After Effects has become a standard. There's no way around that. But Motion 3 is a remarkable and under-used tool. As someone who always preferred Combustion to After Effects I'm finding it a delight, though it isn't quite a fully featured app. Motion is no longer the "imovie" of motion graphics, and in some respects (esp. workflow and interface) it surpasses its rivals. It would be a shame not to see how far you can push it.
But a lot of this depends on what you want to do. If you're going to do serious rotoscoping, you probably need After Effects. Otherwise I'd use Motion: it's a good app, and you already have it. Then if you find it underpowered for your needs D/L the free 30-day trial for After Effects. A lot of people now use FCP and Motion for most of their work, and go to AE only for specific tasks if they need it. All of these apps - Combustion, After Effects, Shake, Motion - do some things better than others even though they try to be comprehensive. I say start with what you've got, then pick the next one, if you need it, based on the specific things you need to accomplish. Brook _______________________________________________________ Brook Hinton film/video/audio art www.brookhinton.com studio vlog/blog: www.brookhinton.com/temporalab
