Using Motion Templates in Apple Final Cut Pro, Part 2

Figure 1. Apple Motion with the Project pane and Timeline open.

Back again working with Apple Motion. When I last left you, you had just finished customizing a Motion template in Final Cut Pro. You liked the effect, but decided that you wanted to change the font and font color, activities that you can only perform in Motion. Resolved to go where you've never gone before, you took a deep breath and right-clicked the Motion template in Final Cut Pro and chose Open Copy in Editor. It's cruel to make you wait two weeks after such a courageous decision, but schedules are schedules—just ask my editor.

Anyway, after choosing Open Copy in Editor, Motion should be open and you should be staring at a very blank screen. In this installment of Final Cut Pro Insider, we'll customize this template and create a new (and very simple) opening sequence in Motion, and then use it in a Final Cut Pro project.

Let's start by opening up some windows in Motion. Press F5 to open the Project pane on the left of the Canvas, which should open in the Layers tab, and then F6 to open the Timing pane, which contains the Timeline and some other tabs we won't be working with. The Layers tab displays the hierarchy of objects in your project, while the Timeline shows the timing of their deployment. We're not going to work with the Timeline right away, but the workflow is easier to understand when all the critical windows are all open.

Figure 2. Finding the text in the Layers tab of the Project pane.

Speaking of critical windows, another important window is on the left: the Utility window. It contains the File Browser, where you'll hunt for files to include in the project; the Library, which contains Motion's content and effects presets; and the Inspector, which contains the configurable parameters for content and effects deployed in Motion.

Figure 3. Changing the font and related configuration options.

At a high level, to customize a Motion template, dig through the Layers tab until you find the object that you want to change, click to identify it, then click over to the Inspector and make the changes. To change the font and font color in the Cracked Copy.HD template, I'll start by twirling the Cracked triangle in the Layers tab to find the text. Twirl once, and you'll see four items: the Camera and three Groups.

Click the triangle in Group 3, and you'll see three items, TEXT HERE 3, and two others. We're definitely getting warm. Twirl TEXT HERE 3, and you'll get see two items: Circle 3 and Text Here 3. The item Text Here 3 is the object that we want to edit, so click that.

Then, in the Inspector tab of the Utility pane on the left, click the Text tab and then the Format tab below that. You'll see a range of typical text-related controls, such as font, family, size, and tracking. Choose the desired font and related configuration options.

Figure 4. Adjusting the text's style options.

Then, click the Text Style pane to adjust the color and add an outline, glow, or drop shadow. You know the drill: to change the color, click the color chip beneath each font characteristic to choose the color; to enable and outline, blow, or drop shadow, click the respective checkbox to enable it and then choose your parameters. Note the Style Preset list box atop the pane, which contains about 30 presets you can use if your creativity is flagging. If you're going to choose a style, however, the style's font selection will override yours once applied, so choose the style before selecting your font.

Of course, we just made the changes to the third text group; duplicate these steps to adjust the other two text strings.

Figure 5. The heads-up display (HUD) gives you quick access to many—but not all—configuration options.

Now that we know the hard way to change the font and font color, let's take a look at the easy way. With one of the text strings selected in the Project pane, click the heads-up display (HUD) icon on the top right of the Motion Toolbar. As you can see, the HUD gives you much quicker access to a range of functions that are more limited than what you get in the Inspector pane (though it would have worked just fine for what we were doing here).

As you would suspect, the HUD works for any object that you click in the Project pane, not just text. In the future, check it first to see if you can make the desired edits, and if you can't, visit the Inspector to find the additional parameters.

Figure 6. Previewing your work.

To preview your work, use the player controls beneath the Canvas to play or scroll through your project. Don't expect to see the custom text or images that you added in Final Cut Pro, since Motion is adjusting the blank template, not the template as completed in Final Cut Pro. As you'll see in a moment, however, any changes that you make to the template will flow through to the Final Cut Pro project with your text and images intact.

When you're ready to render, choose File > Save to save your project. You'll see a quick render screen appear as Motion renders your project. Then, if you return to Final Cut Pro, you'll see that the Motion template has been updated in your project with all text and images intact, as promised.

Figure 7. The updated Motion template in Final Cut Pro.

OK, that's editing a template in Motion—probably a lot simpler than you would have thought, especially if you limit your adjustments to simple characteristics such as fonts and colors. Now let's create a simple project in Motion. Motion contains a number of useful backgrounds and objects that you can easily deploy, and it offers access to LiveFonts. The workflow is to create the project in Motion, save the project, then import the project into Final Cut Pro. Again, you'll find this a lot simpler than you might have thought.

