Any 3D animation tutorials for motion 5?

IMO: Save your money. There's really quite a lot you can do with "real 3D" in Motion without spending an extra dime on any other software.

I originally bought mObject 1.0 and stayed through the updates to 1.3 — I even publicly endorsed it. I was frustrated by the licensing which I don't think I ever got straight and the fact that a lot of models that I could find didn't work all that well in mObject for various reasons. MotionVFX teased the 2.0 release for years (more than 3 I believe) and I grew tired of waiting, I wasn't offered a chance to beta test (not that I really care, but I had endorsed the previous version and I'm fairly well-known for promoting 3D in Motion among the five or six other users who have expressed any interest in "real 3D" in Motion...I, at least, had some real experience...LOL), and the so-called upgrade path is simply paying for mObject 1.3 all over again. No thank you. There's nothing in it for me.

Real 3D in Motion is via "fonts", i.e., text objects. There's no rule that has ever been written to say that characters in a font have to be alphabetic letters and numbers. All a font is, is a collection of vector paths. A font is a nice place to keep a lot of related vector paths that can be used to assemble 3D models and with a free app available from the app store and a couple of online services to convert SVG vector paths to a TTF font, there's no excuse for creating your own "fonts".

I'm not going to claim you can make perfect 3D models for everything with 3D Text, there are compromises that need to be made for many things (Motion 3D is somewhat "low-poly") [and some things you'll never be able to do]. It becomes an adventure in problem solving. There is also a "cycle" of creating and/or updating the fonts you create to make models with — not a problem, just a little tedious. On the other hand: you might be surprised at just how many things can be made with simple shapes like circles and squares.

Here's some Motion "3D Text" examples:

And once you've created your models for 3D text, then all the animation is exactly the same as animating anything else in Motion. Here's some short demo videos showing animations all done with Motion animation:

3D Demos created in Apple Motion - YouTube

There's some links to some free shape fonts among the videos - check the descriptions (be sure to pick up Rogue Too as well).

I'd be more than happy to discuss 3D modeling techniques in Motion... sadly, I won't be getting involved with mO2 any time soon... if ever.

Ben Balser (BenB) seems to be rather enthusiastic about mO2... and he actually was a beta tester! I'm sure he could point you in the right direction if you really want to get into mO2. He's fairly regular around here, you shouldn't have any trouble catching up to him.

… just to add my 5€ :

I'm tinkering here for quiet a while to create some 'UFO Generator plugin' (free, for sure) plus some illustrated advice how to create your own Ufo-sighting-video for our school-project.-

work-in-progress screenshot demoes the chances & problems:

(Ufo over Castle Butenburg!) 😉

the UFO itself is nice (all Motion5, no extra fonts, just some 'bending' of settings), M5 offers some excellent 'industrial' textures, even my 2012 MacMini plays it back in real-time. All fine. Happy bunny.

BUT…

the drop-shadow is manually done, and - meep! - wrong, compare to the tree's; shadow isn't 'on' the wavy underground (very noticeable in motion …); etc etc

things like correct motion-blur = according to cam movement (Ufo sightings require always camera operator in panic-mode), 'tracking' in general is a pita … we solve this here with rock-solid tripod recordings and 'worsening' the final comps in post (vertical video, earthquake effect, super low compression rates etc). But those pans&zooms and out of focus stuff, like in your example? Hahaha.-

biggest challenge, esp when using Motion as 3D app: lighting

ok, a high noon, bright sun scene as above is easy… but the ones in your example? No way in Motion!!! this golden hour light, those reflections, diff. 'materials' and reflections .....

With all due respect to sensei fox - but ALL his examples are 'flat' lighted... aside the rendering algorithm in M5, which offers no radiosity, no color-depth (= colors lose sat by distance), no 'atmosphere blur' yadayada … all the marvel, photorealism demands.

