Is Motion a good choice to create narrated educational videos?

AhmadH wrote:

… Is there a reason I shouldn't use Motion for this project?

basically: No.

AhmadH wrote:

… and get the impression Motion is mostly used for shorter animations that are then brought into FCP. …

… sure, that is the 'normal' usage, I own both and I would never consider M5 for a 60min project as you do.

But I don't do animation-only movies either.

Keep in mind, M5 is no 'paint.app', additionally, you should purchase something like Pixelmator, and maybe some Wacom et al, to create the drawings. Put parts onto diff. layers, export as .psd file, and M5 handles them as layers too.

M5 'behaviors' would simplify lots of animation stuff, shakes, wobble, movin'n circles, gravity, bounce - all included in M5. No complete physics engine, … yet, but some handy ones. And no reverse kinetics, or 'puppeteering'.

Have a look at my first animation-rig, a bit different to what you like to accomplish, but anyhow:

http://www.fcp.co/forum/6-motion-5/25686-big-fun-made-my-first-animation-rig

the template is done in M5, in Final Cut, I do have a drop-down menu in that custom-built generator, to choose what animation, and FCPX' trasnform tools move that lil' guy across the screen.

Or this talking potato head I built - the lip-synch animation is done automatically in Motion5

https://youtu.be/f8fVe85kwKE

(sorry to Mr Schiller for using is voice 😉 )

I do this type of work daily. Do each individual scene in Motion. Take those into FCPX to edit them together. That's a normal workflow for animated production. You probably won't ever see an hour long timeline in any compositing or animation app. Not even AE will do that well. You'll bog down your computer quickly.

Even if you were editing live action, you'd only edit one scene at a time, not the full one hour show. Then assemble each scene into a Master Output timeline.

Again, our studio does this daily using only Motion, FCPX, and Pixelmatr on the occasion we need it to cut out backgrounds, do some custom graphic, or whatever. But 90% is Motion, probably 2% is Pixelmator, the edits are done in FCPX. It is a long tried and proven workflow.

I don't recommend Motion for this work simply because it's hosed in regards to audio. Even on an 8-core 2013 Mac Pro with 32 gigs RAM and dual 700 GPU cards, Motion has problems working with audio. It's been an issue for years now. When Motion first came out, it worked beautifully with audio but then, maybe at version 3, it started clipping and dropping audio playback.

Just lots of bugs and issues dealing with audio in Motion 5. I have to take it into FCP X to do audio, and that's a shame.

We take our final edits out to Logic Pro X for our audio work. We do a good bit of original scoring, too.

Scot Walker wrote:

I don't recommend Motion for this work simply because it's hosed in regards to audio.…

The OP lays out a single track of narration - I had no issues with that, so far.- 😉