AnnexMotion – User Manual

1. Overview

AnnexMotion is the video editing and motion app of the AnnexCREATE suite: editing, keyframe animation, titles, audio, and color in a single document, with no round-trip to a second app. It is built for freelancers, self-employed professionals, and small agencies who produce explainer videos, social clips, and animated graphics in their own branding.

Key benefits at a glance:

• Everything in one document: multi-track timeline, keyframe animation, titles, audio mixing, and color correction work together – including a curve editor, mixer, and scopes.
• What you see is what gets exported: preview and export run through the same Metal custom compositor.
• Audio intelligence as data: auto-ducking, beat markers, and loudness normalization (−14 LUFS, EBU R128) produce editable results instead of black-box effects.
• Branding built in: brand kits control title fonts and colors directly in the inspector.

AnnexMotion is part of the AnnexCREATE "Creative OS" and shares the design system, brand kits, settings, and diagnostics with the other apps.

2. Installation & Activation

AnnexMotion is installed and managed through AnnexHub:

1. Open AnnexHub and select AnnexMotion in the Apps area.
2. Install or update – updates are shown in AnnexHub with changelogs.
3. Activate your license in AnnexHub under Licenses: online with a license key, or offline via a signed activation file.

Offline-first: AnnexMotion runs without a server connection. Editing, preview, animation, audio, color, and export all work fully offline; all documents and media stay local on your Mac.

3. Basic Workflow

The typical path from raw footage to a finished film:

1. Open a project: load an .axmotion document via File ▸ Open… (⌘O), or start with a new document.
2. Import media: drag video and audio files into the media library; the app detects duration, frame rate, and track types automatically, and video with audio lands as a linked A/V clip.
3. Edit: place clips on the timeline, cut with the blade at the playhead, trim at clip edges (with ripple), and insert transitions from the transition browser when needed.
4. Animate and title: create title clips with animator presets, set keyframes for position, scale, rotation, and opacity, and fine-tune them in the curve editor.
5. Mix audio: adjust level and fades per clip, duck music under dialogue with auto-ducking, and normalize loudness to −14 LUFS.
6. Grade: grade with Lift/Gamma/Gain or a .cube LUT and check the result in the scopes panel.
7. Add subtitles: create captions on dedicated tracks or import them via SRT – they are burned into preview and export.
8. Export: set the In/Out range (keys I/O) and render via File ▸ Export… as MP4 or MOV; save the project with File ▸ Save… (⌘S).

4. Core Features

Timeline and Edit Operations

The timeline works frame-accurately on rational time and knows three track types: video, animation (titles/graphics/vectors), and audio. It also offers a time ruler, a marker track (default/todo/beat), zoom, and an In/Out export range. Cut with the blade at the playhead (cuts all tracks including linked A/V clips), trim at clip edges with ripple; magnetic tracks close gaps automatically. Per track you have mute, solo, and lock.

Media Import and Media Library

On import the app probes every file via AVFoundation: duration, frame rate, and contained track types are detected, and video with audio lands as a linked A/V clip (shared link group, audio role). The media library shows duration plus video/audio badges per item.

Playback Preview

The preview runs via AVPlayer with a custom compositor: play/pause with the space bar, frame steps forward/back, and jump to start via the transport bar. The playhead syncs in both directions; a frame cache speeds up scrubbing and scopes. Offline media is flagged as such in the viewer.

Metal Compositing, Transitions, and Effects

Preview and export use the same Metal renderer: transform (position, scale, rotation, opacity), blend modes Normal/Multiply/Screen/Add, and track mattes (luma/alpha per video track, selectable in the inspector). Available transitions are Cross Dissolve, Dip to Black/White, Wipe (four directions), and Push (left/right) with adjustable duration; the transition browser in the sidebar shows a live preview on hover. Up to four effects apply per clip: Color Adjust (brightness/contrast/saturation), Pixelate, Vignette, and Grain – with sliders and an on/off toggle in the inspector.

Keyframes, Curve Editor, and Motion Paths

Animatable properties are position X/Y, scale, rotation, and opacity, with easings (linear, easeIn/Out/InOut). In the curve editor you drag keyframes, create them by double-clicking, and pick easings from the context menu; the inspector offers keyframe diamonds with jump buttons. A motion path overlay in the viewer shows the movement with draggable points.

Titles and Brand Kits

Title clips on animation tracks carry text, size, font, and color and are rendered via CoreText with alpha. Animator presets (Fade In/Out, Slide In/Out, Scale Pop, Typewriter per character/word) are baked as real, editable keyframes. Link a brand kit to the document via checkbox, and its font whitelist controls the title font selection while its colors appear as clickable swatches in the title inspector.

Audio, Mixer, and Audio Intelligence

Per clip you set level and fade-in/out; volume automation runs as an envelope and is carried into playback and export. Audio roles (dialogue/music/ambience/effects) structure the mix, and the mixer panel shows one row per audio track with role, mute/solo, level, and an approximate meter. Three analyses are available from the inspector: auto-ducking (music is lowered under dialogue – as editable volume keyframes), beat markers from waveform analysis, and loudness normalization to −14 LUFS with a true EBU R128 measurement.

Color and Scopes

Color correction offers the Lift/Gamma/Gain wheel trio (R/G/B sliders per clip) and import of .cube LUTs (cached as a Metal 3D texture). The scopes panel shows the luma histogram and waveform of the current frame.

Speed and Captions

A constant retime is possible per clip (0.1–8×, 0.25–4× in the UI); linked A/V clips stay in sync. Captions live on dedicated, overlap-capable tracks; SRT import and export are built in. Subtitles are burned into preview and export as an overlay (bottom center, safe area).

