SAVING MOTION TEMPLATES

How to save a template - and where they are stored.
By Estelle MacDonald

Create your Motion project in the layout you need and save your project. When preparing for your new Template think about how you will name your objects and layers. Keep the names obvious so that you (or anyone else) can understand your template.

If I have a lower third project then I would name my primary text object ‘Name Goes Here’ and my secondary text object ‘Title Goes here’, and so on. Describe visual elements also, make everything very clear, focus on purpose or position. In my lower third project I have background textures that animate under the title so I named them ‘background texture’. Let’s start to save our template!

1. Select the File menu > Save Project as Template

2. A Save Template pop-up appears, type a name for the template.

3. Choose a collection to put that template into from the Collection pop-up menu or make your own collection by clicking on the ‘New Collection’ button. (You cannot save into the system collections as they are locked.)

4. Choose the format of your template from the Format pop-up menu. If it’s NTSC then choose NTSC and so on…this format option allows you to view templates by format.

5. Make your template play a preview when it appears in the Template Browser by checking Create QuickTime Preview.

6. Click Save. Your new template is saved. Navigate to your collection and view your template.

Check the media you are using

Templates are saved into the /Home/Library/Application Support/Motion/Templates/ folder, in a folder with the name of the collection you created, but any media used by that template remains in its original location on disk. This can perhaps become an issue if the template needs to access a piece of media that has been moved or deleted. If you move, rename, or delete any media file used by a template, that object goes offline, so how to avoid this is to do a little pre planning.

Move all media files you plan on using to a discreet folder on disk prior to importing them into the project file you’ll be saving as a template. Perhaps you could call this folder ‘Template Media’ and store it somewhere protected. This will ensure that those media files used in the Template maintain their connection.