Now that we have imported our layered Photoshop^R image into our Motion^R project, we are ready to create a blinking lights animation. We will draw some colored circles that we will then animated to blink using Motion behaviors.

We already have a nice Boken effect in our background graphic but it's static. It would be nice to add a subtle animation. After testing Motion's preset Bokeh particle system, I decided that the animation was too much. So, I decided to overlay a few colored circles, matching the color of the light below. Then by adding the Glow Filter, the FadeIn/FadeOut and the Grow/Shrink behaviors, we have a nice subtle blinking animation.

1. Move the Playhead to the beginning of the Timeline and rename the Group layer to 'Lights'.
   
   
2. With the Lights layer selected, use the Circle tool to draw a circle over one of the Bokeh lights. You will get a new sub layer named Circle under the Lights layer. Rename this layer to 'Circle 1'.
   
   We want the light to blink once over 1 second on the Timeline.
   
   
3. Drag the right edge of the Circle 1 layer to the left on the Timeline until it ends at the 1 second location.
   
   By default the new circle is white. Let's change the color to match the light underneath.
   
   
4. With the Circle 1 layer still selected, go to Inspector - Shape and change the color of the circle to match the color of the light underneath.
   
   
5. To soften the edge of the circle, set the Feather parameter to 5.0.
   
   Now let's add the first behavior which is the FadeIn/FadeOut Behavior.
   
   
6. With the Circle 1 still selected, go to Library - Behaviors - Basic Motion - Fade In/Fade Out. Click on this behavior and than click the Apply button. You will see the FadeIn/FadeOut behavior added as a sub layer to the Circle 1 layer.
   
   Play the animation and you should see the circle fade in and out, as if the Bokeh light was blinking. Let's add another behavior to the Circle 1 layer. The Grow/Shrink behavior should add more realism to the animation.
   
   
7. With the Circle 1 layer selected, go to the Library - Behaviors - Basic Motion - Grow/Shrink. Click the Apply button. You should see the Grow/Shrink behavior layer added above the first behavior.
   
   

Tutorial Example:


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