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Transparent Reflective Surface in Motion 4?
I’m trying to create a motion project with video drop zones that I want to use in some Final Cut projects. I’ve set up my drop zones, and I have a plane underneath the drop zones to create the reflections for the drop zones, however, I want this plane to be transparent when I bring the project into Final Cut, as if there was a piece of glass under the drop zone. So far, I’ve been unable to do this. The reflective surface always comes in as black (or whatever color I set the rectangle to), and it doesn’t matter what blend mode I have the surface set to either, as that doesn’t seem to carry into Final Cut. Is there a way to do this?
Thanks!
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6 Replies
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You might check the background color in the File Properties dialog. Also, check your Alpha settings in FCP. Just some suggestions worth looking into if you haven’t already. I haven’t worked with version 4 but that is what comes to mind.
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The alpha channel seems fine, as everything else that’s supposed to be transparent comes in that way, its just the plane I’m using as the reflective surface doesn’t. For example, I tried setting the plane to pure black, then set its blend mode to add. In theory, that should make the black effectively transparent against the background. If I put in a background in the motion project, I get the effect I want, but if I take out that background, then import the project as a template into FCP, the black surface just shows up as black, no matter what’s is blend mode is set to. It’s like FCP just ignores it.
What I really need is a way to effectively set the fill color of the plane to transparent, but if I cut the opacity of the plane to try and achieve that, the reflections just disappear along with the color.
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Don’t use a blend mode as that won’t translate back to FCP. Instead, there is a checkbox for reflection only in the Reflection parameter. Choose that and see if it works for you.
Andy
https://www.timesavertutorials.com
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The only Reflection only option I can find has to do with whether or not something casts a reflection, so that the original object can be transparent and you only see its reflection. What I’m looking for is a way to make the actual reflective surface transparent, as if it was made of glass, and I can’t seem to do that.
Oddly enough, the old cloning the object trick from Motion 3 to get a “reflection” does what I’m looking for, more or less, but it has it’s own issues that prevent me from using that. I was really hoping when you set the fill color of the reflective surface that I could just turn down the opacity and still have the reflection, but nope, the reflection disappears at that point as well. Any other ideas?
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You have two choices. Either import whatever background you’re wanting to composite into Motion where the blend modes will work, or use the faked technique involving clones.
Andy
https://www.timesavertutorials.com
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Unfortunately, I think you’re right. I was hoping to find a way to do what I was looking for, but it just doesn’t seem possible. Thanks.
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