The motion interface – Apple Motion 2 Tutorials User Manual

Page 13

Tutorial 1

The Motion Interface

The Play button is part of the group of controls known as the

transport controls

. The

transport controls let you navigate through your project in a variety of ways. In
addition to normal playback, you can step through your project frame by frame or
jump directly to the beginning or end. You can also set your project to loop or to mute
the audio component of your project.

Click the Play button again (or press the

Space bar

) to stop the project playback.

Click the “Go to next frame” button to advance the project one frame at a time.

Note:

You can also press the

Right Arrow

and

Left Arrow

keys, or the

Page Down

and

Page Up

keys, to move forward or backward one frame at a time. Press

Shift

while

using the arrow keys to move the playhead in increments of ten frames.

Click the “Go to start of project” button to return to the beginning of the project.

Note:

To quickly return to the start of the project, press

Home

Now that you’ve quickly reviewed the transport controls, explore more of the interface
in the next section.

The Motion Interface

In this section, tour the starting project for this tutorial to become familiar with the
Motion interface. To understand how this basic project is constructed, it is helpful to
view the different windows and panes in Motion.

Notice that the interface (shown on page 11) features two main components: the
Utility window and the Canvas. The Utility window contains three tabs. The first tab is
the File Browser, which is used to preview and import media files. The second tab is the
Library, which contains all of the effects that you can apply to objects, as well as all
template-related content. The Library Preview area allows you to preview any effect
before it is applied to an object. The third tab is the Inspector, which is used to edit and
animate the controls for those applied effects.

The Canvas is the main area in which to view your project and its elements, as well as
select, transform, and animate those elements.

Go to start

of project

Go to next frame

Go to end

of project

Go to previous frame

Play from start

Loop playback

Play/Pause

Play/Mute audio

Record