A list of all the Blog Posts in this category.

Create Your Own LUTS

LUTS are a tool that Filmmakers use to enhance a video to a particular grade. In movies, some scenes have to look a certain way to produce the desired effect - think horror movies by the lake.

LUTS are great when your camera didn't really focus on the right colors and you end up with a pale shot.

Wouldn't it be great if there was a tool that could spice up a video clip and you can save it as a LUTS and use Apple Motion to create an effect?

You can. Camera Bag Pro makes it happen.

You Can Create LUTs from Affinity Photo but Camera Bag Pro is the only App that I know of that accepts videos to touch up and export the LUTS.

Camera Bag Pro

CameraBag Pro lets you instantly apply one of hundreds of beautiful presets to your photos, and then dive deeper with ultra-intuitive professional adjustments.

You use the application to create a custom LUT from your final design.

Sample of some of the Presets in Camera Bag Pro.

Creating a LUT from a Touch Up

Once you touch up a scene in Camera Bag Pro you can save the touch up as a LUTs. Now you can apply this same touch-up to other videos clips.

Once you satisfied with the touch-up, go to the File menu and select "Export Filter LUT..."

Creating your Own Color Preset using Apple Motion

Here are the steps to make your LUT as a Color Preset in Final Cut Pro - using Apple Motion:

1. Create a new Final Cut Effect (You can keep the default settings
2. Select the Effect Source
3. In the top menu bar, select Filters, then Color and find Custom LUT
4. With the Custom LUT selected in the Layers pallet, click on Inspector and then go to Filters.
5. Use the pull down menu to the right of LUT to "Choose Custom LUT" and select the file that was generated in the Camera Bag Pro app.
6. Save the Final Cut Pro Effect and Publish it to Final Cut Pro. ( You may want to create a new category so its easy to find in the Effects menu.)

Where to Find the Custom LUT Filter

Usability

Creating LUTS is a great way to help clean up shots that are done multiple times at the same location.

Text Styles

Apple Motion comes with 45 unique font styles. These make it easy to create text styles without having to know complicated setups.

The text styles come in two categories - 2D Styles and 3D Styles.

The nice thing is that after you defined the style you can change everything - from font face to color - even use the material background to customize the style for your needs.

2D Styles

Antique, Block, Bold, Condensed, Deep Glow, Dream, Duotone, Fantasy, Fashion, Faux 3D, Gold, Grunge, Heavy, Ice, Minimal, Neon, Offset, Outline, Paper, Platinum, Pop, Reflection, Retro Neue, Ultra Light, Vintage

3D Styles

Basic 3D, Basic 3D Serif, Blue Plastic, Car Paint, Carved Wood, Chiseled, Chrome, Flat Graphic, Forged, Glossy Green, Golden, Metropolitan, Minimal 3D, Monolith, Old Steel, Old Wood, Outline 3D, Painted, Rough Stone, Transparent

Finding the Text Styles

After you add a text, click on the HUD and you'll see the text configuations.

HUD Dialog Box is where you set the text style.

Basic Title

This week I am sharing a couple of title texts that I use in a few of my Motion projects. These are simple text projects that feature some animation using Apple Motion.

Download Motion Work

These are Motion files. You need Apple Motion in order to view the design - you can easily move them to Final Cut Pro.

Thoughts On This Collection

These three files may seem basic for the average Apple Motion user - but I think that they work because of their simplicity.

You can always add your own style of behavior. I use the basic face to keep things simple.

I am working/learning on how to have a gaussian blur background on these images - may be in a future update.

The collection titled Pantone 2022 Color is using two of the top colors of 2022. (I am not sure who gets to decide what colors are the official colors of 2022.)

Enjoy. Leave feedback if you want to see more of these "back to basic" series.

Basic Title Templates

This week, I have a couple of text designs that I created in Apple Motion. While these are "pretty basic" they are templates that I use all the time and they work very well.

Lower Third Text

Extended Lower Third text that will keep the background if you have a lot of text.

This is similar to the "caption" box from last week, the big difference is that this is made for a lot of text. You don't have to worry about text wrap and background with this design.

When you have a long dialog, use this text Title.

Basic Center Text

Nice Center Text box. Perfect for Info text or something that is better written than said.

This is useful when you have a simple background and need to tell a story. This is designed to handle a lot of text.

Just remember to make sure to keep the text and story simple. You don't need all the details, just enough so people can understand what happens next.

This is also useful when you're transitioning a location.

Download the Title Templates

Download the Apple Motion Template.

Updated Caption Text Template

Back in January I released a collection of Captions text. Someone mentioned that there is a white box around the text in the center.

