This is the eighth module, entitled Creating Content For Final Cut Pro, in the Apple Motion^R video tutorial series by macProVideo. One of the main tasks that you will do in Motion is to create effects, generators, transitions and titles that can be used in Final Cut Pro. Michael Wohl does a great job explaining how to create these assets in Motion that can be published for use in Final Cut Pro^R.

Going back to the Motion Project Browser, Wohl starts this lesson by discussing the Final Cut Pro template choices. His first choice is to create an effect preset. Once the template opens into Motion, he discusses how the placeholders work and demonstrates how to set an image into the placeholder. After adding an effect to the placeholder, he demonstrates how to save the modified template for Final Cut Pro. Still working on the effect template, Wohl covers how to set the parameters for the effect and demonstrates how to publish parameters so they are editable in Final Cut Pro. He also demonstrates how to unpublish parameters.

Going back to the Project Browser, Wohl moves on to building transition templates in Motion for Final Cut Pro. He discusses how to set the beginning and ending images for the transition in the placeholders and how to apply a fade effect. After this simple example, he demonstrates how to use keyframes and the timeline to create more complex transitions containing changes in position, scale and rotation parameters, along with a fade behavior and distortion filter.

Final Cut Pro has a one second default duration for transitions. Wohl demonstrates how to override this and export specific duration settings with your transition template created in Motion. He demonstrates how to add a Drop Zone to your Motion project to work as a placeholder for a media source or timeline pin in Final Cut Pro. Wohl also discusses how to publish parameter groups with a checkbox to toggle an effect on or off in Final Cut Pro.

The next Final Cut Pro asset that Wohl discusses is creating and modifying titles. The title template has an empty text and optional background image layer. The image does not transfer to Final Cut Pro but the text will remain editable when published. He demonstrates that you can format, style and add filters and behaviors to the text in Motion which will transfer to Final Cut Pro. He also demonstrates how to add an image to the title which will be published to Final Cut Pro.

Creating a generator for Final Cut Pro is Wohl's next topic. He discusses how the generator template is basically an empty Motion project without any placeholders. In his example, he added a particle system with parameters which can be customized in Final Cut Pro. Taking it one step further, he demonstrates how to publish any Motion project as a Final Cut Pro generator template. In this example, he demonstrates how to publish a gradient to FCP.

In the next few sections, Wohl covers how rigs work in Motion and Final Cut Pro. He first demonstrates how to make a checkbox widget and add the parameter settings for the on and off states of the checkbox. When adding text to a checkbox widget, Wohl demonstrates how to use the Editable in FCP option in the Inspector in order to allow the text to be editable in Final Cut Pro.

While demonstrating how to make a pop up menu rig, Wohl shows how to use the Edit Rig Mode to quickly add multiple parameters to the widget and how to add the snapshots or states for the pop up widget. Next, he demonstrates how to set the snapshots or states for a slider widget, which is the third type of rig.

The final section of this training is how to share Final Cut Pro and Motion templates, Wohl discusses how to create a preview when you save your template and the location of the saved templates on your hard drive.

https://www.macprovideo.com/tutorials/motion-application

Disclosure: I was given free access to the video training for the purpose of this review article. The opinions are completely my own based on my experience.