Creating Animations with Transparency with Motion

Motion is a flexible design tool for creating motion graphics. While it has some similarities to LiveType (such as animated text), Motion allows greater customization. Motion can be used to create content for Keynote as well. You will, however, need to keep your animations short or go back and optimize them using Compressor.

Here, you'll use Motion to create a particle-based animation to accent a slide.

1.	Launch Motion by clicking its icon in the Dock or finding it in your Applications folder and double-clicking. The Welcome screen appears prompting you to make a choice.
2.	Choose Start with a New Project.
3.	From the Preset list, choose Custom. Then enter the following values: Width: 1024 Height: 768 Bit Depth: 8 bit Pixel Aspect Ratio: Square Field Order: None (Interlacing is used for video monitors, not computer displays) Frame Rate: 12.00 fps Duration: 10:00 (This setting gives you project duration of 10 seconds; you can go longer or shorter as needed)
4.	Click OK. Tip If you want to store a preset for future use, choose Motion > Preferences and click Presets. Here you can create and name a new preset and access all of the settings described here.
5.	In the Utility window, click the Library tab. Explore the Particle Emitters, Generators, and Content categories to get an idea of the graphic options you have. Tip To learn more about Motion, check out the Apple Pro Training Series: Motion or Apple Pro Training Series: Getting Started with Motion, also from Peachpit Press.
6.	From the Particle Emitters category, choose Abstract and select the Flow 1 particle. Drag the particle system into the canvas and position it. This particle creates a soft flowing stroke that you can customize.
7.	Press the spacebar to play your animation.
8.	Adjust the size of the particle by dragging a corner handle. You can also modify basic properties in the floating Dashboard.
9.	Choose File > Export.
10.	Choose Lossless+Alpha Movie from the Export Preset pop-up menu; then name the file, pick a destination, and click Export. The alpha channel contains the transparency information for the file. The file is written to disk. You can now add it to Keynote as a media file.
11.	Quit Motion; then switch to Keynote and add the rendered movie clip to a slide. Tip You can click a movie to play it to preview the animation.