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FCPX Opacity Levels – Is there a way of keeping the opacity level line on the video clips, just like the audio tracks have?
Is there a way to retain the opacity levels on video tracks in the timeline at all times (for quick and easy adjusting) rather than the inefficient process of ‘Show Video Animation’: ‘Compositing:Opacity’ etc)?
Is there a way of keeping the opacity level line on the video clips, just like the audio tracks have?
(With audio tracks, you can increase/decrease the audio level without having to ‘Expand Audio Components’.) Why do we not have the same option for video opacity (as we did in the old Final Cut Pro)?One of the annoying things is when using the blade tool on a video track, it will collapse the Video Animation tab of the [now separated] clip to the right of the cut (along with access to the clip’s opacity levels). -It’s time consuming having to constantly expand the Video Animation of a clip after each edit with the blade tool.
Keen for any advise here!
Cheers,
James -
19 Replies
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[James Orphan] “Is there a way to retain the opacity levels on video tracks in the timeline at all times (for quick and easy adjusting) rather than the inefficient process of ‘Show Video Animation’: ‘Compositing:Opacity’ etc)?”
The short answer is no. Blade tool will collapse the Animation tab, just as you can’t add new clips into the timeline with the animation tab showing. Not sure why it was designed this way, but perhaps they felt having the opacity bar out in the open like that led to too many instances of accidentally adjusting opacity when just selecting clips. I know things like that could happen fairly easily in FCP7. Regardless, it’s much harder to get to now (too hard, I know).
As advice, I’d suggest leaving your inspector open to the video tab instead of adjusting opacity in the timeline. The opacity slider is at the bottom of the video tab and is easy to get to and use. And the inspector updates depending on what clip is selected or where the playhead is (in the event nothing is selected) so you can just jump to the next clip and adjust.
Andy
https://plus.google.com/u/0/107277729326633563425/videos
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[Andy Neil] “just as you can’t add new clips into the timeline with the animation tab showing. Not sure why it was designed this way, but perhaps they felt having the opacity bar out in the open like that led to too many instances of accidentally adjusting opacity when just selecting clips. I know things like that could happen fairly easily in FCP7. Regardless, it’s much harder to get to now (too hard, I know).”
I’ve never seen this behavior. I can add clips all day long with the animation tab open.
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[Bret Williams] “I’ve never seen this behavior. I can add clips all day long with the animation tab open.
“You must be misunderstanding me then. Because you cannot mark an IN and OUT on a clip in the browser and add it to the timeline in such a way that it appears with it’s animation tab already open. Each clip is added to the timeline collapsed and if you want to see the animation tab, you have to select new clips and hit the shortcut (CTL+V). Existing clips in the timeline can have their animation tabs open when you add new clips, but the new clips won’t come in with their tabs open.
Andy
https://plus.google.com/u/0/107277729326633563425/videos
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Ah, yes I did. But why would you think you could add them with their tabs open? Nothing else in X works that way. That’s a clip by clip thing. Not a terrible idea though.
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I’m sure I knocked the opacity bar down a few times in Legacy without noticing, but I still find going to the Inspector clunky and the two step process to get to it in the timeline does slow me down a lot. The inability to control and drag keyframes in the Inspector makes adding keyframes there almost pointless to my way of thinking. (Unless you can and I still don’t know about it).
A nice feature that I have requested more than once would be a shortcut command “show opacity bar” to take you straight there. I’m sure that’s what we Show Video Animation the most for no?
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Yea a shortcut key to ‘show video opacity’ would be perfect!
Again, the old FCP already had this in place. (You could show/hide the opacity level in the timeline, just like you could show/hide the audio waveforms). I imagine this was optional to help people avoid accidentally adjusting opacity levels when selecting clips. (As was mentioned above.)I’m sure that reinstating such a useful feature would be a really easy thing for Apple to implement, and I really hope they do. Might send them a note…
Appreciate all the comments and advice! 😀
Cheers,
James -
Was there a toggle on and off command in FCP7 for Show Opacity line? I can’t remember or was it just in preferences?
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I can definitely say I hardly ever animate opacity. I do adjust it to taste in a multiple layer composite usually in conjunction with overlay or multiply modes. 99% of the time I use a dissolve to animate opacity. I utilize the animation bar to adjust Keyframes in time (usually position and scale) after I’ve added them via canvas in transform mode. I definitely wish they would add easing and bezier controls to the animation bar for other attributes other than opacity. But since they’ve mangled easing into the “smooth” control in the canvas they felt they didn’t need to? It’s all a bit of a mess for motion graphics that could be sorted out by having a send to motion command for more complex animation like we had in legacy.
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I like to use the fade in handles a lot when making little title stings. Small scale compositing – nice to have the title fade in and out when it’s on a different layer.
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And why wouldn’t you use a dissolve that has both a hot key and the ability to numerically change duration or drag out the duration all without ever opening the inspector?
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