How does Motion 2 compare to After Effects?

I have used After Effects in school but now that I am using FCP instead of AVID I was thinking that it'd probably be a good idea to switch over.
I mainly want to use Motion 2 for adding filter effects and transistions to my videos. Is the connectivity between FCP and Motion such a boon that I should learn how to use it?
From messing around in Motion I've found that it seems much more complicated than After Effects and a bit more unwieldy (but I've barely scratched the surface).
When I looked at what has been added in Motion 3 I was a bit upset that I bought FCS1 a couple months before 2 came out. Motion 3 seems to be much improved, but alas, it's too late.

I agree. I too am in the job market and find that there are more jobs that ask for After FX experience than Motion. Having learned both, I made the decision of just working with Motion and developing my skills to a higher level.
Motion is way more enjoyable to work with. I produce faster with it and it does just about everything that After FX can do. If it doesn't...I go to Shake 4.1. Shake has a much better keyer than After FX. You can combine Primate and Keylight together and get much better results than After FX. I even like the work flow better in Shake than I do in After FX.
I find that, for some reason, I am more creative in Motion than After Effects. It just flows nicer for me I quess. As far as intergration with Flash, there honestly isn't that much difference. While After FX imports and exports .swf and .flv files....Motion or should I say Quicktime exports to .flv. Both produce large file sizes...I think Motion was a few kb smaller than After FX....I usually end up exporting small image sequences with a alpha channel into Flash. Both Motion and After Effects export image sequences.
Once Motion 3 is out and stable, I think the gap will be alot closer to After FX. I am going to the Final Cut Studio 2 on tour in NYC on Tues, I'll be sure to ask about cast shadows! How can you leave that out?
As far as getting jobs, I want to find a company that uses Macs and Final Cut in their workflow. Companies that use PC have no choice but to use After FX....Who wants to work on a PC!
Best Regards,
Ed
Powerbook 15" 1.67 GHz Mac OS X (10.4.9) Maxed out!

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( 10 :: 21 )"
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