Sharing scenes
A scene can leave your computer in two ways: as a .motion file you send to someone, or on Motion Hub, where anyone with Motion can find it. Either way, the person at the other end gets the whole scene, with its pictures, videos, models and pages inside, and decides for themselves when to use it.
Save a .motion file
In Studio, click Publish, then Save as .motion… on the Save as a .motion file card. Pick where to save it. You can also press Ctrl+K and choose Export a Motion file.
A .motion file is one file with everything the scene needs:
- the scene itself: its layers, effects, materials, particle systems, timeline, logic and offered settings
- the files it uses, and only those: pictures, videos, models, fonts, web pages
- its baked shaders, so it starts drawing at once
- a small preview picture, for the library, and for the Hub until it has drawn its own; a scene showing a page from a website keeps it on the Hub too, since the Hub draws without the network (Publishing)
Files in the scene's folder that nothing uses are left out, so the file is usually smaller than the folder. Studio saves the scene first, and when it's done says how big the file is and which files take the most room.
Or a .zip
Save folder as .zip…, on the same card, saves the scene's folder as it is. Use it when you want the files themselves: to look inside, or to keep everything, used or not. Motion can bring in a .zip of a scene too, but a .motion file is the one to send.
Send it
It's one file. Send it however you send files: a message, an email, a shared folder, a USB stick. Anyone with Motion can open it.
Open one
In Motion Player, either:
- click Add, then A video, picture or scene file…, and pick it, or
- drag the file onto the Motion window.
The scene comes into your library and its page opens. Bringing a scene in doesn't put it on your screens: you choose when, and where, the same as any other scene.
What Motion checks
A .motion file is safe to open from a stranger. Before Motion reads the scene, it checks the file is whole and hasn't been changed along the way, and that nothing in it is bigger than it says. The files inside have names, not paths, so nothing can be written outside the scene's own folder.
A scene can still ask for things. If it reaches websites, Motion asks you before it plays: allow, refuse or put off each one. Nothing is changed until you choose Show it, as chosen.
If part of a scene couldn't be brought over exactly, Motion tells you, and writes what in IMPORT-NOTES.txt in the scene's folder.
Motion files has more about the format: what's in one, and what Motion can open besides.
Motion Hub, in short
Motion Hub is where people publish scenes for everyone who has Motion.
- To publish one: in Studio's Publish page, fill in a title, a description and tags, and click Publish. You'll need to be signed in. Publishing to Motion Hub has the details, and how to send a new version later.
- To find one: in Motion Player, click Motion Hub. Browse, search, and bring in what you like. As with a file, bringing one in doesn't apply it; you decide. Motion Hub in the app has more.
The Hub checks every scene as it's published. It takes scenes made from layers in Studio; hand-written scenes, with their own code running outside Motion's sandbox, aren't shared there. What a scene does (moves to sound, plays sound, follows the pointer, reads the web, reads sensors) is shown on its page before you bring it in.
A scene that reads sensors never carries a token: it lists the sensors it listens to, and whoever puts it on their desktop picks whose sensors feed it, in Motion Player's Settings › Sensors and on the scene's page. Sharing your own sensors with someone is done there too, with Share my sensors (The Sensors page), never by publishing a scene.
Last changed 2 November 2026. Something wrong here? Tell us.