So you want to learn Apple Motion, because you own a Mac, you have bought the bundled Final Cut Pro with Apple Motion, you want to create templates for FCP or you want to learn motion graphics. In that case, you will learn Apple Motion within a few minutes.

1. Apple Motion Project

Once you open Apple Motion you will be presented with the following window

You can change your project resolution, frame rate and duration on the left window. After that select “Open”.

2. Project Panel

Once you open Apple Motion, you will be presented with the interface above. I have outlined the following panels for you to remember easily.

• Import Files (White Outline)
• Layers, Media, Audio Tab (Red Outline)
• Library/Inspector Tab (Blue Outline)
• Canvas Panel (Green Outline)
• Timeline Panel (Pink Outline)
• Keyframe Editor (Violet Outline) 
• Basic Tools (Aquamarin Outline)

To import your files, you can select the import button or you can just drag & drop your assets straight into the canvas. After importing your assets, it will appear in the layers tab. You will notice that all the layers already appear on the timeline. If your asset is shorter than the timeline (mostly videos are shorter than the timeline), there will be a gap that you will notice. All video and photos will be visible within the Media Tab, while an Audio file will appear on the Audio Tab.

*Tip: To organize your files, you need to create a group that will contain all the files you will use in your project.

To preview the timeline press “Space Bar” on your keyboard.

3. Animation & Keyframes

Let’s now create a simple animation in Apple Motion. We need an element on our canvas first before we can do any animation. First let’s create a simple shape on our canvas, you can also import your own logo.

To create a simple shape, you can either use the Shapes available in the Library Panel or create a basic rectangle using the basic tools. Your shape or logo will now be available on the layers tab. The next step is to select your layer > Inspector > Properties.

To add a keyframe, you need to click the diamond beside the property you want to animate. For this example, I will make a position keyframe for our rectangle.

Once you made your first keyframe, go to 1 Sec (you can select anywhere on your timeline) on your timeline to create the other keyframe. On the second point, change the X position of your layer however you like. You can either click and drag the numbers or input your own values.

A. First point

B. Second Point

After doing the steps above, there will be two dots on your timeline which shows that your layer has a keyframe.

The concept of keyframes is easy to understand. The first keyframe is the initial or starting value while the next keyframe is the next value. A layer can have multiple keyframes within a single property. Keyframes that are near to each other will show a fast animation, while keyframes that are far from each other will show a slow animation.

Keyframes can have different types of easing, which means it changes the rate of speed of a parameter. To learn more about the different types of easing, you can refer to this website: https://easings.net/

Now that we have set our keyframes, it is time to change the linear animation to a better one. First we need to open our keyframe editor, to do this, click the highlighted icon on our Apple Motion timeline.

After that, you will have a similar window. You will notice that the curve might be different from yours. Currently, the curve on my layer is showing a simple ease in ease out (bezier) . 

Yours might look like the curve below, which is a linear type of interpolation. A linear type of interpolation is the most basic type of interpolation.

To change your linear interpolation you need to do the following:

You can select from different interpolations, but for now select the “Ease Both”. The “Ease Both” will smoothen the animation of your layer. Here is a comparison between linear and ease animation.

Play around with the interpolations in your layers and be comfortable using the keyframe editor.

4. Keyboard Shortcuts

Keyboard Shortcuts are very useful especially when you create templates for FCP. Other than that, it also increases the speed of your workflow. Some of the keyboard shortcuts I use are the following:

• CMD+SHIFT+N = New Group
• CMD+SHIFT+G = New Group (Grouping of elements)
• CMD+SHIFT+D = New Drop Zone
• CMD+D = Duplicate
• K = Clone
• T = Text
• C = Circle
• R = Rectangle
• B = Bezier Tool
• OPT+C = Circle Mask
• OPT+R = Rectangle Mask
• CMD+SHIFT+M = Image Mask
• SHIFT+Z = Fit Window 
• SHIFT+RIGHT ARROW/LEFT ARROW = Move 10 Frames Forward/Backward
• OPT+[ = Move layer to header position
• CMD+[ = Put Layer below
• CMD+] = Put Layer Above

Try to memorize these keyboard shortcuts and apply them to your workflow.

