Behaviors overview

Behaviors are animation and simulation effects that you can apply to image layers, cameras, and lights to build sophisticated motion effects without keyframes. Some behaviors even adjust individual parameters of objects in your project, allowing you to customize animated effects with extreme precision.

Behaviors are designed to be flexible and can be combined with one another to create all kinds of effects.

There are 11 kinds of behaviors in Motion:

  • Audio behaviors: Create simple audio effects, such as fade-ins and fade-outs, pans, and fly-bys. See Audio behaviors overview.

  • Basic Motion behaviors: Create common animation effects such as rotation, scaling, motion paths, fade-ins, fade-outs, and more. See Basic Motion behaviors overview.

  • Camera behaviors: Animate points of view by creating basic camera moves such as dollies, pans, and zooms. See Add Camera behaviors.

  • Motion Tracking behaviors: Analyze the motion present in video clips to stabilize camera shake or pin moving objects to one another (match move). See Motion tracking overview.

  • Parameter behaviors: Animate a specific parameter of any object, including filters, behaviors, cameras, and lights. For example, you can apply the Oscillate behavior to text opacity to make letters fade in and out. See Parameter behaviors overview.

  • Particles behaviors: Animate individual particles in a particle system. See Apply behaviors to particle systems.

  • Replicator behaviors: Animate replicator patterns to build stunning kaleidoscopic effects. See Apply the Sequence Replicator behavior.

  • Retiming behaviors: Change the playback speed of footage to create slow-motion and fast-motion effects, freeze frames, reverse playback, or strobe and stutter frames. See Retiming behaviors overview.

  • Shape behaviors: Animate the vertices of shapes or masks to create morphing polygons and other effects. See Shape behaviors overview.

  • Simulation behaviors: Apply real-world simulation animations, such as gravity, orbital attraction, repelling force, and edge collision to create sophisticated interactions among multiple objects in your project. See Simulation behaviors overview.

  • Text behaviors: Set your text in motion to create advanced titling effects. See Animated text overview and Apply the Sequence Text behavior.

For an introduction to using and applying behaviors, see Apply behaviors overview. For information about adjusting applied behaviors, see Adjust behaviors overview.

Note: Audio, Camera, Motion Tracking, Particles, Replicator, Shape, and Text behaviors are discussed in their respective chapters.