Overlays with alpha channel not lining up

[Mark Spencer]

You shouldn’t need to reimport anything to FCP if you use the “send to Motion” command to send your clips from FCP to Motion for compositing.

—
Mark Spencer
Freelance Producer/Editor/Motion Graphics Artist
Apple-certified Master Trainer
Author, Motion 4 from Peachpit Press
https://www.applemotion.net

[Alexander Kallas]

Thanks Mark, these are not independent clips, I’m including parts of clips, so
I’m exporting as self-contained movie current settings between in and out markers. Should I nest these for “send to Motion”?
Strangely, it did work for me before. Could you please give me your settings for exporting from Motion with alpha channel.

Cheers
Alexander

[Mark Spencer]

I don’t understand – what do you mean they aren’t “independent clips”? You can send any number of clips from FCP to Motion based on In and Out points in your timeline.

If I do need to export from Motion with alpha (and I rarely do because I usually just embed the Motion project itself directly in FCP via roundtripping or importing), I usually just use the default settings, which is ProRes 4444 with alpha.

—
Mark Spencer
Freelance Producer/Editor/Motion Graphics Artist
Apple-certified Master Trainer
Author, Motion 4 from Peachpit Press
https://www.applemotion.net

[Alexander Kallas]

Thanks again,
Good to know that using media between in and out markers can be directly sent to Motion.
I don’t import as a Motion project because I may need these overlay clips as a separate movie for other purposes, and also to preserve the higher quality on a final re-render to ProRes.

Cheers
Alexander

[Alexander Kallas]

I notice the run-time numbers of the exported Motion movie is different to that of the Motion project play-range.
Tried trashing prefs, no better.

Cheers
Alexander

[Mark Spencer]

What is your video source, codec, frame rate, resolution, PAR?

—
Mark Spencer
Freelance Producer/Editor/Motion Graphics Artist
Apple-certified Master Trainer
Author, Motion 4 from Peachpit Press
https://www.applemotion.net

[Alexander Kallas]

[Mark Spencer] “What is your video source, codec, frame rate, resolution, PAR? “

Source is DV PAL 25fps 720×576.
It comes down to problems between play-range and project duration. I’m on Motion3, and the digital helpfile is not a manual, sailing blind here.
Because there are multiple clips which need to be composited individually, I should have set a project duration as long as the longest clip before compositing,ie prefs need to be set before the compositing is commenced. This is where the error was built.
So the question is, can prefs be altered during a Motion project? Looks like not, they won’t stick.

Cheers
Alexander

[Mark Spencer]

Really not understanding your workflow. But you can change project duration, resolution, PAR, etc. – you just can’t change the frame rate of a project that has content in it – just like an FCP sequence. You can, however, cut and paste all your layers into a new Motion project with a different frame rate.

—
Mark Spencer
Freelance Producer/Editor/Motion Graphics Artist
Apple-certified Master Trainer
Author, Motion 4 from Peachpit Press
https://www.applemotion.net

[Alexander Kallas]

[Mark Spencer] “You can, however, cut and paste all your layers into a new Motion project with a different frame rate. “

Thanks, copy and pasting into a new Motion project saved alot of re-do, but the new project has the same frame-rate.

Cheers
Alexander

[Mark Spencer]

You create a new project WITH THE FRAME RATE YOU WANT, then copy-paste in your layers. Your selected frame rate will remain.

—
Mark Spencer
Freelance Producer/Editor/Motion Graphics Artist
Apple-certified Master Trainer
Author, Motion 4 from Peachpit Press
https://www.applemotion.net