Switching From FCP — Motion GFX Question

[Petros Kolyvas]

I think, and I could be wrong, but Dynamic Link is much more like placing a Motion project on the timeline than XML exchange.

Let’s say a motion graphics artist does a bunch of animation/lower thirds in After Effects. We’ll call that file L3.aep. Each “Lower Third” is a composition.

In Premiere you can import a AE project (L3.aep) and when you do so it will ask which compositions you’d like to link. You can use any you’d like, on the timeline just like you would use a Motion project on the FCP timline. It works almost exactly the same way with the differences being you have to import that AE project into the PPro project and can’t just drag a project onto the timeline. But as far as I can tell, that’s it.

In this case there’s one distinct advantage: One AE project can contain all the Lower Thirds and/or motion graphics you’d need for a given project; you wouldn’t need a massive folder full of Motion projects which can be overwhelming sometimes.

I’m sure others with more experience can chime in here but we’ve been testing CS5.5 out very heavily in the last few months on one of our three FCP workstations and for the most part has been a suitable replacement for FCP7 – it’s dramatically quick and just about as stable. It works well with Pro Tools for audio mixing/editing and so far the issues have been very minor.

—
There is no intuitive interface, not even the nipple. It’s all learned. – Bruce Ediger

[Kevin Monahan]

Not precisely like you’d expect in Motion > FCP 7. You can make a feature request though: https://www.adobe.com/go/wish

Kevin Monahan
Sr. Content and Community Lead
Adobe After Effects
Adobe Premiere Pro
Adobe Systems, Inc.
Follow Me on Twitter!

Tweets by kev_mon

[Petros Kolyvas]

I realize the answer wasn’t for me, but coming from a (formerly) FCP-exclusive shop I like CS’s way better. You can keep a bunch of “Motion projects” (aka compositions) in a single AE file.

So far, that’s the only difference I can see Kevin. Did I miss something?

—
There is no intuitive interface, not even the nipple. It’s all learned. – Bruce Ediger

[Kevin Monahan]

You have some good tips Petros. It doesn’t work precisely like FCP, where animated templates are immediately available from a drop down menu. You can use one of the presets in Title > Presets, though.

Kevin Monahan
Sr. Content and Community Lead
Adobe After Effects
Adobe Premiere Pro
Adobe Systems, Inc.
Follow Me on Twitter!

[Shawn Larkin]

Thanks all.

Kevin, you’re reply is what I needed to know. Is there any way you can create your own custom Title > Presets ?

That was the power of the Motion > FCP relationship; the amazing simplicity of publishing templates into FCP which have fully-customizable text boxes and controls in FCP so the editor doesn’t have to do much, like open another app.

In the new FCP X / Motion 5 it’s even better because you can set all kinds of rigging and publishing parameters. But I really want to go the Adobe direction instead. This is one of those major features for our shop because the editors are NOT motion graphics savy. They need drag and drop simplicity of a template that a good designer has already worked on.

Also, I was not talking about dragging a Motion project onto the timeline. I mean specifically publishing from Motion to FCP so the templates just show up in the Effects > Templates > Subcategory Bin.

If you have to import an AE project and then choose which Comp to put down on a video track, then do you have to go into AE to edit the text in that comp? There is no control of the parameters inside PP, right?

Please explain more.

Thanks in advance again.

[Kevin Monahan]

You can save a title template in Premiere Pro. More details are here: https://help.adobe.com/en_US/premierepro/cs/using/WS3EBD7FBD-F988-4862-ACF8-179EC27B6B0Ba.html

Right, anything you do with After Effects via Dynamic Link will have to be done in After Effects. No control in the Title Tool for that.

Kevin Monahan
Sr. Content and Community Lead
Adobe After Effects
Adobe Premiere Pro
Adobe Systems, Inc.
Follow Me on Twitter!

Tweets by kev_mon

[Shawn Larkin]

It appears as if the Title Templates are for static titles (not in motion) only. They are simple bitmaps with text and opacity. From what I can tell to get anything really sexy done, you must use AE.

Knowing the workflow is:

1) Create Motion GFX Template in AE
2) Import into PP and pick your Comp
3) Edit text and any layout particulars back in AE
4) Finalize placement in PP

I hope the request I fill out with Adobe to do something more streamlined like the Motion > FCP relationship will be considered. So far this is the only major drawback I see to switching for our facility.

Thanks for the help.

[Joseph W. bourke]

Shawn –

Maybe re-thinking your workflow a bit might help things along. For fourteen years (up until 2009) I was Art Director at a broadcast facility which put out five daily newscasts, a daily half-hour magazine format show, and daily promotions. I was responible for producing eighty to ninety percent of the graphics packages for these. On any given day, they might have included animated lower thirds, over the shoulder graphics, chips and snipes (animated), full opens, bumps, rejoins, and other keyable animations.

I created all of these with a combination of After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator, and 3DS Max, and delivered anything keyable as Quicktime, Animation, highest quality with alpha. I just dropped the elements in a carefully titled folder, and everything worked like a charm. I know that it’s nice to have revisable projects nested within the editing timeline, but this could work as well.

Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com

[Shawn Larkin]

I’m sorry, PP has a much less useful way of doing simple Motion GFX for quick Editorial. Anyone who has used the Motion to FCP Template route would agree.

This is not a knock to all the other superior features Adobe has in Production Premium.

However, we want simplicity, style, and speed. No one here knows AE except me and I don’t want to train the staff on it along with how to use PP efficiently.

Thanks for the input.

[Alex Udell]

Motion has “publishing” and “drop zone” capabilities in which dynamic comps from motion can have modifiable text strings in FCP and retain their animation, and where video elements are exposed as drop wells in FCP for easy swap by editors within the fx parameters of FCP.

This is a functionality that PPro/AE does not currently have an exact parallel for.

Alex