I'm just a hobbyist, by far no expert for 3D …

No, Motion is nice for simple 'effects' … but not even close what real 3D apps do … and what real 3D experts know how to handle it.

usual hint: blender.org … Hollywood-grade 3D app, free, huge helpful community, I guess within less than 3 years you learn how to handle it and get your Ufos.....😝

Karsten Schlüter wrote:

… just to add my 5€ :

I'm tinkering here for quiet a while to create some 'UFO Generator plugin' (free, for sure) plus some illustrated advice how to create your own Ufo-sighting-video for our school-project.-

work-in-progress screenshot demoes the chances & problems:

(Ufo over Castle Butenburg!) 😉

the UFO itself is nice (all Motion5, no extra fonts, just some 'bending' of settings), M5 offers some excellent 'industrial' textures, even my 2012 MacMini plays it back in real-time.

😝

If 3D, then what font are you using? I can pretty much guarantee that the generator will break in the future. It will need a dedicated font to make sure it lasts. Reasons? The almost AI way in which font substitutions (and character "borrowing") are executed in MacOS (ever since font handling became compatible with the full Unicode character set.) The bullet character frequently falls into the borrowed character category as it does not exist in all fonts (so it will depend on the font you're using — and if you're using a larger circle in the unicode set...). When the system discovers a "missing character" it cleverly goes through the set of "system fonts", compares type (serif, sans, etc.) and metrics to provide a matching character. The most famous character is  that is plugged into the option-shift-k missing character (unless there is an actual glyph in that character's encoding for a specific font). Whatever font you use for your 3D model may not be the font that another end user's system may choose to plug into the space. Their substituted character may have entirely different metrics, will not center or have the same baseline, etc. When this is what you expect:

This is what others may get:

(It's happened to every project I built with "unicode" characters). This is why I go "on and on" about custom fonts. Custom fonts are free to make and very easy to create with SVG 1.0 files (also free to make as there are several free vector illustration apps available.)

Marvel's "photorealism" is overrated. Some things are better left unshown. Whatever happened to "suspension of disbelief"? I grew up with Harryhausen's stop motion special effects ("Dynamation"). Even the original Star Wars movies had perceptible artifacts in them. Nobody cares as long as there's a really good story going on.

Doesn't Blender use X11 or XQuartz or whatever unix server the Mac runs these days? Check into Wings 3D. It's a fork of Blender and runs natively on a Mac. That said: I've never been able to do anything with either one of them (too complicated).

I agree with you that lighting is difficult and casting shadows is a real pain in the butt... but not impossible. Just take a very large Color Solid in a 3D group, turn it -90º on the X-axis, lower it's Y position, and in the Shadows section of Properties, check the Shadows Only option. It will receive shadows from 3D lighting and only display the shadow! Nothing but the shadow shows. You can position the Color Solid into background images of video to "cast shadows" in the scene.

https://youtu.be/NtC-Mu5jLG0

Plus a little dramatic music, a few sound effects...

What I'd like to be able to do is "destroy" the "monuments" into a pile of rubble and make that look convincing. I am frequently inspired by Andrew Kramer's work in AE. I have an idea how to accomplish these kinds of tasks, but I simply don't have the time to concentrate on creating them. Masking and filling the background with substitute material shouldn't be too difficult. Explosions can be covered by Emitters. Fire is easy enough to simulate. It's the modeling and the physics of the "fallout" that will be the hardest part (unless judiciously cut around - before/after views -- time honored methods of dealing with the problem.) All this should be possible in Motion...with a fixed camera view. The big problem, perhaps insurmountable, would be compositing all this in a "hand-held" camera view (a la Blair Witch or Cloverfield). Perhaps if the "hand-held effect" was applied after the fact would make compositing these kinds of scenes possible. 4K+ makes creating these kinds of effects possible. Complex projects could only be built scene by scene, cut by cut and assembled afterwards in an NLE.

The biggest problem with "just Motion" is: there is no way to create custom textures without Motion's blending algorithm (on the "Sides") interfering. You cannot place just a single image wrapped around an object's side. Motion divides the Sides into quarters, flips the texture image and blurs/blends the edges together into each other. So far, there is no way around it other than cutting up the character object into small segments that can obscure the blending and piecing them together (and they don't even **line up**!!) ... There is enormous overhead in this method. There is also no way to separate "inside" and "outside" surfaces. Whatever texture you apply is going all the way around the object no matter what.

