Cross Dissolve problem!

[Kevin P mcauliffe]

Hey Taron,

O.K., let’s start with the video. In this case, you’re right, the Dissolve won’t apply for some unknown reason. In that case, just keyframe it. I just did a quick tip on keyframing in FCPX. Check it out here:

https://library.creativecow.net/articles/mcauliffe_kevin/Quick-Tip-FCPX-Keyframe-Animation.php

As for the audio question, first, select your two video clips, right click on each one of them, and then select “Break Apart Clip Items”.

This will separate the audio and video. Now, simply grab and drag whichever audio clip you want to overlap, over the other audio clip. Now, you’ll see a “bar” on your audio that tells you that your audio is at 0db. Simply hold “Option” on the keyboard, and you can now quickly add a keyframe to your audio track. Now, simply add another one, and set the value to 0. Hope this helps.

Kevin P McAuliffe
Creative COW Trainer
kevinpmcauliffe@gmail.com
Twitter: @kpmcauliffe

[George Manzanilla]

is there a way to have it automatically add clips to the timeline in the “broken apart” state?

—-
george manzanilla
rundfunk media
http://www.rundfunk.com
vimeo.com/rundfunk

[Taron Ghazaryan]

Thanks for the help! I was hoping I wouldn’t have to keyframe it but looks like it’s the only option for now. Wish they would bring back the simple fades

[Robert Lindqvist]

same happens if you start with a music file and want to add video to it after. I had to start with a video clip and THEN add the audio file to get the video in the “centre” track to be able to add crossdisolves.

/Rob

[Dan Hayes]

[Kevin P McAuliffe] “As for the audio question, first, select your two video clips, right click on each one of them, and then select “Break Apart Clip Items”.
This will separate the audio and video. Now, simply grab and drag whichever audio clip you want to overlap, over the other audio clip. Now, you’ll see a “bar” on your audio that tells you that your audio is at 0db. Simply hold “Option” on the keyboard, and you can now quickly add a keyframe to your audio track. Now, simply add another one, and set the value to 0. Hope this helps.
“
Is this really the easiest way to add a cross dissolve between two audio clips(Shift+E in FCP7) in FCPX?

[Nick Toth]

You can add dissolves to an “overlay” (or other effects). Don’t have it in front of me but I think I made it a compound clip and then it would accept the effect. There are a lot of things that are there that people are saying can’t be done. It takes a little digging because it’s all new. So far (after a few hours) I like what I’m seeing. Kevin’s tutorials are very helpful.

[David Robinson]

Any clip that is not in the Primary Storyling (the darker gray section of the timeline) needs to have the command Create Storyline (Command G) applied to it before you can add transitions to the clip. Not sure why?

[Jean-françois Robichaud]

“Any clip that is not in the Primary Storyling (the darker gray section of the timeline) needs to have the command Create Storyline (Command G) applied to it before you can add transitions to the clip. Not sure why?”

That’s exactly it. Connected clips are for single elements to be linked to the main story line. If you want to have any kind of interactions between 2 or ore connected clips, they must be turned into a seconday storyline. Think of it as creating a track that only spans part of the sequence. It’s actually quite intuitive when you start getting used to it. When you try to use FCP X with the standard editing paradigm, you’ll keep hitting hurdles and get quite frustrated at its apparent limitations (talking about actual timeline editing here, not about other missing features which are quite real). Once you adapt to its new timeline design its actually refreshing and in many ways simpler yet more reliable than the standard approach.

[George Manzanilla]

sounds a lot like the old “Choose Your Own Adventure” books… I see what the storyline is meant to do.

Although in many people’s work, myself included, when i do corporate work, it is less about story structure and much more about compositing and arranging layers of video together. So i might have a couple layers stacked together including video, Photoshop layers, text generators, etc… all which may have transitions between them. I don’t see that this new Timeline is really efficient for this, after all, tracks, are basically the same as photoshop layers… if you told me that photoshop Cs 6 would get rid of layers, i think you would have a lot of people questioning why?

I think in the future they should really try to make this timeline setup one of a couple options. A classic mode would probably ease peoples fears about this new timeline and allow people to work efficiently in another way.

—-
george manzanilla
rundfunk media
http://www.rundfunk.com
vimeo.com/rundfunk

[Jean-françois Robichaud]

I also do a lot of videos where I need to assemble multiple layered components. I think it would be well suited to a compound clip, though there would be different ways to approach it using a secondary storyline or simply connected clips. I would definetely go with the compound clip, as it’s a tidier approach IMO, but others might approach it differently. I can’t see how FCP 7 would make it better. I think one of the largest misconceptions regarding FCP X is that it forces you to work one way and that’s it. Through my own experimentation, I’m starting to realise that it’s very versatile. Just reading the new FCP X forum is a testament to this; early adopters are finding varied ways to do specific things and that just proves the misconception to be false.