Motion FEATURE REQUESTS: Post them HERE

If you have any feature requests for a future version of Motion, post them in this thread.

Be VERY specific about your feature requests. And be sure the feature you are requesting does not already exist.

If you are correcting someone who has inadvertently posted a feature request that already exists or you have a better work around for that feature request, please use the QUOTE function and quote the person you are responding too.

This is not a thread about complaining about certain features in Motion. Only Motion Feature Requests will be allowed to be posted in this thread.

Thank you Michael for the opportunity to voice our favorite requests. I anticipate I will feel much better after this post

Above all, of course, 3D space. And if I can be totally frank, I think Motion deserves a 3D implementation which is up to the state of things in 2007. This is, not just cameras with depth of field simulation, 3D lights with shadows and projections (and visible or volumetric illumination if possible!), but also new material options like refraction and reflections. Since dreaming is free, I'd love to see Motion do GPU accelerated 3D deformers which bend, twist, wave and warp in true 3D space, while keeping the ability to intersect other objects in 3D space. Volumetric primitives like spheres, toruses, cubes, rings, etc. I'd also think it would be very cool if the particle engine and replicator could be updated to work in 3D (with 3D motion paths, deflectors, wind, gravity, etc.).

In many ways, I think that Kinemac could be a good reference or starting point when thinking how 3D could be in Motion (but I'd like to have more power than that).

The second really BIG feature I desperately find myself looking for in Motion is expressions/parameter linking. In other words, the ability to dinamically sample the values of one parameter and apply it to another, then perform some functions with that information (delaying it in time, simple math operations, make it relative to the current object's index or ID, wriggle the sampled value, negate it, oscillate it, use conditionals,etc.). What I'm thinking is: an expression system with a graphic interface and Motion's ease of use (but you could still go and write or edit the code if you want to).


Now, some smaller things:

* Per object Motion Blur. To make it even better, adjustable MB senstivity for each object. Let me refine the idea: maybe there could be an effect with just one parameter, expressing Motion Blur as a fraction of the project settings. So, for example, an object with 50 per cent MB intensity... gets 50 per cent of what's specified for the project. Same for 200 per cent, following the same principle.

* Kerning and Tracking text parameters updated so their range makes sense. It really isn't up to Motion's design awareness to have tracking and kerning work is such a way that the range makes an enormous jump from 0 to 1 (without properly storing the decimals).

* A VERY important thing about the particle system: the emitters need an option to iterate the particles that come from each point. As it is now, it typically "clusters" a bunch of particles on top of each other instead of cycling through available cells. This makes it very difficult to use the particle system for more ordered or polished animation (this is a bit disguised when you randomize the values, because particles are then not so frequently on top of each others).

* I would like Motion's use of bezier/ B spline paths to be more standarized and consistent. Here is what I mean: I don't like the fact that text has its' own type of path, that (AFAIK) can't be converted into a shape, mask or motion path for an object. We designers depend on repeating patterns a lot, so the ability to convert one element so it works as a pattern for another is very important. In other words, I would really like if all path types could freely be converted (or copied and pasted) to the other kinds. Maybe this is possible now: if that's the case, I only would want that to be more evident.

My 2 argentine pesos
Hope this helps,
Adolfo Rozenfeld

Adolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires - Argentina
www.adolforozenfeld.com

Here's a few small ones:

-when adding multiple objects, you can add sequentially, but you can't add overlap. Allow user-entered overlap amount
-keyboard shortcut to change keyframe interpolation (ala F9 in AE)
-a preference where user can determine default keyframe interpolation for transformation parameters (currently, position is bezier and scale is linear by default)
-ability to convert shapes to masks and visa versa
-make the text sequence behavior work like the replicator sequence behavior, with choices for to, from, through, through inverted
-better timeline navigation: fit to window, zoom in/out keyboard shortcuts

Here's a few big ones that you've all heard before:
-motion tracking
-paint engine
-3D

That's top of head for now
Mark


Bug fixes: make keyframes work correctly, gradient on text, exports don't have glitches, audio works correctly, etc, etc. - I've filed most of these

Here am I again.
One very BIG feature I forgot. The biggest update I could dream of for text in Motion is: text tools that actually let you affect the content (as an addition to just animating style, formatting or transform options).
What I'm thinking is: a way to go from one text string to another. Or to convert text into random characters (or viceversa, or go from string to random, and then to another string). Or offset the unicode values by an specified number (I hope the need for expressions is becoming more evident now). For what it's worth, most of this functionality is in Digital Anarchy's Text Anarchy set, and even some basic stuff is in the Boris text generators for FCP!

I also think it would be wonderful if simulations behaviors could have built-in options that make more sense for text as a communication weapon (besides of, or on top, of the eye candy). What I mean is, I would love it if Vortex, Orbit Around, Gravity and similar behaviors could offer a way to go from nature's chaos to order, instead of the opposite, when needed (I'm still talking about text). For some reason, we designers are more about finding (or forcing) order and meaning in chaos, than the other way around. I wish the Motion team could use all its' innovation power to find tools for these needs. I'm not talking of merely reversing the behavior playback, but more about the behaviors storing the original state of objects and having a way to animate the return to that original state.

