Creating a Background Layer


Goodyou've made it through all of the setup. Now you can move on to the first layer: the background. Whenever possible, it's a good idea to build a composite like you would a building: from the ground up. The background layer is your foundation, and it is used to add strength to your overall project. It's also useful as a guide for aligning your other objects and layers.

For this project, you'll use some of the Motion content located in the Library. Over the next series of exercises, you'll add a spinning globe and a map to the background of your project.

Selecting and Importing a Background Object

The globe you'll be using for this project is a movie file and is located in the Travel subcategory of the Content folder in the Library. Let's start by selecting the file and adding it to the Canvas.

1.

Press Cmd-2 to open the Library.

2.

Click the Content folder to see the Motion content.

3.

In the right column in the upper pane of the Library, click the Travel folder to select the Travel subcategory of content.

NOTE

You may need to drag the scroll bar on the right side of the Library window to see the Travel folder.

4.

Select Globe Corner.mov from the lower pane of the Library.

5.

Select the Canvas window; then press the spacebar to begin playback.

6.

Drag and drop the Globe Corner.mov icon from the Library to the Canvas and release the mouse.

A huge spinning globe fills more than half of the screen in your project and then disappears.

7.

Look at the Globe Corner region in the mini-Timeline.

Notice that the region is much shorter than the project duration. Our goal now is to make the movie continue for 8 seconds.

8.

Drag the right edge of the Globe Corner region in the mini-Timeline to try to stretch the region and make it longer.

Unfortunately, if a media file is too short for a project, you cannot make it longer by stretching it in the mini-Timeline. You can, however, extend its length by changing the way a file ends. First, let's find the new Globe Corner object on the Layers tab.



    Apple Pro Training Series Getting Started with Motion
    Apple Pro Training Series: Getting Started With Motion
    ISBN: 0321305337
    EAN: 2147483647
    Year: 2005
    Pages: 283
    Authors: Mary Plummer

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