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New FCPX to AE script
For anyone interested, I’m in the process of building a script to transition from FCPX to AE, similar to the old Popcorn Island script that worked really nice with FCP7. The workflow currently is kinda sorta really very annoying with FCPX and AE, so hopefully this can become something that everyone can use to make their lives just a little bit easier.
Got to give a big props to Dan Ebberts for giving me the confidence that this is even possible. Here’s my work in progress below. It’s not terribly robust right now, and will only import the basic footage ins/outs. No Transform data or Text or fancy multiclip/audition collapsing has been added yet.
My aim is to have all transform data, text, time-remapping, stills, and basic crossfade transitions transferable through this script. Lets make this happen!
Some current stumbling blocks in case anyone would like to share some ideas:
UPDATE:
I was able to figure out how to access elements with hyphenated names like in the “adjust-transform” element here:
[clip]
[adjust-transform position="12.6528 0" rotation="-6.34648" scale="0.34 0.34"/]
[/clip]
You use square brackets and wrap the name in quotations. So to access the position attribute it would look like this:
clip["adjust-transform"].@position;– Haven’t spent the time to figure out a way to use the footage that has already been imported if a file is used more than once in a sequence. I got around this quickly by importing the media multiple times anyways and running a consolidateFootage function at the end. If you can see an easy solution to this let me know!
And heres the very simple .fcpxml file I was using as a test so you can have a look at how it’s organized:
7039_fcpxxmlscriptv3.fcpxml.zip(you can ignore the code in the “bookmark” tags. It’s some cryptic security measure Apple has put in the fcpxml for who knows what! If you do know what it actually is please let me know!)
Please check it out, let me know if it works for you, what doesn’t work for you and any improvements you may have!
Cheers and I hope you enjoy!Philip. Bowser
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6 Replies
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I’ve updated the script to bring over transform, scale, rotation, and spatial conform data. Still no keyframes.
Also some basic houekeeping.
Check it:
7043_fcpxmlaev8.jsx.zipCheers,
Philip. Bowser
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Hi, Philip
[Philip Bowser] “The workflow currently is kinda sorta really very annoying with FCPX and AE”
What exactly is wrong with the current workflow? What advantages your tool has to offer over existing ways?
Thanks
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Hey Eugeny,
Please please please inform me if I’m mistaken, but I believe there are currently two workflows which are stable, the X to 7 approach ($50), or the ClipExporter approach (open source!). ClipExporter is fantastic if your timeline is only one track, and doesn’t contain any keyframe data. Not the end of the world but really annoying for my situation, I deal with a lot of keyframes and multitrack timelines. The X to 7 approach will bring over some of that keyframe data and multiple tracks, but loses out on some other data like time-remapping, spatial conform etc. and it also costs $50.
In fact, I love ClipExporter so much, it makes me want to brush up on my object-c skills just to add the keyframing and multitrack option to the source code, but this seems like a longer endeavor than writing a script. The user-experience is really great. But like I said, just annoying when most of the serious projects I deal with have more than one track and multiple keyframes. Agh!
I wonder maybe it means reaching out to Thomas (creator of ClipExporter) and asking what kind of funding he’d need for his time to add this functionality to ClipExporter? And if it’s something a bunch of FCPX and AE users would pitch in for? I’d rather pay for that than X to 7.
Thoughts?
Cheers,
Philip. Bowser
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I’d very much be interested in an FCPX <-> AE app that works in both directions, a big ask I know, but Im sure many others would pay for this if / when avail, count me in to purchase this. I don’t like motion. Good Luck. Aegeanfilms.com
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Thank you for this script Philip. It is going to be a big help.
Questions:
- To get the script to work I had to save it on the root of my bootup drive. Is that normal? When I tried to run the script off my desktop I got an error showing the desktop path followed by the path to the file. But when I saved the script at the root of my bootup drive it would work correctly.
- I did notice that v8 only takes the storyline. Is this correct?
Chad
- To get the script to work I had to save it on the root of my bootup drive. Is that normal? When I tried to run the script off my desktop I got an error showing the desktop path followed by the path to the file. But when I saved the script at the root of my bootup drive it would work correctly.
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Hi, Philip.
Took me almost two months to get back to this thread)))
Want to make few notes:[Philip Bowser] “ClipExporter is fantastic if your timeline is only one track, and doesn’t contain any keyframe data.”
You are right – ClipExporter ignores keyframes. But it supports “tracks”.
[Philip Bowser] “The X to 7 approach will bring over some of that keyframe data and multiple tracks, but loses out on some other data like time-remapping, spatial conform etc. and it also costs $50.”
I haven’t used Xto7, but there’s similar approach that is free – DaVinci Resolve. Lite version. You can import your FCPX xml into Resolve and then export it as a “legacy” xml which AE supports through ProImport. Transform data, Keyframes, tracks, Time-Remapping is supported. Spatial Conform is messed.
All the best
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