I decided to fix up the text and update the caption so that you only need one title template. You select the color in the text field. One-color option for the face and another option for the background.

Updated Title Template

Download Title Template

Feel free to download the template that I created.

Spin Planet Earth

There are a lot of 3D Objects, 80 to be exact, and each one of them can be rotated. The most popular element to be rotated is Earth.

Apple created this with the intent to have it rotated.

Here are the very basic steps to get the Earth rotated.

Rotate Planet Earth

• Create a new project.
• Add the Earth ED Object (Select the Library tab, then select "3D Objects." then select Education and you'll see Earth.) Drag and drop the Earth to the layers section.
• Click "Behaviors" then "Basic Motion" and select Basic Motion and you'll see Spin. Drag and drop Spin to the Earth in the Layers pallet. (Spin should appear immediately below the Earth icon.)
• Click on the Earth Layer in the Layer pallet.
• Click on Inspector
• Click on Behaviors
• Set up the following:
• Increment (Continuous Rate)
• Spin Rate (85.0)
• Axis Y

Now click on the space bar and watch the world spin - East to West. Change the axis to 'X' and watch the world spin from the two poles.

Bonus: You can add an additional spin action and set it to spin on the 'Y-axis. This way you have the world spinning both ways.

Playground Time

Learn more about other "Basic Motions" and add other actions to the globe. For example, try the Move or "Grow and Shrink" action.

Apple Motion Gradients

Apple Motion includes some predefined color gradients to help make production a bit easier. You can use these gradients in shapes and text.

I wasn't able to find any document that would show what each of the gradients looked like. Users have to select each one to view the style. I decided to create a handy chart of all the gradients available.

Simply click on the image below to display the handy chart - now there's no second-guessing what gradient to use.

Click on image for single page preview of the Gradients in Apple Motion

34 Motion Gradients

Here are all the names of the gradients:

• Atlantic Blue
• Beach Front
• Bilbao
• Blue Chrome
• Blue Sky
• Burnt Ember
• Candy Corn
• Charcoal
• Chrome
• Dawn
• Dawn Orange
• Dawn Purple
• Desert Dusk
• Desert Sun
• Dusk
• Film Noir
• Grayscale
• Icy Blue
• Industrial Sky
• Lakebed
• Light Metal
• Mirage
• Murano
• Oak
• Ocean Haze
• Pond
• Radioactive
• Rainbow
• Rugby
• Sea Mist
• Smokey Mountains
• Sundown
• Thundercloud
• Walnut

Video Sample

Style Text in Apple Motion

Here's a sample of all the available text styles in Apple Motion:

Text Style Names

Antique, Basic 3D, Basic 3D Serif, Block, Blue Plastic, Bold, Car Paint, Carved Wood, Chiseled, Chrome, Commemoratively, Condensed, Deep Glow, Bream, Duotone, Fantasy, Fashion, Faux 3D, Flat Graphic, Forged, Glossy Green, Gold, Golden, Grunge, Heavy, Ice, Metropolitan, Minimal, Minimal 3D, Monolith, Neon, Offset, Old Steel, Old Wood, Outline, Outline 3D, Painted, Paper, Platinum, Pop, Reflection, Retro Neue, Rough Stone, Transparent, Ultra Light, Vintage, Wow.

Note: This list is from Apple Motion 5.6

Apply Style

To apply the style simply drag and drop the style to the text. Use the Inspector on that text to make any changes.

Generators

Apple Motion comes with 32 generators that add various effects to your video project. Each of the generators can be customized to fit your needs.

To use them, simply drag the generator that you want to use to the layer pallet and use the Inspector to customize the effect.

