Editor's Note: This is an expended version of the review that appears in the January issue of DV Magazine.

By J.R. Bookwalter

Noise Industries’ FxFactory is infinitely expandable, and one of the recent entries comes from a small company named Yanobox. Headed up by French native Jean Marc Noel, Yanobox comes to the table with MoType, a 2D and 3D text animation plug-in for Adobe After Effects or Apple Final Cut Studio/Express.

For years I’ve used Boris Graffiti (and to a lesser degree, Boris FX) for all of my type creation work, first on a Media 100 and later under Final Cut Pro. Anyone familiar with those programs will get the basic idea behind MoType. The main difference is that MoType is strictly an FxPack for FxFactory 2.0.5 (see review here), and therefore falls under that program’s graphic card limitations and system requirements. (The Boris programs are both standalone as well as plug-ins.)

MoType titles are added to your project in much the same way as Boris (depending on which host program you’re using), with the key difference being that MoType is strictly a plug-in — it doesn’t open a separate window to do its magic, like Graffiti. While this will be welcome to many users, it’s really my only bit of contention with MoType… I prefer a larger window to adjust settings and enter text. From within Final Cut Pro, even on a large monitor, the Controls window is pretty small for my aging eyes, for example.

However, MoType piles on the options, with separate sections to control Text, Random Characters, Motion Mixer, Trailing Blur, Particles, Camera, Cyclorama (their terminology for the background, which can include spotlights and textures) and Options. With more than 25 presets included, editors are bound to find a good starting point to build from, and most of the presets are unique enough to use as-is, too.

Most of the included presets are designed for standard-definition work, including 3D Flow, two types of 3D motion and Particle Text. HD users will find less here to get excited about, but given the plug-in’s “tweakability” and low price, it’s still a bargain. Like all FxPacks, MoType is available as a free 15-day trial, so you can download it immediately and get an idea of how it will fit into your daily routine.

For DYI users, MoType was developed using the FxFactory Pro plug-in manager, giving you a great idea of what this capable system offers. It integrates perfectly into the existing workflow of your host program, offers quick preview and rendering and makes a valuable addition to every FxFactory Pro user’s palette.

 YANOBOX MOTYPE FXPACK

SCORE:

PROS: Perfect integration with host programs, plenty of tweakable settings.

CONS: Requires FxFactory Pro, majority of presets are for SD projects, control settings can be too small in host program (especially for text entry).

BOTTOM LINE: Pulls a giant rabbit out of your magic hat by allowing content creators to sketch out musical ideas or even produce finished, customized scores with a few clicks.

MSRP: $99.00 (requires FxFactory Pro 2.0.5 or higher)

CONTACT: www.yanobox.com