Oh, and did I say extruded, revolved (lathe) or sweep nurbed, 3D volumetric text?

Thanks for llistening (and for the patience!)

Adolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires - Argentina
www.adolforozenfeld.com

Outstanding suggestions, Adolfo. Hear, hear.
Mark

Thank you, Mark.
It feels good, being able to ask for things that could make our creative life better. It's like being a good lobbyist.
From the most complete ignorance, however, I wonder if writing all this in late november isn't too close to the traditional date for spilling the beans? Is that the term you use in the US? I am making assumptions, since there weren't really new beans in the bean show this year !

Adolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires - Argentina
www.adolforozenfeld.com

Quote: "Motion FEATURE REQUESTS"

1. Aperture to Motion round tripping would be really nice to have access to those cool filters. Make Motion the "External Editor" for Aperture, FCP as an External Editor works halfway & Motion doesn't work at all as an External Editor for Aperture
2. Export a TIFF or PSD from Motion at resolutions of >72ppi for those of us that want to use Motion's filters for print work like movie posters, photo prints,...
3. Export to .GIF for animated .GIFs without having to use QuickTime/Photoshop, some of us still animate by tweening .gifs instead of using Flash or .mov

Thanx, Michael for starting this list!

amor y paz,
victor
[www.victorfoto.com]

Besides wanting to see cast shadows added to lights, I would like to see FXplug filters from FCP transferred to Motion. I would also like to see video scopes inside of motion. Is the workflow supposed to be FCP to Motion to Color to DVDSP? Can Color accept motn files?

"Never underestimate a kick to the nuts"
Bas Rutten

For TEMPLATES:

Please make them able to include audio files.

Once they are being used in FCP, please make their drop zones accept freeze frames, other motion files (templated shots within templates), filtered shots, color corrected shots, etc.

_________________________________________________
"[Final Cut Pro is] so pretty when [Final Cut Pro is] faithful to me."
-- Pixies

Definately second the above suggestions. To add to it, if you create a motion template with audio that you want to bring into FCP, make the audio come thru and be editable. If you drop a video into a drop zone with audio, make it editable with FCP using the pen or mixer tool.

"Never underestimate a kick to the nuts"
Bas Rutten

Fold all of Livetype missing features into Motion and kill livetype. 3D extruded text with texture and shading. Cast shadows with lights. Parenting. Shy layers. Automator friendly.

"Never underestimate a kick to the nuts"
Bas Rutten

PLEASE FIX MOTION TEMPLATING. IT IS TOTALLY F*CKED AFTER THE 3.02 UPDATE!!!

STOP SHOUTING.

What's wrong with the templates? They work for me.

"Fold all of Livetype missing features into Motion and kill livetype. 3D extruded text with texture and shading. Cast shadows with lights. Parenting. Shy layers. Automator friendly."

Parenting is *exactly* what happens when you nest an object inside a group. Maybe you want to parent objects to other objects and not just groups? You can do that with the MatchMove behavior, with the default settings.
Why just extruded text and not extrusions for all kind of vector shapes, since essentially text is made of vector outlines? If you get one, the other is around the corner

Adolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires - Argentina
www.adolforozenfeld.com

My Motion templates have all been out of synch and weirdly off center since I updated. I've gone so far as to have the rental company bring me a new machine with a new install, and I still have the same problem. My templates worked great up until the update. I've rebuilt my templates since the new update, and they are still out of synch by random numbers of frames.

The new update busted sync on templates.

_________________________________________________
"[Final Cut Pro is] so pretty when [Final Cut Pro is] faithful to me."
-- Pixies

Are these templates you created, or the templates that come with the application? I'm not seeing a problem with the templates that come with the application.

These are templates that I create. I cut shows for E!, and I use templates to drop the comedians into those little bubbles from which they comment on the video clips. I also use them to create multiwipe transitions, and other effects that Avid does easily, but which are more cumbersome in FCP.

Used in this way, templates are a powerful way to compensate for all of the things Avid does better than FCP, and to even excede Avid's abilities.

But, alas, when Apple released this last update, all of my custom templates went to hell. Bizarre things happening, like the comedian clips getting scrambled when I rendered bubbles I had previously built. When I built new bubbles, they weren't scrambled, just erratically out of sync. And, my transition templates just went bananas.

After talking this through with Mark Spencer on the Apple discussion board, I decided I should just replace the computer, so that I could start from zero. My problems persisted.

3.02 is going to cause this next show to be somewhat stripped down, effects wise. Which isn't really what E! is about.

_________________________________________________
"[Final Cut Pro is] so pretty when [Final Cut Pro is] faithful to me."
-- Pixies

Cast shadows for 3-D images. How could they have left this out?

Update the camera to make it more like the one in AE, with depth of field.

Cast shadows from lights.

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SCQT! Self-contained QuickTime ? pass it on!

Pre-Composing, just like AE. Baking is too clumsy, file management becomes unnecessarily complex, tweaking a chore.

I would like to see better instructions for none computer persons. I have read many of the tutorials which you have done and they are GREAT. Having instructions by someone like yourself who is an expert but also knows how to explain what they know to the general public would be wonderful.

CUSTOM EXTRUSION

SHADOWS

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

Thanks for the info.