My Number One Motion 3 request

Question

This is a so near yet so far problem I currently have with Motion 2.12.
It makes it very tough for me to convince broadcast professionals to use Motion in their workflows. Motion 2.12 will import all layers of a Photoshop file as separate objects
and place them under a layer like 'import as composition with cropped PSD layers' in After Effects. Great. Broadcast graphics creators make layered photoshop files
with alpha masked pack shots for repeated ad content all the time.
You can animate away at real time speed in Motion and get those packs/products/CDs/DVDs onscreen and looking good.
But what you can't do is replace the content of one of those objects with another without dragging it from the file browser. The only workaround is to make individual photoshop files of each PSD layer, and drag them over your Motion layer or object. Its only a partial workaround as when replacing content the photoshop layer will replace without its cropping boundary throwing off your animation.
Nasty. Especially when its so easy in After Effects. Each photoshop layer is displayed in a folder ready to replace by simply dragging over the selected timeline layer while holding ALT or option.
If anyone can explain a way around this issue that would be great.
If its fixed in Motion 3 that would be even better.
Best Regards
Chris Wyatt

Answer 1

Hi Adam
Phew! The first sensible reply I have had to this post!
An imported Photoshop file will indeed update in a Motion project if the original Photoshop file is updated.
This is another roundabout way way to deal with this problem.
The graphic artist preparing the layered Photoshop file could swap out the old content and replace it with new within Photoshop, and the animation and effects applied to the objects inside your Motion project would remain intact and update to the new content.
But the Photoshop layers would need to be named identically and the number and order of Photoshop layers could not change.
The crux of this issue seems to me to be that Motion currently only allows multiple layers of a photoshop file to be manipulated as Motion objects from within a Motion layer. You can see the individual Photoshop layers in the inspector pane from the media tab in the project pane but thats it. You can drag an instance of a photoshop layer object to the file browser, but you can't use this object to exchange or replace with any other object or layer in your project.
Which I find really weird because its very easy to do in Final Cut Pro 5.14 and in Shake 4.1.
Just to be clear about the cropping - I am referring to the boundary of the imported Photoshop layers only. This is before any manipulation of these layers as objects inside Motion. Typically the boundaries of these layers will not be 720 by 576 (I'm in the land of PAL), they will be the boundaries of the image inside that. If you import a layered Photoshop file with a transparent background into Motion with images that are smaller than your video frame size inside the canvas (of PAL - 720 by 576 pixels for example) you will see that the layers import to their image boundaries. This conforms to import as composition - cropped layers in After Effects. We just don't get the next important bit in Motion which we do in After Effects which is each Photoshop layer available as an item in a browser. With show overlays ticked in the view menu in Motion you can verify this for yourself.
You lose this boundary info if you replace the content of a Motion layer or object from the file browser with another Photoshop file.
I hope this helps to explain my problem.
If anyone can help, please post.
Best Regards
Chris Wyatt