14 DAY TRIAL // After updating Final Cut Pro and Compressor, Apple released Motion 5.1.1 with support for ProRes 4444 XQ and other enhancements meant to improve workflows in customizing Final Cut Pro titles, transitions, and effects.
Motion can be used to create your own animations in 2D or 3D space, with real-time feedback, as well as customize Final Cut Pro effects, titles, and transitions. Notably, motion offers dual-GPU optimizations on the all-new Mac Pro (Late 2013) model enabling superior real-time playback performance and faster rendering.
In version 5.1.1 Apple is adding support for ProRes 4444 XQ, a new and very high-quality codec specifically designed for VFX work.
A white paper released by Apple says that ProRes 4444 XQ is “the highest-quality version of Apple ProRes for 4:4:4:4 image sources (including alpha channels), with a very high data rate to preserve the detail in high-dynamic-range imagery generated by today’s highest-quality digital image sensors.”
Preserving dynamic ranges much greater than the dynamic range of Rec. 709 imagery, the codec performs brilliantly even against extreme visual effects processing and supports up to 12 bits per image channel and up to 16 bits for the alpha channel, just like the standard Apple ProRes 4444.
Motion 5.1.1 further improves Sequence Text behavior for animating characters, words, and lines, and sports enhanced Contrast filter parameters for refined adjustments, according to Apple.