Apple on Tuesday released Motion, its long-awaited real-time motion graphics design software application aimed at video professionals and others. The software integrates with Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro, and costs US$299. Motion made its debut at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) show this past April.
Motion uses “Behaviors” — procedural animation techniques that simulate gravity or wind, attraction and repulsion between multiple objects and other activities. This enables Motion users to generate sophisticated motion effects without having to deal with keyframes. A keyframe editor makes it possible for users to plot values at specific frames, however. Also included is a particle engine that lets users turn any graphic element on the screen into a particle and then modified to create customized special effects.
Also included is Compressor, Apple’s compression and encoding software that enables users to encode QuickTime files to MPEG-2 for DVD authoring and MPEG-4 for Web streaming. Integrated into Motion is PrimatteRT, a chroma matting product — it creates transparency mattes that enable you to put extracted foregrounds onto a different background.
System requirements for Motion call for a G4/867MHz or faster, 512MB RAM, Mac OS X v10.3.5 or later, QuickTime 6.5.1 or later, 10GB available hard disk space, DVD drive for installation and 1024 x 768 pixel display. Motion also has specific graphic card requirements — visit Motion’s technical specifications Web page for details.
Motion is also bundled in Apple’s recently announced Production Suite, combined with Final Cut Pro HD and DVD Studio Pro 3, for US$1,299.