5

The generator preview appears in the preview area. If the generator is animated, such as
Clouds, the animation plays in the preview area.
3 Drag the generator to your project.
As with other objects, you can add the generator to your project by dragging it to the
Canvas, the Layers list, or the Timeline.
The generator and its HUD appear in your project. (If the HUD in not visible, press F7.)
The HUD contains a subset of the complete controls that appear in the Generator pane
of the Inspector.
Note: Generators added to a project are not added to the Media list. The Media list only
includes media files imported into Motion, such as image sequences, video files, Photoshop
files, and audio files.
Alternatively, you can add a generator to your project by clicking the Add Generator
pop-up menu in the toolbar (to the right of the New Camera and New Light buttons) and
choosing an item from a submenu.
Using the Add Generator pop-up menu in the toolbar is quick, but it does not provide a
way to preview the generator before adding it to the project.
Modifying Generators
In this section, the Checkerboard generator is used to illustrate how to edit and animate
a generator using the HUD. After you customize a generator, you can save it to the Library
for use in future projects. This section also briefly discusses applying Parameter behaviors
to the parameters of a generator.
Editing Generators
In this section, the Checkerboard generator parameters are edited to modify the
appearance of the default generator.
To edit the Checkerboard generator
1 Add the Checkerboard generator to your project.
Note: For information on adding a generator to your project, see Adding a Generator.
The default Checkerboard generator appears in the Canvas, Layers list, and Timeline, and
the HUD appears.
The Checkerboard generator HUD contains controls for editing and animating the
checkerboard, such as Opacity, Blend Mode, Width, Height, Color, Size (of the checkers),
and Contrast. The only Checkerboard parameters that do not appear in the HUD are
Center and Pixel Aspect Ratio (which appear in the Generator Inspector).
2 In the HUD, click the Color 1 color well and select a color from the Colors window.
943Chapter 18 Working with Generators