Stroke Controls
Stroke controls add an outline around the Motion State frame or, for text, shapes, and transparent images, around the content itself. See How the stroke follows your content.
Stroke and glow are especially useful with cropped or shaped clips. For frame controls, see Crop and Shape Controls. For drop shadows behind the frame, see Shadow Controls.
Enable Stroke
Section titled “Enable Stroke”Turn on Enable Stroke for State A, State B, or both states.
Because stroke settings can differ between State A and State B, the outline can appear, disappear, resize, or change color during the animation.
When stroke is off for a state, the main stroke controls remain visible but disabled so you can still see what is available. Gradient and glow detail controls only appear when they are relevant.
Style chooses between a solid stroke and a gradient stroke.
Width controls the stroke thickness.
For solid strokes, Color sets the stroke color.
Start Color and End Color
Section titled “Start Color and End Color”For gradient strokes, Start Color and End Color set the two colors used in the gradient.
Use gradient strokes when the frame needs more visual energy than a flat outline.
Swap Colors
Section titled “Swap Colors”Use Swap Colors to switch the gradient’s start and end colors for that state.
Gradient Angle
Section titled “Gradient Angle”Gradient Angle controls the direction of the gradient around the frame.
Cycle Speed
Section titled “Cycle Speed”Gradient fills can be animated in a cycle using Cycle Speed.
The cycle timing is based on sequence time, not clip time. This means the gradient animation can continue smoothly from one clip to the next, as long as the same Cycle Speed value is used.
This makes it possible to build a consistent animated gradient look across multiple Motion State clips without manually lining up each clip’s cycle.
Enable Glow
Section titled “Enable Glow”Turn on Enable Glow to add a stylized edge effect to the stroke.
Glow Size
Section titled “Glow Size”Glow Size controls the size of the glow.
Glow Strength
Section titled “Glow Strength”Glow Strength controls the spread/strength of the glow.
Glow Brightness
Section titled “Glow Brightness”Glow Brightness increases the visible brightness of the glow. Higher values can push the glow into a brighter, more stylized look.
Use glow sparingly for subtle separation, or push it further for a more stylized look.
How the stroke follows your content
Section titled “How the stroke follows your content”The stroke, and the glow and shadow with it, follow the visible shape of the clip:
- On opaque footage, the outline wraps the Motion State frame: the crop rectangle with its rounded or squircle corners.
- On content with transparency (text, shape layers, logos, transparent PNGs), the outline wraps the artwork itself, not the invisible clip frame around it.
There is no setting for this. Motion State reads the clip’s alpha and decides per frame, so a text clip gets a text outline and a cropped video gets a frame outline. If a transparent clip is fully opaque on some frames, those frames fall back to the frame outline.
Edge Feather and the stroke follow the same shape, so a feathered text outline stays soft against the letterforms.