Figure 8. Let's all use the DVCPRO HD 720p30 project preset.

Start by running Motion or creating a new project. Just so we're all on the same page, choose the DVCPRO HD 720p30 project preset. We're going to be creating a 10-second introduction to a video, so the 300-frame duration is fine. Specifically, we're going to insert a fancy background and add a cool gadget and then some funky text. Don't sweat; we'll be done in no time.

Figure 9. Here's our fancy background.

Let's get our interface looking the same. Press F5 to open the Project pane, and F6 to open the Timing pane. Now let's add the background. In the Utility pane on the upper left, click the Library tab, then Content on the left, then Backgrounds on the right. Scroll down and choose Chalkboard Scratchy. Note that a preview of the background appears in the preview window at the top of the Library pane, which you can play via the play icon to the right of the preview window. To the right of that play icon is the Apply button, which you should click now to add the background to the project.

Note that Motion will insert the background at the location of the playhead, which should be at frame 1. If you've moved it, click Home to return it to the start of the project before inserting the background. Then click the play button to view the background. Pretty fancy, eh?

That's the background. Now we want to add our cool gadget, which we want to appear about 2 seconds into our 10-second intro. To accomplish this, drag the playhead in the Timeline to 60 frames. We're going to use one of the fun gadgets in the Motion library, but you could include a logo or other graphic element instead. Take a moment to grasp the epiphany: To make an object appear 2 seconds in, drag the playhead to 2 seconds in and then add the object—pretty much just like you would in Final Cut Pro, but with access to an incredible library of content, behaviors, and effects.

Now let's find the gadget. Return to the Utility pane on the upper left, click the Library tab, then Content on the left, then Gadgets on the right. Scroll down and find the Broken Clock, then click Apply as before.

Figure 10. Here's our cool gadget.

Motion inserts the Broken Clock. Note that once it's inserted, a bounding box appears around the clock, which you can use to move and resize the clock. Press the shift key to keep the resizing proportional, then make the clock smaller and drag it over to the left side of the Canvas so your project looks like Figure 10.

Figure 11. Get your text looking more or less like this.

If you preview the project via the playback controls beneath the Canvas, you'll see the background play and then the clock cut in abruptly at 60 frames. Because we're anal video people, let's add a fade transition. You'll do this above the Canvas by choosing the Add Behavior dropdown list and choosing Basic Motion > Fade In/Fade Out. Make sure the Broken Clock group is selected in the Layers pane or you could apply the fade to the chalkboard background. Preview again to see your fade, and smile and nod in approval. That's our cool gadget; now onto our funky text.

Figure 12. Adding a LiveFont effect to your text.

Let's add the text at about 4 seconds in, so drag the playhead to about 120 frames. To keep things tidy, let's add the text in a separate group, so in the Motion Menu, choose Object > New Group. Then click the Text tool (the big T) in the Motion Toolbar and Type "Time Saving Tips [carriage return] by [carriage return] Jan Ozer." Motion even allows you to use your own name, if you'd like.

We're going to have to make some adjustments to the text. In the Motion toolbar, click the HUD icon to open the heads-up display, select all the text, change the font to Impact, increase the font size to 75, change the alignment to center, and move the text over to the right. Don't spend a lot of time on this because we'll be changing fonts in a second.

Figure 13. Here's where you adjust your LiveFont timing and other effects.

Now we're going to add a Livefont effect to the text. In the Utility pane, return to the Library, click LiveFonts on the left and Pro Series on the right, then scroll down until you see Flip Count on the bottom. Then drag the Flip Count effect onto the Text layer in the new group you created a moment ago.

Motion adds that effect to the text. With the HUD, you can further customize the text, perhaps by increasing the size and reducing the line spacing. If you want to mess with the timing of the effect, click the text in the Layers tab of the Project pane, then click over to the Text tab of the Inspector tab of the Utility Pane. Scroll down and you'll see LiveFont Timing on the bottom of that pane. OK, we're done.

Now save the Motion file in a location that you can easily find and then run Final Cut Pro. Open a sequence with the same settings as the Motion project—in this case, DVCPRO HD 720p30. Then import your Motion project and drag it into the sequence. You might have to render the sequence for full-frame playback, but there's your Motion project in all its glory.

Figure 14. Here's our title in Final Cut Pro.

You can play a video of the short introduction that I created by clicking here. Granted, it's a silly little project, but hopefully it introduced you to the content and effects that Motion supplies—and the simple workflow that allows you to use them in Final Cut Pro.

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