Motion Behaviors

The sidebar tab Behaviors offers preset animations: Fade In/Out, Slide, Scale Pop, Orbit, Wiggle and Throw. Drag a behavior onto a clip or click it while the clip is selected. The inspector shows parameters for direction, strength and duration.

Behaviors are baked into real keyframes but remain editable as a MotionBehavior object. You can re-bake or remove a behavior at any time; previously generated keyframes are replaced or deleted accordingly.

Limits: Behaviors affect a clip's transformable properties (position, scale, rotation, opacity). If keyframes already exist on the same properties, baking overwrites them – the inspector warns before overwriting.

Linked Objects

During media import the dialog offers Copy into Project or Link. Linked media and .axdesign files remain outside the .axmotion container and carry a LinkedObject entry. You can recognise them by a status badge in the media library.

A file watcher detects external changes to linked .axdesign files and triggers a composition rebuild. The Update and Embed commands are available via menu or alert. The status (ok, modified, missing, embedded) is queried per medium or clip.

Limits: Linked media missing when the project opens are marked offline; export aborts with a list of missing files until you relink or embed them.

Proxy Workflow (Foundation)

On request the app generates reduced H.264/MP4 working copies (longest edge ≤ 960 px, no upscaling) in the caches directory. The preview can switch between original and proxy; export always uses the original. A dedicated proxy UI does not exist yet.

Menu Bar and Keyboard Shortcuts

• File ▸ Open… – open an .axmotion document (⌘O)
• File ▸ Save… – save via panel (⌘S)
• File ▸ Export… – video export (no keyboard shortcut)
• AnnexMotion ▸ Settings… (⌘,)
• Transport bar: play/pause (space bar), set In point (I), set Out point (O)

Settings and Localization

Settings combine the suite options (theme/color scheme, diagnostics, privacy). The interface is localized in German, English, Spanish, French, and Italian.

5. Formats & Interoperability

Native format .axmotion (format version 6, since 01 Aug 2026): a ZIP container like the rest of the suite — meta.json with the format version, document.json holding tracks, clips, keyframes, effects, grading, captions, markers, proxies, and brand kit links, plus assets/ with the embedded media files. A project is therefore self-contained: send the file and it arrives complete — previously the media sat in a folder next to it and went missing on the way.

Older files still open. The path upwards runs in single steps from the prototype to the container; the former private counter schemaVersion has been merged into it. A file from a newer build of the app is not loaded halfway but refused with its format version named — it is left untouched.

Missing media: if a project points at files that are no longer there, the app tells you at export time which ones are missing and offers “Locate Media…”: choose the folder they live in now and the references are relinked.

Import: video and audio via AVFoundation (including QuickTime, MP4, MP3, WAV), AnnexDesign documents .axdesign as vector layers, SRT subtitles, and .cube LUTs (per clip).

Export: MP4 (H.264), MOV (H.264), and MOV (Apple ProRes 422) through the same Metal compositor as the preview; range export via the In/Out points; captions are burned in; SRT export of caption tracks.

Working with the suite:

• AnnexDesign: .axdesign files sit on animation tracks as live vector layers – rasterized through the real Design export pipeline and cached. When the file changes externally, the preview rebuilds; use the context menu "Edit in AnnexDesign" to open the file directly.
• Brand kits: fonts and colors for titles from the shared library.
• On save, the document is written to the shared version index and therefore appears in AnnexHub's central search.

iCloud/cloud sync is not wired.

6. MCP Control

AnnexMotion can be controlled through the MCP host, which runs in AnnexHub (JSON-RPC 2.0 via STDIO) and is started from there. This allows AI agents to automate the app's actions.

Suite tools (for all apps):

• list_apps – lists all available Annex apps with installation status and version.
• open_app – opens an Annex app by its ID.
• open_document – opens a file in the given Annex app.
• get_active_document – returns information about an app's active document.
• get_license_status – returns the license status of an Annex product.
• search_assets – searches the central asset library by name or tags.

App-specific tool:

• motion.open_document – opens an AnnexMotion project (.axmotion) in AnnexMotion.

Skills (suite-wide): suite.discover, brandkit.apply.

7. Diagnostics & Privacy

AnnexMotion logs errors and actions locally via AnnexLog into rotating JSON log files under ~/Library/Logs/AnnexCREATE/AnnexMotion/, mirrored to os_log (subsystem com.annexcreative.annexmotion). Logs are written with a PII filter. Diagnostics are enabled by default during the development phase and can be switched off in Settings (Privacy); nothing is transmitted.

Telemetry runs strictly on opt-in (default: off) and can be toggled at runtime in Settings. All media and documents stay local on your Mac.

8. FAQ

Do I need an internet connection to edit? No. Editing, preview, animation, audio, color, and export all run fully offline.

Does the preview show exactly what gets exported? Yes. Preview and export use the same Metal custom compositor.

Are there automatic subtitles via speech recognition? Not yet. The interface is prepared, but the speech recognition engine is not connected yet. Until then, SRT import and export are available.

Can I undo changes? Undo and autosave are not implemented yet. Save your project regularly via File ▸ Save… (⌘S).

Does export use the proxy files? No. Proxies only speed up the preview; export always renders from the original media.

Can I animate vector graphics? Yes. AnnexDesign documents (.axdesign) sit on animation tracks as live vector layers and are rasterized per frame. Changes in AnnexDesign update the layer.

Are subtitles delivered as a separate file? Captions are burned into the picture in preview and export. Additionally, you can export the caption tracks as an SRT file.

Which export formats are available? MP4 (H.264), MOV (H.264), and MOV (Apple ProRes 422), each through the same render path as the preview; the export range is set via the In/Out points.