Chapter 6: create and manage projects, Create and manage projects overview, Create projects – Apple Motion 5.1.1 User Manual
Page 145: Create projects overview, Create and manage projects, Overview
 
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Create and manage projects overview
A Motion project contains a single composition made up of multiple image layers and applied 
effects. When you import still images and video clips into a project, Motion creates a linked 
reference to the source media files on disk but doesn’t move, duplicate, or modify the original 
files on your hard disk. Motion project files store information about how a composition is 
assembled, what media files on disk are used, and what effects from the Library have been 
applied. In addition to imported media, project files also contain shapes, masks, and text layers 
you create in the application.
To learn more about creating and managing projects, choose a topic in the Help table of 
contents (the sidebar to the left of this window). 
Create projects
Create Projects Overview
Creating a project is the first step in the Motion workflow. There are three ways to start a project:
•
Open one of the supplied templates.
•
Open a blank project using a project preset.
•
Open a blank project using your own settings (for example, if you need an unusual frame size 
or frame rate not included in the project presets).
Motion is resolution-independent, which means it supports projects using a range of frame sizes 
and frame rates. You can create small movies for streaming on the web, standard-definition 
and high-definition movies for broadcast, and even film-resolution files for large-screen 
display. Regardless of the resolution you choose, the Motion workflow is the same (although 
high-resolution projects using large media files can have higher memory and graphics card 
requirements than projects with smaller resolutions).
Motion is also hardware-dependent. This means that the type of graphics card installed on 
your computer affects performance and determines the maximum file size you can import 
into Motion. For most recommended cards, the image size limit is 4K or 8K. However, other 
factors affect performance, including the amount of VRAM on your computer and the number 
of monitors connected to your graphics card. For the best results, resize very large images to 
the largest size required in the project, but no larger. Computers with minimum amounts of 
VRAM may experience poor performance (or other issues) when creating 4K projects. For more 
information, visit the Motion website a
Note: Because of hardware limitations and differences, the appearance of projects shared 
between computers with different installed graphics cards may vary.
Create and manage projects
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