List of All the Generators

• Caustics - Creates animated water ripple and reflection patterns.
• Cellular - Creates an organic pattern of moving cells,with control over the color, size and speed.
• Checkerboard - Creates a checkerboard, with control over the size, colors and shapes
• Clouds - Creates an animated cloud formation, with control over the color, size, and speed.
• Color Solid - Creates an object with a solid color fill.
• Concentric Polka Dots - Draws concentric circles of polka dots and other shapes.
• Concentric Shapes - Draws concentric circles of alternating colors.
• File - Creates a text object using text from a file, displaying one line at a time.
• Gradient - Creates a multi-color gradient.
• Grid - Creates a grid pattern of horizontal and vertical lines.
• Japanese Pattern - Draws a variety of Japaneses-inspired graphical patterns.
• Lens Flare - Creates a lens flare.
• Manga Lines - Draws lines in a cartoon style.
• Membrane - Creates an animated pattern of curved lines, with control over the speed and color.
• Noise - Creates a random-colored noise pattern.
• Numbers - Creates a text object displaying sequential or random numbers.
• One Color Ray - Create a pattern of rays that emanate from a point, using variations of a single color.
• Op Art 1 - Create a pattern of wavy vertical lines.
• Op Art 2 - Create a pattern of dots with control over size, spacing and background.
• Op Art 3 - Creates a pattern of wavy lines that can be distorted and skewed.
• Overlapping Circles - Creates a pattern of interlocking circles.
• Radial Bars - Generates solid bars radiating from a central point.
• Soft Gradient - Creates a soft circular gradient from a single color to transparent.
• Spiral Drawing - Creates curving line drawings like a child's toy.
• Spirals - Draws a spiral pattern.
• Star - Creates a 4-point star-shaped object, with glow around the center.
• Stripes - Creates alternating vertical stripes, with control over the size and colors.
• Sunburst - Generates graphic sun, star, and badge patterns.
• Time Date - Creates a text object displaying a time and/or date.
• Timecode - Creates a text object displaying timecode or frame number
• Truchet Tiles - Draws a series of titles in random orientation.
• Two Color Ray - Creates a pattern of rays that emanate from a center point, using two alternating colors.

Try This: Create a Blue Cloud Generator

The cloud generator is a good way to add a cloud background to your project. Try this simple exercise:

Create a new Final Cut Title and add a blue sky background:

• Create a new document (Command - N) and select the "Final Cut Title" in the Project Browser. Keep all the default settings and click the Open button.
• Select the Generators category in the Library Panel
• Click on Clouds and drag it to the Layers Panel
• Click on Inspector
• The Generator tab should be selected.
• Click on the arrow next to the Gradient and the Gradient area should expand,
• Double Click on the Block box and in the color pop up window select the Pencils group
• Select Aqua. You should see the viewer have more of a cloud look. Close the color dialog box.
• Play the video and see how the effect looks.

Behavior Listings

Each week, I try to learn more about Apple Motion capabilities. This week, I am sharing some of the Behavior Parameters. There are 232 behaviors broken down into 12 categories.

The 12 major behavior categories:

• Audio
• Basic Motion
• Camera
• Motion Tracking
• Parameter
• Particles
• Replicator
• Retiming
• Shape
• Simulations
• Text Animation
• Text Sequence

Highlight Two Categories

In the Basic Motion Behaviors these are the 9 included behaviors:

• Align To - Align object to another.
• Fade In/Fade Out - Dissolves an object in and out.
• Grow/Shrink - Scales an object larger or smaller, continuously or to a specific value.
• Motion Path - Moves an object along a motion path created with Bezier control points.
• Move - Moves an object to or from a specific position in 3D
• Point At - Rotates an object to point at another object
• Snap Alignment to Motion - Aligns the rotation of an object to match the direction it's moving.
• Spin - Rotates an object around its anchor point, continuously or to a specific value.
• Throw - Applies a single force to push an object in a specified direction.

In the Parameters Behaviors these are the 20 included behaviors:

• Audio - Animates a parameter based on an audio track.
• Average - Smooths a parameter's animated transition from one value to another.
• Channel - (This is a mystery one!)
• Clamp - Restricts a parameter's values from going beyond a minimum or maximum.
• Custom - Create your own behavior. Add parameters and apply behaviors or keyframes
• Exponential - Change a parameter from one specific value to another over time, using an exponential equation.
• Link - Link one parameter to another.
• Logarithmic - Changes a parameter from one specific value to another over time, using a logarithmic equation.
• MIDI - Controls a parametere using a MIDI-compatible input device.
• Negate - Inverts the values of a parameter.
• Oscillate - Cycles a parameter between two different values.
• Overshoot - Changes a parameter from one specific value to another over time, overshooting past the end value before springing back.
• Quantize - Restricts a parameter's values to discrete steps instead of continuous values.
• Ramp - Changes a parametere from one specific value to another value over time.
• Randomize - Randomly animates a parameter over time.
• Rate - Steady increases or decreases a parametere's value over time.
• Reverse - Reverse the direction of a parameter's animation.
• Stop - Suspends the animation of a parameter.
• Track - Tracks a paremeter to the movement of another object.
• Wriggle - Randomly animates a parameter over time, at a slow frequency.

MyStery Channel Parameter Behavior

When I was checking the available behaviors in the Parameter category, I copy and paste the contents in BBEdit. When I did that, a mystery parameter showed up. That's the Channel Parameter.

The Channel parameter doesn't exist in the Parameter or in the Behaviors - at least nothing showed when I did a global search.