These packages come in all varieties of feature sets, price points and levels of complexity. Here we will attempt to clarify some of the complexity of animation and motion graphics to help you distill what your real needs are and help you make a more informed decision when shopping for a new software graphics package to fulfill those needs. We'll look at what to expect from the different types of software packages and feature sets. This is not a comprehensive guide to everything on the market, simply a brief educational guide to help you be a more informed consumer.

The higher the level of software package you delve in to, the steeper the learning curve, and usually the more money you'll spend. One problem is between mid-level and high-level applications, there are a few that overlap features, and may be more difficult to categorize easily. But the basic rule of thumb is the more it does, the more it costs, the longer and harder it will be to learn, but in the end you will have expanded your studio's capabilities, and thus its final products and income potential.

If all you need to do is manipulate basic text and shapes, most editing applications such as Final Cut Pro, Avid, Premiere Pro, and Vegas can do this type of basic keyframing work. In this article we're focusing on what you need to look at if those basic tools aren't enough.

Tools You May Already Own

Some of the popular video editing software comes in suites that include other applications that can do great motion graphics at a pretty sophisticated level. The good news is that if you have an editing software suite, you probably already have software that will fulfill your motion graphics needs and there's no need to spend extra money. The other side of that coin is that learning motion graphics applications can be a steeper learning curve than simple video editing. If you do spend the time and effort to learn the software included with a suite, you'll be able to produce more complex products for your clients, and charge a premium for those extras.

The most popular motion graphics software in editing suites are After Effects from Adobe, and Motion from Apple. These two applications are pretty equivalent in capability, yet take two different approaches to their user interfaces, and how they handle complex tasks. Today, many tutorials for either can very easily be applied to the other. After Effects has been out for quite a few years giving it a large user base with online tutorials and forum threads. Motion has recently begun to catch up, and has a slightly smaller, growing user base willing to help out with online video tutorials and forum threads. Again, learning these takes a bit more than learning still graphics applications such as Adobe Photoshop, Corel Paint It!, or Studio Artist.

The creation and manipulation of graphic elements, as well as the use of imported graphic and video elements, is easily done. Text can be animated in very complex ways. Compositing assets together in order to create a single complex visual effect are what these applications do best. These are both considered motion graphics packages, not animation or modeling applications, as neither can generate true 3D objects nor support the native files from higher end software such as Maya or Cinema 4D. Yet they do a great job with text; keying and compositing green screens, and complex graphic animations. These are used for things like the opening to the Cobert Report, backgrounds and bumpers for CNN and FOX news shows, and the like. Motion is only included with Final Cut Studio from Apple, and only runs on the Macintosh platform. After Effects can be purchased in one of Adobe's CS5 bundles, or alone, for Windows or Macintosh platforms. Autodesk provides Flame FX tools with Smoke. This is a finishing package that differs from the more traditional editors and adds the ability to work with 3D shapes and integrates with Final Cut Pro and Avid Media Composer via XML and AAF.

3D Text and Logos and Plug-ins

There are software packages that specifically do only 3D text and 3D logo elements. This may be all you need in some cases. Check your video editing software as some come with a plug-in to handle 3D text on a basic level . For example, Final Cut Pro is compatible with Boris 3D text plug-ins. There is a variety of third party plug-ins and stand-alone applications that can take this type of work to a whole new level. Zaxwerks has a line of for After Effects on both Windows and Mac platforms, as well as for Final Cut Pro and Motion. These plug-ins do 3D text, 3D logos, and helps you to animate them. It's the higher end of these types of plug-ins and stand-alone applications. Others to look at are Boris Graffiti, Xara 3D Maker, Reallusion Effect3D Studio and at the higher end, you'll find the GenArts collection of special effects and plug-ins. Although some of these can come with a hefty price tag, some are relatively inexpensive. They all can give you powerful tools with a small learning curve. If all you need is 3D text and logos then save the money and learning time, and go this route.