5. Text

All motion graphics need some text, we use text all the time, text provides a lot of information for our viewers. To create a text, we can either press T on our keyboard or select the text icon on the toolbar. 

* If you press the T twice on your keyboard it will create a 3D text for your project.

Once you have selected the T icon, click anywhere on your composition and start writing any text you like. Select your text and go to the inspector tab and go to the properties inspector and reset the position so that the text is in the center of the project. 

* To reset any parameter, click the drop down icon and select reset parameter.

You might wonder why your text is not center aligned on your canvas. That is because of the text alignment of your text. To adjust this, go to your text tab and set the alignment to center. Always adjust your alignment because it is important especially when you start animating your text.

We now have a text on our composition and the next thing we need to do is animate it. Let’s first try to do a simple fade in/fade out animation. To do this, go to behaviors > basic motion > fade in/fade out.

We now have a simple fade in/fade out animation for our text. One thing that you will notice is that the fade in/fade out is the same length of your layer. It is important to remember that any behavior you apply on your layer will always have the same length.

Let’s animate the position of our text. To do this, select your text layer, behaviors > text-basic > slide in.

After selecting the Slide In Preset, you will notice that on your timeline, the Slide In Preset is under your text layer and it shows the duration of the preset. The duration of the preset is 1 sec 10 frames, if you want to shorten or lengthen the preset, you can do that by pressing “O” on your keyboard. Take note that the position of your timeline header determines the length of the behavior.

Another thing that you will see is that the behavior tab of your text now shows the Slide In preset. The Slide In Behavior consists of a position and an opacity parameter. You can play around the settings here and try to familiarize the controls.

6. Effects / Filters

There are a lot of effects presets available for us to use in Motion. There are two ways to select filters in Motion. First is using the library panel and second is using the filters button on the top area of our composition.

As a beginner, it is better to use the library panel to select the filter you want. In the library panel, you can preview the effect you want to use compared to the filter button on top of our composition. The effects are separated by style such as blur effects up to Video effects. 

In this example let’s use the Tiny Planet Filter for our text. To do this select your layer or text > Distortion > Tiny Planet

The Tiny Planet Filter’s length correlates to the length of the layer it is applied to. To lengthen or shorten the filter, you can press “O” on your keyboard. Let’s adjust the parameters of Tiny Planet Filter. Go to Inspector > Filters. In here you can see the different parameters that you can adjust to your liking, don’t forget that you can animate the parameters.

That’s how to apply, adjust and edit the filter in Apple Motion. Play around with the different filters available in Motion. 

7. Clones

Clones in Motion is somewhat precompose to After Effects. A clone consists of different elements, it can be a group, a text, a shape, etc. Any changes you make to the source of the clone will show up to the clone. To clone a layer, press “K” on your keyboard, but before that, always put the timeline header to the start of the layer. There are instances where you clone a layer but animation of the layer gets cut off.

A Clone has its own separate properties similar to the source. We can adjust the position, scale, rotation, and opacity of the without affecting the main source. We can also apply a set of effects and filter a group. 

The example above shows a clone of Group 1 with a filter applied to it. The clone layer does not affect the source layer. 

In here you can see that I have changed the position, rotation and scale of the clone layer. 

8. Exporting

To export your animation, go to share (top right corner) and select export movie.

You will be presented this window which contains information about your file. The Info part shows the basic details such as name of the project, description and creator.

The Settings tab shows the different settings you can change such as video codec, resolution, etc. 

Lastly the render tab, you can change the render quality of the file, turning on/off the motion blur and also some 3D settings.

As for beginners, there is no need to change anything here. Let’s go back to the Info tab and select Next. Motion will ask you where you want to save your file, in this case, you can save it anywhere.

I hope you enjoy this simple way of getting started with Apple Motion lessons. Start animating and exploring. I’ll see you guys again next time!