fade to black at the end

If you just want to fade "everything" to black, the simplest thing to do is to create a New Group (it should end up at the top of the Layers List [but below the Project "layer"]). Add a Rectangle shape with a Black fill to cover the canvas area (it can be larger than the canvas.) Then keyframe the Fill Opacity from 0 to 100% by the end of the project. As an alternative method, instead of a Rectangle shape, you can use a Generator > Generators > Color Solid. Change the color to black and in the Properties inspector > Blending > keyframe the Opacity from 0 to 100%.

The easiest thing to do is add a Color Solid:

Press the Generators button at the bottom right of the canvas and select Generators > Color Solid. This gives you a specialized shape that automatically fills the canvas with color. Set the Color (in the inspector) to Black.

Select the Properties tab and in the Blending section, set the Opacity to 0%

Right click on the word "Opacity" and from the popup menu, select Parameter Behaviors > Ramp

In the Behaviors inspector > Ramp, set the Start Value to 0% and the End Value to 100%

Move the playhead in the mini Timeline to the place where you want the "fade out" to start.

The Motion 5 Help window tends to be a little slow - and too in the way for me, so I have an online copy bookmarked for viewing in my browser here:

http://help.apple.com/motion/mac/5.0/en/motion/usermanual/

unfortunately, this version is not searchable, so I also keep the Motion 4 user manual bookmarked here:

http://documentation.apple.com/en/motion/usermanual/index.html

This version IS searchable. Keep in mind that Motion 4 and Motion 5 do not "look" the same. However, everything in the Motion 4 documentation (other than placement of icons, etc.) is concurrent with how Motion 5 works (Motion 5 has some new concepts that won't exist in the M4 documentation like Rigs and specialized drop zones that represent media content *in* FCPX.)

If you're okay with dealing with the appearance differences between Motion 5 and earlier versions, here is a good source for basic "practice" exercises (skip the ones on "Round-Tripping" -- that no longer applies to M5/FCPX): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB7982C0260F090C1

More here:

http://www.applemotion.net/macbreak-studio/

And some pretty advanced tutorials here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeZvvhzFi_ZxWbzZ5bhJ45QWzPHQ3Y5qy

All together, probably a better education than you'd get from Lynda.com and they're all free.

Fox, that link is to the 5.0 manual. Here is the Motion 5.1 help:

http://help.apple.com/motion/mac/5.1/#

Also there is a PDF available for it as well which is searchable (I downloaded it and put it into iBooks).

http://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/1000/MA1587/en_US/motion_5_ug.pdf

schmackhaft wrote:

Fox, that link is to the 5.0 manual. Here is the Motion 5.1 help:

http://help.apple.com/motion/mac/5.1/#

NICE! This one is searchable! Thank you.