Apple motion timming

Have you tried a RAM preview to verify the canvas playback vs. export?

First, go to the Preferences for Motion and in the "Appearance Tab" make sure that "Frame Rate" is checked for display in the status bar. Go to the "Time" tab and make sure you have "Limit Playback speed to project frame rate" checked. Close the preferences, then perform a RAM preview (Mark menu> RAM Preview) . Playback and double check the frame rate reported in the upper left hand corner of the canvas matches 60 fps.

Is it playing back at 60fps with the right timing? Is it playing back faster than you expected, like in the export?

It's possible you've timed the animation not realizing the project is not playing back at 60 fps in Motion and when playing in something like Quicktime you are seeing the result as being faster because it is rendered and can play back at the full frame rate. If this is the case, adjust your keyframe/behavior timing to slow things down. If you are still seeing issues, please give more details about where you are seeing the faster playback (what app are you checking in?)

1) Your project is 2 minutes long, at 30fps; not 30 seconds at 60fps. At least that is what the exported file you posted: your big a 10.91GB in ProRes 4444.

2) I don't think you ever mentioned some important details, like: what is your mac model; what OS; what Motion version;

WHAT DRIVE and how it is connected.

3) I believe that the speed of your mac and of the drive may well be the limiting factors here.

FWIW, the big file that I downloaded plays back smoothly on my mac.

From what you have already described, you should not be having this issue. You should get full speed playback every time you render the timeline and you have to manually render *every time* you make any changes in any parameters. Motion also will only render as many frames as it has vRAM for, meaning if your project is long, you will only be able to render about 20-30 seconds of the timeline at a time. You haven't reported a change in speed when playing, so the play range is probably within the vRAM capacity.

Regardless of how long it takes Motion to play back your project, the only thing that counts is the "time code" used in the canvas — that is the "map" to the playback progress. The time you see under the canvas should be the time you would see in a video player like Quicktime. Quicktime will play back your video with the same frame rate as the project you created.

Your description of only getting 15-16 FPs after rendering is a "thing" that happens from time to time, but usually not with a few images with only standard Transforms applied. Some 3D Text projects (and a couple of other *rare* situations) can misfire the "rendering engine" — but this is not in your description.

Is your project a Title or Generator being executed in Final Cut? Changing the length of Title or generator in FCPX will change the timing of the playback of the media.

If you're exporting directly to video, are you exporting your full project or just a "current play range"?

Are you using *anything* other than Scale and Opacity? Any behaviors? Or just straightforward keyframing?

Can you post a (video) sample of your project so I can see what you're going for and explain what's actually different than your project? I'll need to know your intended project length, if you have set a play range, how many images your displaying, (their media types), their intended length of time on screen, how long the "transitions" (scale/opacity) are, whether you used Final Cut to create the video, etc... whatever you can think of…