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need help animating still
Hi all,
I need a little advice on the best way to add motion to a photo that is supered over background video. I don’t want to move the photo around the screen…rather, I’m trying to keep the photo in an area of the screen that will stay the same—like a picture in a picture. Within that box is where I need the motion (of the photo) to happen. I looked in all my FCP books but they were not much help. I tried a garbage matte around the photo, thinking I could manipulate the scale & motion of the photo while keeping it in the ‘box’ that I want to keep it in, but the matte grew with the photo when I scaled up. Is there an easy way to do this that I’m missing.
Thanks in advance for any help,
AndrewPS. AE and/or Motion are not options for me right now.
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9 Replies
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Sheesh — no, there isn’t an easy way. I think I understand what you want. Similar to those HP commercials where a frame on the video needs to hold the picture no matter where that frame moves.
When I do stuff like this I do it in After Effects where there is motion tracking.
You can assign corners to the frame and corners to the picture and it will track by itself.
I seem to recall a motion tracking plugin by CVH??? CHV??? Don’t remember. Also not sure how good it would be.
Also — you CAN do this by using keyframes in FCP, but it gets very hard… let me know if this is your last resort.
AND – I don’t know if Motion does this or not. Not running motion.
Good luck,
CaptM
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You should create one sequence with only the photo, and create all the motion you need.
You should then bring this sequence on to higher video tracks in the sequence which is the background. Then shrink this whole nested track to the picture in picture size you want.
Here’s an article all about nesting. It’s old, but the ideas are still the same.
https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/basic_nest.html
You can’t beat Kevin Monahan’s book “Motion Graphics and Effects in Final Cut Pro” for learning all about this area of the program.
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I’m sorry — I think I misread your post.
CaptM
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2 ways off the top of my head:
1- Place your photo in it’s own sequence. Animate the photo to your hearts delight. Nest that sequence in your original timeline & use either the crop tool in the motion tab, or a garbage matte to crop it down to the size you need in your PIP effect.
2- Place your background, full frame image on V1. Use the “Shapes” generator in the viewer to place a rectange (or square, oval or circle) on V2 in the place you want the PIP. Place your photo on V3, set the composite mode to ‘track matte alpha’ and animate.
And while I was typing the above, a 3rd way popped into my head! Place your background on V2, and the photo on V1, then use a garbage matte to cut a hole in the background & animate the photo underneath it.
Arnie
https://www.arniepix.com -
Thanks Arniepix (also thanks to CaptainMench & Steven G.)
That was just what I was looking for!!
Andrew -
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There is an FCP plug-in from Digital Heaven called DHBox.
Set boundries to crop an image, and pan/zoom within those boundaries.The cost is AMAZING…
$10.00
https://www.digital-heaven.co.uk/indexflash.htm
There’s a demo to see on-line and you can download the plug-in in minutes:
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I bought a Digital Heaven plug-in last week for ten bucks, the one that lets put up a custom countdown clock or up/down stopwatch effect on the screen instead of a time code window. Awesome product, works perfectly, very simple, excellent price. I like those guys!
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Wait till you try their drop out fixing plugin! I even managed to get it to fix a drop in that cut across 2 frames.
Arnie
https://www.arniepix.com
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