Corel MotionStudio 3D

If you want to spice up your videos with the addition of snazzy title sequences or simple animated effects, you may want to consider using Corel’s MotionStudio 3D.

Essentially this is a relatively simple modelling and animation tool that lets you add drag-and-drop text and objects into an editing space and animate them along a timeline. As with most other animation products, changes over time such as linear or rotational movement, scaling and lighting can be controlled by moving to a specific moment – a ‘frame’ – on the timeline and making whatever changes you wish. This causes a ‘key frame’ marker to be added to the timeline. The software then auto-calculates the changes needed to create a smooth animation between each of the key frames.

When you want to preview the effects you can simply scroll along a section of the timeline or click a Play button to show the animation. The preview won’t be displayed with the same level of detail as the finished, fully-rendered, animation but it’s pretty good even so.

MotionStudio 3D makes it simple to create animated titles out of plain text. It can also animate other types of object. It comes with a number of ready-to-use objects or ‘models’ that can be inserted straight into your movie. You can also construct objects by combining premade shapes such as cylinders, cubes and pyramids. And you can make your own objects using a lathe modeller (to create, for example objects with circular profiles such as columns, vases, bowls and wheels). Compared with more expensive animation suites, the modelling capabilities of MotionStudio are pretty basic but they are sufficient for adding some pizzazz to short animations.

To alter the appearance of an object, you just select it and change properties such as its colours and materials (glass, plastic, wood etc.) in a palette. Effects can be applied quickly by making selections from a number or ‘presets’. Effects can make objects glow or shimmer and you can also apply animation presets to do things such as making an object bounce, bend or explode.

MotionStudio 3D has a couple of gee-whiz features that include three-dimensional renderings to be viewed through two-colour 3D glasses and a simple particle system to created animated effects for flames, snow, bubbles and smoke.

Your finished movies can be saved in a variety of output formats such as Mov, Mpeg, Mp4 and Flash (Swf). These can then be imported for use in most other video editing packages (including Corels’s VideoStudio X4).

Functionally, MotionStudio 3D provides a good range of features at a low cost. I have to say, however, that its user interface is not as slick as it might be. At first sight it looks pretty nice but you soon discover an odd mix of panels and dialogs that don’t give any real sense of a consistent design.

The timeline is a bit basic too. While key frames are auto-inserted when you make changes to objects in the interactive editing environment you cannot (as far as I can work out, anyhow!) copy and paste existing key frames [1]. Copying key frames is useful when, for example, you want all the properties of an animated object to be duplicated at the beginning and end of a video.

Whatever its merits, MotionStudio 3D does not have the range of features that would be required by a professional animator. If you want to go to the next level, you will probably need to spend twice the price on package such as Carrara http://www.daz3d.com/i/software/carrara (but bear in mind that really high end animation software may cost thousands of dollars). Or, if you just want simple 3D animated text without all the bells and whistles then a product such as Xara 3D Maker at just £30 would be a good deal: http://www.xara.com/uk/products/xara3d/.

In summary, the main benefits of MotionStudio 3D are its ease of use, its moderate range of features and its low cost. It’s not a super-powerful program but it’s a good choice if you are looking for something to make light work of creating title sequences and effects to your videos.