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Could Adobe (or someone else) adopt magnetic timeline features in a tracked timeline?
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[Michael Gissing] “I just think it would be smart to allow an editor to change the display in X to show clips arranged by sub roles and roles to then allow automated audio processing on each, just like a track, bus and mix display on a DAW.
“I really think this is a subject that is on Apple’s radar. I also think (hope) they’re more concerned with getting the core app to be bulletproof performance-wise before they tear into the timeline.
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~ My FCPX Babbling blog ~
~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~ -
Michael & Charlie: concur.
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[Jeff Markgraf] “X has a linear time clock, as does every other editor: the sequence time. Whether it starts at 00:00 or 1:00:00 or whatever, it goes forward. Period. Any clip on the primary by necessity starts at xx:xx and ends at xx:xx. Until you move it, whether by rippling the edit or positioning the clip with the P tool. Same as Avid or anyone else. A connected clip also exists at an absolute time. The fact that it is “connected” means nothing in terms of where the clip lives on the linear timeline. Until you move it.”
Jeff, I don’t really disagree with any of this, except the “until you move it” part. More on that in a minute.
I’m not arguing that absolute time doesn’t exist with FCPX, just that it’s only indirectly accessed. I’m not aruging that there are cuts you can make on an open timeline that you cannot somehow make on an FCPX project, but rather that the data model and toolset change the way you do this. It’s a subtle difference.
In FCP7, a clip’s properties include duration and timeline in point as properties. In FCPX, a clip’s properties include duration, but exclude timeline in point.
In FCP7, if you want to start a 60-frame clip at frame 30, you just put it there. To anthropomorphize, the clip says “I start at frame 30 on the timeline, and I am 60 frames long.”
In FCPX, clips in the primary are an ordered list. The second clip comes immediately after the first clip (or gap). That clip doesn’t start at, say, frame 30 in the project because it has a timeline in point there. It starts at frame 30 because the first clip starts at frame 0 and has a duration of 30 frames. There are no explicit timeline in and out points (other than the first frame — the Singularity). To anthropomorphize, the clip says “I come after the first clip in the sequence, wherever that ends, and I am 60 frames long.”
Connected clips do have an explicit time property — the anchor point (which may be offset from the clip’s own in point), which refers to an absolute time in the primary clip container to which it’s connected (not the actual media itself, not the timeline). “I connect to the 45th frame of clip X, wherever it may be.”
You cannot put a clip at an arbitrary point in time without FCPX creating a gap to hold it in place: that’s because the absolute time of clips are derived from the primary/secondary structure.
FCPX’s reflow, always pulling down and to the left as far as it can, until it is stopped by another clip, gap or anchor, may as well be constant.
The magnetic timeline is not a trick or gimmick for re-arranging absolutely-placed clips in time. It’s a fundamentally different model for building a timeline: one based on relationships instead of temporal position. You get the FCPX rearranging behavior “for free” as it flows naturally from the data model.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
[Walter Soyka] “In FCP7, a clip’s properties include duration and timeline in point as properties. In FCPX, a clip’s properties include duration, but exclude timeline in point.
“Are you talking about as reflected in the XML, or what do you mean by “data model” in your post?
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[Jeremy Garchow] “Are you talking about as reflected in the XML, or what do you mean by “data model” in your post?”
Yes, XML output does reflect the applications’ native data models.
I think the definition of a data model and my views on how an application’s data model affects its engineering and its users require additional explanation. I owe you a post on this.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
[Walter Soyka] “Yes, XML output does reflect the applications’ native data models.
I think the definition of a data model and my views on how an application’s data model affects its engineering and its users require additional explanation. I owe you a post on this”
I just wanted to make sure you were taking about XML and not some sort of inter SQL or Lite or whatever is inside Fcpx.
I’m no xml wizard, but it doesn’t take a whole lot to read them.
I’ll await your other post, but I agree that the xml does reflect the data model, and fcpxml in particular does reflect that controling the primary controls time, everything else branches from it, at that time. And while the connected clips aren’t given a time of their own, they are related to time through the primary clip, even if that clip is a gap (or blank).
The primary storyline is time. It is the first thing I try to tell people about fcpx. I think it is hard to grasp for some people, as it is different (to yours and David L’s point). But it’s not wrong And once that concept is understood, editing with X becomes exponentially faster to people. Not faster than other NLEs, even though I find to be faster, but faster in how a new fcpx user understands the timeline, and subsequently uses fcpx.
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[Walter Soyka] “The magnetic timeline is not a trick or gimmick for re-arranging absolutely-placed clips in time. It’s a fundamentally different model for building a timeline: one based on relationships instead of temporal position. You get the FCPX rearranging behavior “for free” as it flows naturally from the data model.”
Exactly!
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David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
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[David Lawrence] “Exactly!”
So, why is this ‘bad’ instead of simply a different way to look at it?
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Hi Walter.
Couple of points…
1. Not sure I like the beard. 😉
2. Most of what I hear you saying flows from one of your last statements:
[Walter Soyka] “You cannot put a clip at an arbitrary point in time without FCPX creating a gap to hold it in place: that’s because the absolute time of clips are derived from the primary/secondary structure. “
All NLEs put these gaps into the timeline. X just explicitly renders it visually as a gap. See Avid, for example. The gaps between clips have no visual boundary lines (a box, if you will) that mark it as a clip. Yet you can select that gap and move it just as you can a clip. You can trim it. You can use it to overwrite part of another clip, or have another clip overwrite it. You can even add an effect to it, making it a kind of adjustment layer, with an in and out point.
[Walter Soyka] “the clip says “I come after the first clip in the sequence, wherever that ends, and I am 60 frames long.””
Only inasmuch as the default rippling behavior is not defeated with the P tool.
[Walter Soyka] “”I connect to the 45th frame of clip X, wherever it may be.””
True. But since clip X has an absolute time, so does the connected clip. In fact the connected clip has two ways to describe itself: in relation to the clip to which it is connected, and in relation to the absolute time as marked by the sequence time.
[Walter Soyka] “It’s a fundamentally different model for building a timeline: one based on relationships instead of temporal position. “
For the reasons stated above, I see the addition of connected clips and their dual-mode relationships as an addition to the conventional timeline, not a different kind of timeline.
As far as the rearranging behavior, I see it as a novel way to keep the benefits of rippling without the destructive behavior of overwriting.
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[Jeff Markgraf] “All NLEs put these gaps into the timeline. X just explicitly renders it visually as a gap.”
Gaps aren’t just visible, or even just functional (like normal Avid filler). They are structural (somewhat like Avid in one-track heads mode, but even then, not really). A lot more on this when my data models post is ready.
In the meantime, here’s an experiment to show the difference between absolute time placement and relative time placement. Create an edit with a clip that starts at 15:00 absolute time and never moves, no matter what you do its parent or antecedent clips/gaps. How do you accomplish this?
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn]
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