 itself is ... vague.

3d-tracking and LUT are examples, 3rd parties do without Motion. But fall into M5 core competence, doesn't it?

'motion' implies the factor 'time', so, what about any time-based features?
Triggers, sub-routines, if/then procedures, timers, .. ?

the concept of 'behaviours' (.. instead of keyframes...) is awesome - so, imho, M5 should expand a 'cause and effect' behaviour section....

Well I don't know. I personally don't have the skills to use AE or Motion to it's fullest. And I've been using AE since 1995. There are many things it does better and easier than AE. I can see this coming from a novice Motion user just making the switch. No, it's not the beast AE is in some senses. In AE I will create whole graphic packages with just one project and many different comp outputs, utilizing the render que, etc. You have to do all that versioning and separate projects in the finder unfortunately in Motion.

But Motion has got Adobe moving toward the integration model for Premiere. Slowly, but they're moving that way. Starting just with text, which is where Motion was over 10 years ago. The rigging and whatnot can be done in AE but it's more complicated from my view. Behaviors aren't quite as powerful as expressions but they're close. And certainly easier to use. And it plays back amazingly complex animations without a hitch in full quality. Renders 10x faster than AE too. You can work with audio. It isn't AE, but it's a much more modern app. AE could use a rebuild/rethinking. Not a FCP X kind of rebuild though!

I'd like to see parenting in Motion though. Grouping just isnt the same. But cloning is sweet. I'd also like to see some color coding as well as more obvious hierarchy. When everything is twirled open, it's just not obvious what goes with what group.

It's an amazing app, and for $50 for life? Wow. I'm just done with Adobe and their renting model. It's a full featured motion graphics app like AE. And it's definitely building momentum with the misstep by Adobe. Look at companies like MotionVFX that were just a site with some templates a few years ago. Now they're a huge force in motion graphics imo. Check out their stuff if you haven't. Amazing. And the fact that everything works in motion or FCPX is ridiculous. Premiere and AE have nothing to compete with that synergy yet. If we could just get "send to motion" back already.

Regarding Parenting- here's some RippleTraining vids on Linking- which I don't use nearly enough

I'd say linking is more akin to expressions. It's great. There's still nothing like parenting without dubious amounts of cloning and grouping. Which was how we had to do it in AE until v5. Not CS5. Version 5. When they introduced 3D space. Dragging a pick wip and connecting layers together is just so easy and powerful. Easy to undo as well, unlike grouping or precomping.

Bretwilliams wrote: ... Dragging a pick wip and connecting layers together is just so easy and powerful. Easy to undo as well, unlike grouping or precomping.

I have no clue of AE, sort-of 'nodes', hm?

Which would be also an awesome representation of my wish (time based and 'cause and effect' behaviors): draw a simple flow-chart, if/then boxes, <=> boxes, timer/counter-boxes, 'trigger' boxes ... that would a [strike]spicy meatball[/strike] nice interface! ... <dream mode off>

"You have to do all that versioning and separate projects in the finder unfortunately in Motion."

I don't, I either copy/paste layers between projects, or Save As, never leaving motion to version things.

I'd also recommend folks check out PixelConduit, which has a plugin that works in FCPX and Motion.
www.pixelconduit.com

Karsten Schlüter wrote:
From my - amateurish! - p.o.v., M5 leaves an 'undeterminate' impression - what is it? What is the concept io M5?

Good thing you mention your p.o.v. Perhaps you haven't fully explored everything Motion has to offer.

Besides 3d object integration, I'm curious to know one thing which AE can do and Motion can't.

AE is tedious and circonvoluted for no reason, requiring double the amount of clicks Motion needs to do the same thing.

I've used motion for years and it has always been one of the most stable and most under-rated soft I know,

As a matter of fact
vimeo.com/69563518

Motion keeps my clients happy and my aftermen friends stunned. If anything, it could get even more detailed but honestly I've never really gotten stuck by limitations, there are most often a way to get things done. Long live Apple Motion. I would be cutting with premiere and never have made the switch to fcpx if it wasn't to keep Motion close.