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Keyframes on PSD layers – how to time them?
I have a layered PSD as a background greenscreen image. It pans and zooms around as the host speaks. Meanwhile I need layered elements to turn on and off, which I’m trying to do with keyframing and opacity. My problem is that when I click into the PSD item like a compound clip, its timeline starts at 0:00:00, and the position of my pointer is not preserved from where it was on the main timeline. I’m having to do a lot of guessing, popping between the main timeline and the compound clip timeline, moving the keyframes, then switching back to see if they line up with the host’s talk. Any suggestion for how I can better manage keyframe timing?
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6 Replies
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This is definitely a problem. A couple ideas-
Don’t use a compound clip if you don’t need to.
Copy and paste the audio into the compound clip temporarily.
Use duration (in to out) to calculate where Keyframes should be in the compound. -
Place the layered PSD file on your timeline and trim to length. Hit Shift Comand G (Break apart clip items). Each PSD layer will be in its own layer. Apply all effects timed to audio or other video as necessary. Compound the PSD layers when you’re done if you want. I don’t find this necessary usually.
anickt
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Thank you, Nick. I was about to try Bret’s suggestion when your reply came in — I had no idea it was possible to view the layers of a PSD in the timeline! Seems so obvious now.
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Here’s a new one — I did as you described, got my background all panned and zoomed and keyframed and happy, and then hit “break apart clip items” to do my opacity keyframes. As soon as I selected that, I lost all the previous movement. The clip went to a large default zoomed-way-in view.
I’m now going to try it the other way around and see if that works better: break it apart first, then do the opacity keyframes, then convert it into the compound clips for the panning & zooming. Will report.
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Trying it the other way around produced the same behavior. Whether it’s a problem with my PSDs or a problem with FCPX, the layers do not like retaining their properties when split apart and/or compounded together.
I solved it by saving all the PSD layers as individual PNGs. Layered them on the timeline, started and stopped them when I wanted each to appear and disappear, then compounded them and applied my pans and zooms. Worked a charm, and because the individual PNGs were so much smaller than the huge PSD I even had improved performance.
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You don’t have to compound a clip to do pans and zooms. You would simply keyframe its position and scale parameters. Unless I’m missing something in what it is you’re doing.
anickt
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