Motion 4 Tutorial: Adding Blur to Text in Motion 4

Motion 4 Tutorial: Adding Blur to Text in Motion 4
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The Motion of the Ocean

Apple’s Motion 4 is a professional motion graphics software, but much of what it is known for is having the ability to apply professional titles and text to editing projects in Final Cut Pro 7. Motion 4 includes all the proper tools that you will need to create professional text blocks, ranging from movement that takes the text from one position to another and different effects that you can apply to the text. This is all done in an effort to take what is just a series of boring, amateurish text pieces into something that thematically reflects your overall film or video project. Here is a quick tutorial on how to add the blur effect to your text in Motion 4.

Getting the Text Ready

Start out by actually setting up your text block and creating the proper position for that. Use the HUD to put the right text size, font, and other text specifics before you actually do any alterations. You can apply behaviors to the text at this time, but if the behaviors are going to interfere with your text blur then you may want to wait until after the application of the blur effect. Behaviors and effects have an integral relationship and one does have the ability to affect the appearance of the other, so make the decision as to how you want the final product to appear so you can choose the proper order of application.

Adding the Blur

Go directly above and choose Add Filter, which is right in between Add Behavior and Make Particle. Here will give you a pull down list of

motionblurr 1

different Motion 4 effects that you can apply. The very first option, right above Border, is going to be Blur. When you select this you will be given a host of different blur options that you can choose to apply to your text. Each of these blur options will affect the text differently, ranging from blooming it out to creating a more dense blur in the text.

In the HUD you will be able to alter the blur effect that was applied to the text, which will come in handy for customizing the look you want. It is here in the HUD that you can also lower the overall intensity, which is going to be important if you want to actually end up seeing the text. Since the text itself must maintain the ability to be read, ideally even from people positioned seven to ten feet from the viewing screen, you will want to make sure that the overall intensity of the blur is not overpowering.

For a more specific blur you can add several different types of blur effects, and you should go through and alter and minimize each one individually. Now your text should have a consistent blur throughout its life in the Timing, but you can go through and change how this appears or changes. The base blur effect is a singular base, but you can go ahead and then alter the general “behavior” of the text and this may change the appearance of the blur as was mentioned earlier.

When you export the Motion 4 video you will then have a text block with blur effects, which will also appear differently if there are other graphical items besides the simple text.

This post is part of the series: Motion 4 Tutorials

Here are some different tutorials that address specific aspects of Apple’s Motion 4.

  1. Adding Blur to Text in Motion 4
  2. Burning a Motion 4 Project to DVD