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Problems importing alpha channel video into FCPX.
Hello there,
I’m trying to import a video into FCPX but when I import it, it’s blank. There’s just a blue box that appears in the clip bin.
The video itself is an animation codec with an alpha channel enabled exported from After Effects. The video is basically a title sequence where panels fly off screen to reveal the shot underneath it.
Now this is annoying me for two reasons;
1. I have exactly the same video but it says “Episode 1” instead of “Episode 2” and it imports fine. Alpha channel and all.
2. The video is fine. It plays in QT Player, it imports into AE with the alpha channel etc etc. But FCPX just won’t have it.Does anyone have any clue why this is happening?
Thanks in advance.
Simon -
20 Replies
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Something is up with the file indeed. I would re-render from AE as ProRes 4444. See if that helps.
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T. Payton
OneCreative, Albuquerque -
I know this sounds a bit much but I always render to QT None from AE when I deal with Alpha Titling and Motion Graphics.
For sfx compositions then whatever target I was using e,g DNxHD, ProRes, TIFF sequence, etc… -
The video file works in every other piece of video software I have; after effects, fcp 7, Premiere and even compressor, just not fcpx, so I’m not having that there’s something wrong with the file (I’m a very stubborn chap). I thought there might be something up with my import settings, but it’s obviously just another bug in fcpx.
Anyways, I re-exported it as a prores 4444 and it works now, so at least it’s sorted. I’m just beginning to really hate how temperamental this piece of software is.
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I can understand your frustration. However, I have had zero problems with many animation codec exports from AE to FCP X. I have since started rendering everything to ProRes 4444, because frankly Animation Codec is very old and seems to take a big more juice to decode.
Something must be up with that file. Perhaps the frame rate is odd, or the way the alpha channel is exported. Does it have any odd characters in the file name? You might want to look at how FCP is interpreting the footage and the alpha. Look in the inspector under Info and then choose “settings view”.
If you want, post the file here and I’ll test it on my system.
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T. Payton
OneCreative, Albuquerque -
[T. Payton] “, I have had zero problems with many animation codec exports from AE to FCP X. “
I had one issue with round-tripping clips back and forth from FCPX to AE but that was before 10.0.3.
Did not like other apps using an FCPX blessed file in the Event folder.
Now its all good with round-tripping across all apps 🙂 -
Incase anyone is having trouble with this in the future.
Make sure you file is correct and DO NOT create optimized media.
That was the problem for me.
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I’m having a weird alpha-related problem in FCP X. I created some L3rds and titles in AE, and exported as normal in ProRes 4444 with an alpha to bring into my timeline in FCPX. This is my first project in X after years in FCP legacy, so I’m a little confused as to what happened next. All of the color of my titles is gone. FCPX recognizes the alpha, and the clips overlay on the video fine, but instead of the golden/bronze color that I had added to the text in AE, which is present in the render, and is even present in the Event Browser thumbnail, in the timeline, and in the Event Viewer, the text is just white. The shading data and lighting data is all present, but the color is stripped. What’s up with that? Do I really have to go in and color correct every title to re-conform?
For what it’s worth, FCPX is interpreting straight alpha on the video, so I can’t figure out what is going on…
Any thoughts?
Mike
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Try setting the blending mode to premultiplied mix. I think that should fix it. If that works, just select all your titles in timeline and change them in one swoop in the inspector.
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T. Payton
OneCreative, Albuquerque -
Hi Mike,
I don’t want to sound patronising (because many people on here can be just that), but have you checked the colour adjustment settings for the clip? I had a weird instance where it automatically desaturated everything and maximised the exposure. I just set them all back to the defaults and it was fine.
Failing that, check the blend mode in the compositing settings of the clip.
Hope this helps.
Simon -
Simon-
Thanks! In all my head scratching, I never assumed that FCPX would kill the saturation levels of an incoming clip. Lo and behold, yeah, Saturation was set to 0%, and bumping it up to 100% fixes the issue. I still think it’s weird though. In FCP 7 for example, you just drop a ProRes 4444 with an alpha channel on your footage, and it looks JUST like it does in the renders coming out of AE. That’s sorta the whole point. So no, I don’t have to color correct each shot (thanks to you!), but I do have to go in and manually tell every graphic I bring in from After Effects that yes, it should have color associated with it. Seems weird…
Mike
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