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adding a keyframe when effect dissolves
I have looked in three FCP books so now I’m coming to the experts: I’m working on a project that is mostly
stills which dissolve from one to another. At this point the stills are rough scans, just placeholders until
we lock in the shots. I need to do a motion effect on almost every one and then dissolve to the next. I
cannot figure out how to add a keyframe to the last frame of the shot if it is dissolving out.. I mark the clip,
go to the outpoint but I can’t add a keyframe there if its the end of the dissolve. I’d like to stay in FCP at
this stage and not use an outside application. Thanks! -
9 Replies
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An easy way to do this is to use two video tracks and put every other clip on a different track (Clips 1, 3, 5, 7… on V1, and Clips 2, 4, 6, 8… on V2).
Overlap the ends and use opacity to dissolve (or drop on a standard dissolve).
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What parameter are you keyframing?
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G5 Dual 2Ghz <> 4GB RAM <> FCP 5.02 <> Kona 2
ATTO 42XS <> Huge Systems 4105 Fibre -
The simple workaround that I’ve come up with when this problem comes up (and believe me…sometimes I have been able to add keyframes at the end of the transition…) is to set your final keyframe off of the last frame of the transition and then just drag it over to the end. If there’s already a keyframe there, set the keyframe in the middle, delete the final keyframe, and then move it over, for example:
Scaling an image from 50% to 80%. The image is already at 50%, is 3 seconds long and has a 1 second dissolve in (A) and a 1 second dissolve out (B). Place your playhead in the center of the non-transitioning part of the clip, then open it in the viewer. The hilighted section of the viewer timeline will include the transitions. Set a key for 50% scale, then move the playhead a bit within the hilighted timeline region and set another key for 80% scale. Then place the playhead at the in-point in the viewer (begging of the transition) and using the arrow tool, hold shift and click on the first key and move it to the left so it snaps to the in point (shift will constrain your movement to one direction, so if won’t change the value of the key, just the time as long as you start moving in a L/R direction). Do the same thing for the end key, and now you have keys set at the start and end of the transitions. Kind of a wimipy workaround, but it actually goes pretty quickly.
Hope it works for you,
Ben
Ben Insler
Editor
Telemark Films -
Babs,
Keyframes and transitions are a pain. You will go much faster and have no keyframes to mess with if you get PhotoZoomPro at lyric.com.
Have a wonderful day.
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Thanks for all the advice. I’m going to try all the variations.
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Chris, thanks for the info on PhotoZoomPro. Does anyone have an opinion of this program compared
to Stagetools for moving stills around? Its the rendering time, especially at the rough cut stage when
every edit is still so fluid that is making me crazy. -
Babs,
Here’s one thread on this, there may be more, but I tested MP against PZP and there was no contest.
https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_read_post.cgi?forumid=8&postid=866079
Have a wonderful day.
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Thanks for following up Chris. I should have known this would have been discussed already. But what
about the render time on PZP? I read there was a preview (low rez) feature. Can you use that in a timeline?
Thanks! babs -
Hey Babs,
There is a low rez preview I think, although I haven’t used it. The premiere aspects of PZP are that it’s a generator and works inside FCP, rotation is built in and not a $69 upgrade, it requires no keyframes for transitions to screw with and is so fast, the render time is inconsequential.
Of the stand-alone apps, Fotomagico is really great. Blazingly fast, with it I did a 6 minute or so video from about 70 stills in about 45 minutes.
My 2
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