Apple moderators: if you're reading this: please tell the Motion team to ADD the option to apply an image/texture to the Sides once and only once and let us worry about how to stitch the edges together. And where the texture doesn't wrap all the way around, please leave the rest **transparent**!!! [But don't change the way things are working now either!! I don't need everything I've already done breaking.]

I'm still a little unclear why you're looking into Motion and I actually don't know if mO2 can handle what you need. I don't think mObject (its predecessor) could... it didn't play all that well with the "rest" of Motion — it was rather encapsulated. Motion was never designed to be a 3D Modeling application... LOL. (... it should be!)

If you are interested in doing this kind of work in FCPX/Motion, then you would have to recreate your models in Motion as text characters (basically: start over) because Motion doesn't work with conventional 3D models like OBJ files, etc. For your UFOs, there is some complexity in the "spinners" — in Motion you only have to build 1/3 and duplicate the other two. The "big ship" should be much easier — almost a blue crab shell shape plus a "fuselage" top (and really work the textures!)

All my examples are based on more "regular" shapes:

Al Nozaki's Martian War Machine (War of the Worlds 1953)... basically inserted into stock footage clips:

Martian War Machine — Apple Motion 3D project — Demo - YouTube

and X-wings (a moon and the "death star")

Imagination is… featuring new works in progress - YouTube

The Martian War Machine had problems with the wind turbines since the motion blur made it nearly impossible to get a good key from the propellers... lesson learned.

For this: I am NOT trying to sell you anything, but the video shows all the characters in the font used to make ALL items in that video:

Space Shapes Font for 3D Modeling in Apple Motion - YouTube

All of the stuff above is the actual 3D models integrated into video (where applicable). The models are built with 3D Text and so supported in FCPX as generators (with published parameters for keyframing animated parts and orientation in FCPX). I can go into FCPX and just make up a new scene with any of them that I want.

The models you're working with are built in what other software? All you would need to do is render out the action (ProRes 4444 - skip green screen altogether if you can) and overlay/blend with your scene video. If the model format you're working with is compatible with the model types that can be imported in mO2, then you might save more time using it if mO2 allows for integration with video (the first version didn't do that all that well) then you can probably work animations *into* the scene. If you're a skilled model builder, then creating the basic shapes should not be all that difficult and assembly in Motion is usually fairly easy. As I have mentioned, there are some limitations that have to be worked around, so don't expect the same level of "cgi" as you're currently achieving.

So a lot of what you should be considering involves how much work you've already put into your project and how much left to go you have. If you can render out the 3D modeling parts to PR4444 then compositing the action into video should not be terribly difficult (although you will have to accurately animate the action to fit into the video available — easier said than done, no matter what). Scaling in real time can help make things fit. With this method, the tools you will require more are video masking tools (you might have to build "sets" in 3D to insert into your scenes). You insert "objects" into the video the easiest way by creating sandwich layers with the unaltered scene video on the bottom, the 3D modeling animation in the middle and the masked pieces of the original scene on top. So I guess what I'm saying is: you can put together a great deal of your special effects directly in Final Cut's timeline. You obviously already have the capability to generate the 3D cgi so you wouldn't need Motion in the middle, and scenes where you actually create destruction are, quite frankly, a little beyond my skill set.

Do more research before you dive into something you might not want or need. You might want to ask the people at MotionVFX (MotionVFX (@motionVFX) | Twitter) for more details. There are several tutorial videos available on YouTube, just search mO2.

I really want to be a cheerleader here for "Motion 3D", but I'm not sure it's really what you want or expect it to be.

As a (personal) rule, I do not generally recommend, to anybody, going out and paying more for extra software. I made an exception several years ago and recommended mObject. If nothing else, it was a lot of fun. I could download and use some of the free models at Turbosquid and some of them were halfway decent. Why halfway? Because things like wheels on cars, props on planes and helicopters, etc... and many, many, many of the models were not designed to be animated (there was no way to break down the models into the separate pieces to be animated, like the wheels and props, etc.) This was the first version of mObject. Here's an example:

Blackhawk UP!: an Apple Motion/mObject demo - YouTube

I had a few issues creating it: resetting the anchor point on the propellers and fitting it into the environment on the landing (positioning and scaling - but that's on me)... the dust emitter is "layer order" only and so: behind the chopper... but it was still fun... and still rather basic...

