Is venting allowed? I'll try

I am a FCP editor trying to learn Motion.
I know I should read books before, but I thought "Hey, what the hell, an Apple application part of the Studio package means that it supports FCP and must share common key commands, behaviors, etc...
Well, it doesn't and it is extremely frustrating.
Why would Apple do such a thing?
I - O - J -K -L and other basic key commands don't even work!
Keyframe editing is a nightmare. I am still trying to figure out how to add a keyframe... ?K isn't doing much...

Thanks for listening...
ANd get rid of my posting if it's annoying people...

Xavier

Hi Xavpil --

Motion is completely different than FCP in lay out--
and operation

I have not read much of the manual myself --

But -
On--- Lynda.com ----- Larry Jordan has a Motion class ---Online ---

He is one of the Best teachers for Apple apps there is -

Lynda.com cost $25 per month Unlimited use --Very Cool --

I would have Never figured out Motion on my own--

Also you need Many gigs of Ram-- at least 4 to be Happy --
the more Ram the better -

--Jay--

Good, I/m not the only one thinking it doesn't make too much sense!
I know the tutorials you've mentioned, but I am not a fan of Larry Jordan... For some reasons he bugs me... But I guess I don't have much of a choice because it is a great deal...

Larry's a good guy in my book - for another option, I did a tutorial that takes you through a complete project - designed for After Effects users, but great for just about anyone:

[www.rippletraining.com]

Larry is a Great teacher --He has been teaching Apple for Ever -- and he know the
questions his students are just getting ready to ask- and pops out the answer
before you get a chance to ask --Jay--

Quote
Xavier
Keyframe editing is a nightmare. I am still trying to figure out how to add a keyframe... ?K isn't doing much...

I understand your pain, but to get the most out of Motion requires you breaking from the keyframe paradigm that we've all gotten so used to in programs like FCP, AE, and others. Once you do, you'll be much happier with your Motion experience.

Just my .02

Andy

I disagree that you'll be happier with Motion than a more controllable app like After Effects. The Motion interface is clunky and not intuitive for massive compositing. I do admit that Motion handles some things better than AE...like particles. Love the emitters. I use Motion to create short animations w/alphas that I bring into AE for compositing. Using Motion for large scale projects is like building a car with plastic tools.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

I wasn't saying that he'd be happier with Motion over AE. I said he'd be happier with his experience with Motion. Anyone would bound to be frustrated trying to work Motion as if it were AE. I was merely pointing out that it's a paradigm shift.

As far as your assertion that Motion is clunky and non-intuitive for massive compositing...well it's impossible to refute since I have no idea what your idea of massive compositing is. It's been my experience that people who refer to Motion as clunky are usually trying to use Motion like they use AE. In Motion, you're better off not even opening the timeline view.

I CAN say that once I stopped trying to hammer Motion's square peg into the round hole of AE, I realized just how simple, AND easy Motion is to use. So much so, that I haven't done any serious compositing in After Effects for over a year.

Granted, I didn't do the FX for the new Star Trek, but I've done my share of effects work and graphic's design for various projects. What used to take hours in Motion vs minutes in AE is now the reverse.

And if you want to talk non-intuitive...Motion=behaviors, After Effect=expressions. You can't get much more non-intuitive.

In fact, the thing that I always envied about AE over Motion (keyframing) becomes less and less relevant each day because I need fewer keyframes to accomplish my tasks.

Andy