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Keyframe oddities?
I just finished my first project entirely in FCP X. I’ve been using FCPX since it’s release, but doing projects that involved multiple programs (along with FCPX). This was an experiment to force it all into FCPX.
Anyway, had major keyframe problems in FCPX. Was trying to keyframe two objects together. Bottom layer was a still graphic that filled full frame. Top layer was a graphic (round object) with an alpha channel. I set keyframes to move the bottom layer right to left. Then I set keyframes on the upper alpha graphic to bring it in mid-way and keyframe it to the end. In playback, the top graphic (round object) went in and out of registration over the round object in the lower graphic. Played with this forever… adding keyframes to tweak, etc. Never could get it to maintain registration. Oddly, it went out of registration to the right and to the left slightly. Very odd.
Took the same two graphics in FCP 7 and had it working in under two minutes. Two keyframes on each (start and end positions) was all it took.
In the end, to get it working in FCPX, I exported the bottom graphic out to video, and then keyframed the alpha graphic above it. All it took was two keyframes on the upper graphic, which is all it should have taken.
I realize that keyframes are not FCPX’s strong suit… after all, we still can’t even use them on the color correction filter (what’s up with that), but has anyone else had these keyframe issues?
Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.” – Winston Churchill
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6 Replies
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The Keyframes ease in and out, so you can’t match up in the middle. You’d have to keyframe them together at start, then move them as a unit (highlight both and adjust x and y in inspector) to the end point. Then dissolve or keyframe the opacity of the one you want to bring in inthe middle.
Or compound clip them together, and animate that. But within the compound keyframe or dissolve the second clip in from transparent.
FCP 7s keyframing was linear by default so you could do it the way you wanted in there.
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Bret’s got it right, Mitch.
Keyframes in X are arguably “more sophisticated” in that they default to incoming and outgoing speed ramps to smooth motion. This makes “most” movements that are key framed very much aesthetically better looking – but it also means that you can’t treat them like you treated keyframes in Legacy.
I think the X code for keyframes was lifted essentially from the Motion 5 code since they work the same way in each with “ease in and ease out” engaged by default. It takes some getting used to.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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Can you turn off that default?
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I derived that the keyframing was lifted completely from 7. Everything seems to work exactly the same, except that ease in and out is on by default, and there is also an ease in / out on the scaling. It’s the latter one, the scaling, that screws it all up. You can make the position keyframes linear, just right click on them in the viewer in transform mode. But the scaling ones are as they are. In either case, if you want to do a basic scale and position move, you end up with some sort of whacked out scurve. In some apps the answer to that is to animate the anchor point instead of the position, but the scaling easing still wreaks havoc. I found that the best thing I can do if I want to animate the scale and position (like ken burns, but er… better, that effect is useless) then I just put (not animate) the anchor point where I want the zoom to occur, and animate the scale.
Also, the crop tool (in crop mode) doesn’t seem to have any ease in or out at all. It’s basically the same thing as the ken burn effect, just without the annoying easing, plus you can keyframe it all you want. Mix that with rotation from the transform tool and you can usually get what you want if you’re just trying to throw some logos or stills around.
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Yes, I caught that. I turned off the ease/in ease/out and made them linear. It still didn’t work. That’s what surprised me, which is why I posted the question here. I still think something else is at play… Perhaps this scaling thing you mentioned?
Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.” – Winston Churchill
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[Mitch Ives] “but has anyone else had these keyframe issues?”
https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/344/6708
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