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Distance: A slider that sets how close or far a layer’s drop shadow is to the layer. The
farther away a drop shadow is, the more distance there appears to be between the layer
and anything behind it in the composition.
Angle: A dial that lets you change the direction of the drop shadow. Changing the Angle
of the drop shadow changes the apparent direction of the light casting the shadow.
Fixed Source: When this checkbox is selected, the drop shadow behaves as if cast by a
fixed light source, regardless of camera or text movement.
Retiming
Your motion graphics projects might require you to perform special timing tricks on
media: speeding a clip up, slowing it down, or playing it back at different speeds. Use the
Timing controls in the Properties Inspector to modify speed and playback attributes of
media clips.
Using Retiming Behaviors
In addition to the Timing controls in the Properties Inspector, Motion includes a number
of Retiming behaviors designed for commonly applied retiming tasks (hold frames,
strobing, looping, and so on). Take some time to look over the Retiming behaviors in
the Library before spending a lot of time in the Inspector creating your own custom
retiming from scratch.
Tip: You can also manipulate clip timing in the Timeline with the help of modifier keys.
Indicators in the Timeline help you visualize loops and other retiming conditions. For
more information on Retiming in the Timeline, see Retiming in the Timeline.
Timing Controls in the Properties Inspector
Media layers (images and movie clips as opposed to Motion-created shapes) have timing
parameters in the Properties Inspector. Click Show on the right side of the Timing category
to reveal these timing controls.
Still images and other layers without an inherent time dimension have a reduced set of
Timing controls.
Time Remap: Sets how time is remapped in the clip. Use this pop-up menu to set Constant
Speed or Variable Speed.
• Constant Speed: Retimes the entire clip using the same value.
• Variable Speed: Allows you to animate the speed of the clip over time.
Speed: A value slider that sets the speed of the clip as a percentage. The default is 100%.
Values lower than 100 play back the clip more slowly than its original speed and also
extend the duration of the clip. Values higher than 100 play back the clip faster than its
original speed and shorten the duration of the clip.
313Chapter 7 Basic Compositing