FCP6 with Motion 3 Not Upto Snuff

[Tom Daigon]

Message above should start with “I realize”

[Colin Mcquillan]

[lasvideo] “I then sent it to Motion 3 to ad some titles and efx. Problem 1 was the transition from clip to clip was gone. Problem 2 the aspect ratio on the still was wrong (it filled the frame), but the frame size of the slomo clip was fine. Problem 3, even after rendering the 2 clips in Motion, they only palyed back at 2 fps.”

Haven’t played with FCS2, but in FSC1 this is normal. When ever you HL clips in the timeline and “send to” motion, all effects and clip mod’s added in FCP are striped. At first I found this annoying, but not as annoying as other issues I’ve had with round tripping, so i switched to exorting .mov’s from FCP, then importing the mov into motion, and vice versa to get back into FCP.

would be cool if there was two “send to” options,, one that keeps paramater mod’s and effects,, and another that sends clean as it does with FCS1.

[Shane Ross]

There are many of us who use this daily…and with the stress of using it with the client sitting right there waiting for instant results. And going back and forth between Motion and FCP…and Motion works fine. But those are instances where the people using the software are VERY familiar with how it works. Please…no offense, but as you stated, you are new to this software…used to editing on Avid. And I have no doubt you are skilled on an Avid. I used to be, but now I am skilled with FCP…and getting there with Motion. I went back to an Avid and it took me a while to get my stride back because the way things work are VERY different. Motion is a different beast than anything I worked with before…even After Effects. It will take a bit of getting used to.

I recommend playing with it a while before using it in a high stress, “client watching you as you edit” situations. I played with FCP for a good year before I did that…and Motion a year as well.

It is you that aren’t ready…not FCP Studio 2. Only in terms of being familiar with the product.

Shane

Littlefrog Post
http://www.lfhd.net

[Chris Borjis]

My beef with FCP 6 is not being able to render .motn files in a reasonable time.

12 minutes to render an 8-second, 2 layered, animated slate that took 4 seconds on FCP 5.04

I use After Effects mainly, so nothing different there.

[Zak Mussig]

The good way to do what you want, within the documented limitations of FCP to Motion round tripping, is to remap the timing of the clip rather that dissolving to a still.
Change the timing to to variable and add and tweak some keyframes so that the clip plays at 100% speed until the frame you want to freeze. From that fram on make it flat line and you have yourself a still. You can even set the keyframe to smooth, which will add a handle and let you “soften” the transition.
Send that to Motion, and you’ll see that you’ve kept everything, and that you can now render it with Apple rockin’ optical flow technology.

Like Shane said, you just need some more time to get comfortable with how FCP and Motion actually work instead of how you think they should. I never really learned Avid because FCP made sense to me and I found Avid counterintuitive… different strokes. We’ve all had “It should work this way” moments. The only thing that matters is ho it does work.

Zak

[Tom Daigon]

Shane….your points are well taken, but spend a little time working with the new Motion 3
(using embedded projects in FCP6) and chances are your will discover what me and Boris and many others have discovered….there is serious problems with the render times of Motion 3 compared to Motion 2. Search this list for the documentation . If your expereince can shed light on why projects that usually render in 3 minutes take12 minutes now, I would appreciate the enlightenment. Granted, knowledge and expereince will enhance my use of this software….but sometimes new versions can be flawed.

[Tom Daigon]

Thanks Zak. I appreciate your insightful alternatives to my appreciate. FYI, the Smoothcam I applied in FCP made the transition to Motion 3 just fine, it was just the frame size on the still that got screwed up.The others issue that was problematic was the currectly documentated problem me and others are having with excessive renders with M3 that werent present with M2.
Yes, education is the key to comfort with this software…which is why I am spending a year working with it before we decide whether it will be able to fulfill our clients expectations.

[Tom Daigon]

Thanks Zak. I appreciate your insightful alternatives to my approach. FYI, the Smoothcam I applied in FCP made the transition to Motion 3 just fine, it was just the frame size on the still that got screwed up.The others issue that was problematic was the currectly documentated problem me and others are having with excessive renders with M3 that werent present with M2.
Yes, education is the key to comfort with this software…which is why I am spending a year working with it before we decide whether it will be able to fulfill our clients expectations.

[Mark Palmos]

[Shane Ross] “It is you that aren’t ready…not FCP Studio 2. Only in terms of being familiar with the product.”

Hello Shane,

I am a PP user and have been considering moving to FCP for stability reasons. Hearing that FCP wipes timeline effects when clips are sent to Motion turns me off, i must say. I would definitely regard that as a serious flaw… there is no reason why it should have that limitation and I’m sure it will improve in future.

My main concern, and perhaps you guys know the answer… I heard FCP does not have sub-pixel rendering natively within FCP itself. Surely not? If you scale down a layer and do a gradual move from L-R, is motion sub pixel or will it have the 90’s look about it? This ia of massive concern since a lot of compositing I do is done direclty in PP and if FCP is behind in this regard, its not worth considering for me.

Thanks,
Mark.

[Rene Hazekamp]

final cut 4 didn’t have subpixel rendering, newer versions have it

Ren