A free tutorial from me that explains why and how to use Motion rather than Final Cut Pro to create a pan and scan effect on your photos. You can watch it by just clicking the picture above, but for a larger version, click HERE.

From out of the blue comes this very sweet collection of Motion templates - which can be used in Motion or Final Cut Pro. Check them out.

Ok, I have a backlog of tutorials to share with you today, so let's get right to it.


Up first is a fantastic tutorial from Peter Wiggins showing how you can using retiming behaviors to slow down, freeze, speed up, or loop a particle emitter animation. Really cool stuff - see it here.


Brian Maffitt, who has been teaching After Effects for centuries (ok, since last century ) has put out a tutorial on how to use Motion with some Artbeats footage to create a nice little effect. I learned After Effects from his tapes back at version 4.1 (along with Chris and Trish Meyers' excellent books), and he's a great teacher. Here, he covers some basics of using Motion, including masks, blend modes, filters, and keyframing.


Zak Peric has a new tutorial on how to create a cool little animation with Motion.


James Weber brings us a very nice tutorial on how to create a customized write-on effect.


Noise Industries release an update to Fx Factory. If you haven't played with this collection of plugins that work in Motion, check them out.


Final Effects Complete from Boris FX is built on the FxPlug architecture and works in Motion - check out what's new.

I talk with Alex about how to use the F key when working in Motion's 3D space. Available here.

Ben Scott from London brings us this video tutorial on creating a TV screen look with Motion.

Loic Griffie from France brings us this tutorial on how to use the Replicator to create a very cool shatter effect. You can see the tutorial in English, but all the interface elements are in French - still, if you don't speak (or read) French, you can figure it out. You do have to register to see the tutorial, but it's quite nice.

A nice, short, free tutorial on how to produce a wormhole effect. A good example of how to combine filters, generators, and masks to create an effect.

Almost as omni-present as the reflection effect are those growing vines you see everywhere. Here's a tutorial on one way to make them in Motion.

Over on digitalmedianet, Dave Basulto has a short video tutorial that explains how to apply behaviors, then convert them to keyframes in order to get more control over your animation.

At the VASST training site, 6 different DVDs to choose from, hosted by either Richard Harrington or Mason Dixon.

I've been using dvMatte Blast in Motion for awhile, This release brings all the functionality of the Final Cut Pro plugin to Motion and is powered by the GPU so you can key in real time. Here is a short review.

And Conduit is a really great nodal compositor, like having a mini-Shake right inside Motion.

David Basulto at Digitalmedianet gives us a quick overview on how to improve Motion's playback performance by "baking" part of a project.

I've seen so many questions from folks who use Motion to make text animation for Final Cut Pro and find that the quality seems to degrade that I've written this short article to explain what is going on and what you can do about it.

The folks at Motionvfx have a slew of new HD Motion templates, many in 3D - $10 a pop, not bad. Check them out.

Zak Peric in London has started a new series of Motion tutorials - the first three are up, and they explain how to make flourishes in Illustrator, then animate them in Motion.

Did you know you could use all those cool Motion templates directly inside Final Cut Pro - without every even launching Motion? Tom Wolsky shows you how.

Yes, this is a shameless promotion of my own product - but I am very proud of it. A follow up to my Motion 3 Fast Forward tutorial, Deep Dive is an intermediate to advanced training focussed on Motion's 3D capabilities. Lots more info and plenty of free movie excerpts on Ripple Training's site.

A useful knowledge base article from Apple on how to keep glyphs from "flipping over" when placing text on a path.

A nice tutorial from The Digital Media Dude on how to create and and use a Motion templates inside Final Cut Pro.

What's that "Adjust Around" thing in the HUD all about? Learn how to more easily move layers around in 3D space with this free short tutorial.