The inspector – Apple Motion 2 User Manual

Page 98

Advertising
background image

98

Chapter 1

Getting To Know Motion

The Inspector

Every effect in Motion, from behaviors to particle systems to gradients, is controlled by
a collection of parameters that modify the various attributes for that effect. For
example, a Blur filter has an amount slider that controls how much blur is applied.

Some parameters are controlled with sliders, some with dials or pop-up menus. In fact,
there are thousands of parameters using 11 types of controls. All of them are accessed
in the Inspector.

Even objects without applied effects have many parameters that you can modify to
alter the nature of the object and how it appears in your project. These include the
object’s scale, opacity, and position onscreen, as well as more obscure attributes such
as its pixel aspect ratio or field order.

The Inspector contains four tabs, each of which contains a set of parameters for the
selected object. The first three tabs, Properties, Behaviors, and Filters, are present for
any selected object. The fourth tab, generically called the Object tab, changes its name
and contents depending on the type of object selected.

Types of Controls

There are 11 different types of controls that may appear in the Inspector. Each one
provides you the opportunity to change the value of a parameter in a special way.
Since different types of objects and effects require different parameters, varied sets of
controls to appear in the Inspector depending on what is selected. The following table
describes the various types of controls and how to use them.

01112.book Page 98 Sunday, March 13, 2005 10:36 PM

Advertising