Photography
Alight Motion
Keyframe-driven motion graphics and animation editing on iPhone, iPad and Mac, free with a watermark.
Get the app
Opens the official store page
- Developer
- BENDING SPOONS OPERATIONS SPA
- Score
- 4.4
- Downloads
- 10K+ ratings
- Age
- Rated 4+
- Version
- 6.2.60
- Price
- Free
Screenshots
About this app
Motion design on a phone is a narrow field, and Alight Motion is one of the few apps that takes it seriously. It handles layered animation, motion graphics, visual effects and video compositing on iPhone, iPad and Mac, with vector as well as bitmap graphics editable directly on the device. Every setting can be keyframed, and easing curves come as presets or can be drawn by hand. Over 160 effect building blocks combine into more complex looks, and there is velocity-based motion blur, grouping, masking and colour adjustment. Layers can be parented to one another to rig character joints, and virtual cameras pan, zoom and add focus blur or fog. Projects export to MP4, GIF, PNG sequences and stills, and whole project packages can be shared with other users. Custom fonts are supported. The free version puts a watermark on exports. Paid memberships remove it and add a library of premium effects.
Alight Motion: the full guide
What the app is
Few phone apps attempt proper motion design. Alight Motion does: layered animation, visual effects, compositing and motion graphics, with both vector and bitmap graphics editable on the device, across iPhone, iPad and Mac. Every property can be keyframed and eased with presets or a hand-drawn curve.
The toolkit is deep. More than 160 effect building blocks can be stacked, there's velocity-based motion blur, masking, grouping and colour work, layers can be parented to rig a character, and virtual cameras handle pans, zooms and focus blur. Output goes to MP4, GIF, PNG sequences or stills, and whole projects can be shared as packages. The free version watermarks exports.
How it works day to day
A session feels more like desktop motion work than phone editing. You build a composition from shapes, text and imported clips, set keyframes on position, scale and opacity, then tune the easing until the movement looks right. Effects get layered, a mask hides what shouldn't show, and a virtual camera adds the final push-in.
Rendering a few seconds can take a while on a phone, so people tend to work in short pieces: a title card, a logo sting, an animated sticker. Project packages get swapped with other users as presets, which is how much of the community learns.
Why people look for it
People making animated edits for social video are the ones who search for it by name, often to open project packages shared by other users. Serious hobbyists want keyframes and easing curves on a device they already own. The 4.4 rating, lower than the editing category's average, likely reflects the watermark and the learning curve.
Look and feel
Expect a dark, timeline-based interface with a layer list, a property panel and keyframe markers, which the five screenshots presumably show. It's filed under Photography but behaves like a stripped-down desktop compositor, so density is high and the touch targets are small. The visual style is functional rather than friendly; this is a tool that assumes you'll put in the time.
