After you create a project, you typically import media files to create a composition. All media types—movie clips, still images, and audio files appearing in the File Browser, or other media items appearing in the Motion Library—are added to your project using the same methods. To learn about the File Browser, where you access files on your disks, see File Browser. To learn about the Library, where you find the content built into Motion, see Library.
Note: Layered Photoshop files have additional import options available from the drop menu. For more information, see Adding Layered Photoshop Files to a Project.
Before learning how to add media to your Motion project, it’s important to understand the correspondence between layers and source media. Every time you add a file to your project, you create a link between the layer you see in the Layers list and Canvas and its corresponding media file on your hard disk.
Motion is a nondestructive application. This means that changes you make to media objects in a Motion project aren’t applied to the source media files on the hard disk.
Because of this link, when you add a file to a project, the file must remain available on your hard disk for as long as you work on that project. If you move, delete, or rename media files that correspond to layers in a Motion project, those layers go “offline.”
If this happens, it’s easy to reconnect the offline layers in your project with new copies of the media you lost, assuming those files are still available. For more information, see Online Versus Offline Media.
You can add media files to a project using the File Browser or the Import command in the File menu. In most cases, the File Browser is more convenient and gives you more control over how the resulting objects appear in the project.
Before adding media files, you select them in the File Browser. You can add files to a project individually or in groups.
Open the File Browser.
Select files by doing one of the following:
Click a single file.
While holding down the Shift or Command key, click to select multiple files.
In list view, press Shift and use the Up Arrow and Down Arrow keys to add files to the current selection.
Use the following procedures to add media files to Motion.
Note: Although iTunes and iPhoto files can be added via the File Browser, it is better to add them via the Music and Photo categories in the Motion Library. Using the Library allows you to browse for files using the playlist or photo album features available in iTunes and iPhoto. For more information, see Adding iTunes and iPhoto Files from the Library.
If the Create Layers At setting in the Project pane of Motion Preferences is set to “Current frame,” move the playhead to the frame in the Timeline where you want the first frame of the file to start.
Note: If the Create Layers At setting is set to “Start of project,” this step is unnecessary because imported files are placed at frame 1.
Select media files in the File Browser.
Do one of the following:
Drag the files into the Canvas, placing them at any position.
Click the Import button to add the files to the center of the Canvas.
Drag the files into the empty lower area of the Layers list.
Drag the files into the empty lower area of the Timeline.
Choose File > Import (or press Command-I), select files in the Import Files dialog, then click Open.
A new group appears the top of the Layers list, and all imported files appear as layers nested in the group. Each new layer’s start time in the Timeline is set to the position of the playhead in step 1.
If the Create Layers At setting in the Project pane of Motion Preferences is set to “Current frame,” move the playhead to the frame in the Timeline where you want the first frame of the file to start.
Note: If the Create Layers At setting is set to “Start of project,” this step is unnecessary because imported files are placed at frame 1.
Open the File Browser and Layers list.
Select media files in the File Browser.
To nest the media files in a group, do one of the following:
Drag the files on top of a group in the Layers list.
The imported files appear as new layers in the group, placed above existing layers in the group.
Drag the files between any layers in a group.
A position indicator shows where the layers will be placed when you release the mouse button.
Drag the files into the Timeline, placing them between any layers nested in an existing group.
Note: For more information on adding objects to the Timeline, see Using the Timeline.
When you add a media file to a project, the file appears as a layer in the Canvas, Timeline, Layers list, and Media list. Each layer’s start time in the Timeline is set to the position of the playhead in step 1.
You can also add media files to your project without having them appear in the composition. You do this by ragging a file into the Media list. This allows you to store media objects you might want to use in the future.
Open the Media list.
Drag media files from the File Browser into the Media list.
The resulting media objects are added to the project but don’t appear in the Canvas, Layers list, or Timeline.
You can add a layered Photoshop file to your project by dragging it to the Canvas, Layers list, or Timeline, or by using the Import button or Import command. Using the Import button (in the preview area) collapses all layers of the Photoshop file into a single Motion layer, by default. To preserve the layers of the imported file, use the drop menu or the File > Import command.
Drag a layered Photoshop file from the File Browser into the Canvas, Layers list, or Timeline.
Before releasing the mouse button, pause until the Canvas drop menu appears and pointer becomes curved.
This menu presents commands for importing the layered file.
Continuing to hold down the mouse button, drag the curved pointer over a command in the drop menu, and when the menu item is highlighted, release the mouse button.
The layers of the Photoshop file are added using the command you choose.
The Canvas drop menu has the following options:
Note: When a Photoshop file contains more layers than can be displayed in the drop menu, the Choose Layer option appears in the drop menu. After you click the Choose Layer option, the Pick Layer to Import dialog appears.
Choose File > Import.
Select the layered Photoshop file to import, then click Import.
The Pick Layer to Import dialog appears.
Choose a command from the Layer Name pop-up menu:
If you don’t like the layer you chose, you can pick a different one from the Photoshop file without deleting or importing again. You do so by selecting the recently imported Photoshop layer, then choosing a different Photoshop layer from the Layer pop-up menu in the Properties Inspector.