Apple Motion 4 - Manual (Page 212)

Note: When working in float space, you can quickly change the preview in the Canvas
to 8-bit to speed your workflow by turning off Preview Float Bit Depth in the View pop-up
menu. The View pop-up menu is located in the upper-right corner of the main window
(below the Timing icon). This setting does not modify the actual output of the project.
For more information on bit depth, see
About Bit Depth .
Dither: Selecting this checkbox adds a form a noise to prevent the appearance of banding
or posterization when using lower bit depths.
Pixel Aspect Ratio: Defines whether the project is created using square or nonsquare
pixels. Computer displays, film, and high definition video use square pixels, while standard
definition video uses nonsquare pixels. Choose Square for projects intended for the web,
high definition projects, and film, or one of the nonsquare pixel ratios corresponding to
each international standard definition broadcast standard. A field to the right of this
pop-up menu displays the numerical aspect ratio, in case you need to change it manually.
Field Order: When working with interlaced video, choose the field order you plan on
using for eventual output from this pop-up menu. This should match the field order of
the device being used to output the resulting QuickTime file to video. When working
with progressive-scan video or film, choose None.
Frame Rate: Choose a frame rate (in frames per second) that matches the format you’ll
eventually be outputting to. For example, film is 24 fps, PAL video is 25 fps, and NTSC
video is 29.97 fps. Additional frame rates are available for different video formats.
Duration: Allows you to enter the total duration available in your project’s Timeline. A
pop-up menu allows you to define the duration with either a timecode value based on
the currently selected frame rate, a frame count, or in seconds. The default value is
900 frames, or 30 seconds.
Start Timecode: This value sets the start timecode for display while working in the project.
Background Color: A color well that defines the background color that appears in the
Canvas. If other graphics or QuickTime objects smaller than the Canvas are present in the
project, this color appears behind those objects.
Background: A pop-up menu that defines whether the Background Color is rendered as
part of the alpha channel. Regardless of the selection, the Background Color is visible in
the Canvas. There are three options:
• Transparent: The background color does not render as part of the alpha channel.
• Solid: The background color creates a solid alpha channel.
212 Chapter 6 Creating and Managing Projects