PE5 - Motion

Ferris Wheel #3Blurred Motion by SeeMidTN.com via Flickr w/ Creative Commons Licensing

Last night I continued my practical experience learning within Apple's Motion Suite. I'm slowly becoming more familiar with the navigations around the different areas of Motion. As with anything that is new, the main thing is becoming more familiar with where things are located. I am guessing that is where my huge discomfort with using it was, and holding me back at the same time. Amazingly enough, many of the same features I LOVED in LiveType are embedded in Motion, it's just a matter of finding them.

One of the modules that I completed last night was creating shapes within the program. As the tutorial was playing, I was using the exercise files and creating the same bird as Ian the instructor was making in the other window. Using my iPad's Safari on lynda.com has made it easier to listen and watch the movie at the same time. Hrmm....go figure. I'm hitting auditory, visual AND kinesthetic learning all at the same time. 

After we created the bird from scratch, we then gave the bird a colored gradient fill. The ability to change direction and type of gradient is VERY similar, if not the same as, the method employed in Adobe's suites of software. I've only used the gradient tool in Flash and Photoshop, so I can only estimate that they are the same in the others. 

The next chapter I will be learning about is adding behaviors to text and images. This is where the similarities to LiveType will begin to show. And finding where all the features I liked the most will be nice too.