flipping disks

Hi-

I am really new to Motion. I just upgraded to Motion 2. I have a project that requires a series of circles, or disks, to do a flip from the front side to the back - different images on both sides. I am duplicating the website Flash movement, www.landmarkoncentral.com.

I most likely will be exporting to FCP to finish up the spot.

Any guidance would be appreciated.

Thank you

jenelle,

You don't have to export to FCP, you can launch Motion from inside FCP by using the "Send To "Motion" Project" command and the layer is treated like any other ftg in the FCP timeline.

OR

You can build it in Motion, import the project & cut it into the timeline, work on it some more in Motion, save, and it automatically updates in the FCP timeline.

- Joey



When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

thank you - is it easy to figure out how to animate the flipping movement with another image on the back side? I haven't gotten that deep into Motion....

Jenelle: While doing some tests to see if I could help you, I found that it's easier to do if the sides of the disc are still images and you have access to Photoshop. There are some specific difficulties when you apply the filter I'm going to mention below to images with masks (that you would need to make the sides "circular".

So, ideally, what you need is to first create circular images from stills in Photoshop and import them in Motion. Make sure both sides are the same size and positioned in the same area.
Apply the Basic 3D filter (Distort category, Motion 2 only!) to the "front side" image. Then Drag your "back side" image to the the Back Side (!) box of the Basic 3D filter (looks like they made this filter just for you, doesn't it?) Then you animate X or Y rotation 180 degrees depending on how you want your disc to "flip" (horizontally or vertically).


If you need to do it with video images or don't have access to Photoshop:
Import the two images in Motion, and scale/align them till they use the same area in the screen.
Draw a circular shape (not a mask, but a shape) of the aproximate size you want the disc.
Select one of the images and apply the "Add image mask" command (Object > Add Image Mask). Drag the circle to the image well on the image mask properties. Now you need to copy that Image Mask to the other image (option drag the Image mask in the Layers Palette).
Now, you can apply Basic 3D to one of the images and use the other one as the back side.
Hope this helps.



Adolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires - Argentina
www.adolforozenfeld.com

thank you for taking the time to help with this - I really appreciate it!

I will give it a whirl, or flip.....

I am not at my Motion machine right now, just thought I'd mention how I'd have done this in After Effects many years ago. Faking a flip is fairly simple if all you need to do is make it go from side A to side B.
Composition 1 (a layer in Motion) consists of two movies (or stills). The upper track alternates on-off using keyframes to control opacity. A single frame is used to go from 100 to 0%. This allows the bottom track to show. When played, the tracks alternate.
This composition is nested into a second composition that receives a circular mask.
This composition is nested into a third that has a simple y-axis scale operation applied to it. It ramps from 100-0-100-0-100%. The 0% point is synced with the transition between the alternating tracks. As it ramps back to 100%, the other side is visible. The illusion is a flipping disk.
To sell it, it really needs a glint and, of course, a bit of thickness.

I think this can be achieved in Motion with an Image Mask but I don't have much practice at nesting layers in Motion instead of precomposing in AE.

Please let us know how you made out, Jenelle.

bogiesan