I have never seen mO2. I expect that after the 3+ years they worked on it, it probably is all it's cracked up to be (although I'd take some of the hype with a grain of salt!) You really should track down somebody who has had hands-on experience with the plugin and get their perspective. I know for certain that Ben Balser (BenB on this forum or @FCPXwebGuru on Twitter) has used it. You're obviously chomping at the bit to get mO2. It looks like it has matured a good bit, but I cannot justify the expense for myself... the ROI for me just isn't there. I'm not making those kinds of videos, I make titles and effects and such and I can't make any that rely on this extra, expensive, plugin.

From what I saw on their site, they're still talking about creating an isolated environment — a virtual "set" — models surrounded by HDRI environments [much like Motion and FCPX] — a separate universe if you will. It doesn't look like you can import "live action" footage and have the mO2 3D universe interact with it "directly"... That's why I keep putting on the brakes when it comes to recommending it. The old mObject was like a 3D group inside a 2D group - the appearance of it was still very 3D, but the entire animation was flattened — if you rotate the orientation, it appears like a projection on a screen. You can still make that work... it will just take a little bit more effort... but you need to make sure you are going to be able to accomplish what you want to be able to do! At worse: you can still prepare your composited scenes just like you do now. The mObject UI kept very close to the way Motion itself works, so you will have that advantage there (but there will probably be a bit of a learning curve), but I don't think it's going to be the "one thing to pull everything together" for you.

That's about all the recommendation you can get out of me 😉 If you buy it and are dissatisfied with it — I don't want you to be angry with me about it. It's a tool. It may be a very useful tool (the way it handles specular lighting, reflections and such, and texture placement is very nice, better than Motion's).... just hanging a "buyer beware" on it. And... if it were that easy: everybody would already be doing it! What you're into takes skill — a lot of it — and I wish you a lot of success. If you use FCPX as your scene builder/compositor, I have some tools that might help. Ironically, they do not work in Motion.

Best of luck!

fox_m wrote:

… what font are you using? I can pretty much guarantee that the generator will break in the future.…

Apple moderators: if you're reading this: please tell the Motion team …

The UFO is made of five stacked variations of • in Arial …

ok, if Arial is not on the machine, indeed, I'm sacked.

(school's Mac is untouched by any Microsoft installation but has Arial listed, so I assume, it's no longer an MS-exclusive…?)

conc. Mods & Devs: hard to believe, Texas (board) has any contact with Cupertino (dev)… best contact is via Feedback.

… but, looking how Motion is a 'patchwork' (parts from Motion vers3 or older, parts from 2018) , I hardly believe there're are any designated Motion-Developers at all LOL

(alone, how many Library elements are so … 1990-ish!! Just plain ugly & old fashioned...)

your tech to create a shadow doesn't solve the problem that shadows (I'm simply using FCPX' built-in and very versatile DropShadow-effect) are not 'projected' on a 3D mesh, representing the underground, my example: the soft hills of greens around the castle)

oh, and as a last snarky comment:

yep, I'm aware of 'uncanny valley' … but the OP's linked example demands 'realism'… which is, imho, 80% a result of light & blur… the guitar in your examples doesn't look 'real', partly of light = pin drops shadow in diff direction than guitar, strings and knobs drop no shadows at all etc, partly of 'material' = lacks textures, imperfections, varnish, glare … or, the bikes: sure, to emulate chrome, one needs an environment which gets 'reflected'- but those 'fields' would affect ambient light and colors too (aside: why is a green field 'behind' me, but not behind the bikes?) etc etc …

How come, light-leaks and lens-flares and all those imperfections became so popular? To cover that 'flat' look of 'computated images' …

being stubborn: Motions 3D Titles are nice, but bending it for CGI… hmmm? Then I would invest time and energy into Blender (is a native app on macOS) …

Thanks for your suggestions, anyhow, sensei! 🙂