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Tedious track based editing
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[Walter Soyka] “If Apple allowed multiple primaries, then relative time would really go away.”
Exactly!
[Walter Soyka] “My late-night zen view: if you want to move a river, you don’t move the water. You move the earth it flows through.”
Excellent. That’s one for the quote book.
_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
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[Walter Soyka] “Right, but that’s all still perfectly consistent with the magnetic elements as I described above and still follows the “pull in until you hit something” idea. The children are all still relative to their parent (the gap), and it’s only absolute to the extent that you pinky-swear to yourself not to manipulate that gap.
“It’s as absolute as you need it to be, there is no reason to touch the primary when working like this so it’s not a factor, if the software would let you lock the gap clip would that make it more absolute?
Steve Connor
‘It’s just my opinion, with an occasional fact thrown in for good measure” -
[David Lawrence] “[Walter Soyka] “If Apple allowed multiple primaries, then relative time would really go away.”
Exactly!”
That really is stretching a point to fit your argument, even if Apple did allow multiple primaries, then they would still allow secondaries and my example stands
Steve Connor
‘It’s just my opinion, with an occasional fact thrown in for good measure” -
[David Lawrence] “I don’t think it’s about editors being conservative as much as it is (as you correctly point out) unintuitive and in many cases, its limitations outweigh any potential benefits.”
Like anything that works in a different way than you are used to, FCPX is only unintuitive until you have learned it.
Steve Connor
‘It’s just my opinion, with an occasional fact thrown in for good measure” -
[Steve Connor] “Like anything that works in a different way than you are used to, FCPX is only unintuitive until you have learned it.”
intuitive |inˈt(y)oōitiv|
adjective
using or based on what one feels to be true even without conscious reasoning; instinctive : I had an intuitive conviction that there was something unsound in him.
• (chiefly of computer software) easy to use and understand.The iPhone was completely different than any phone that ever came before it. But regular people could pick it up and start using it with virtually no training. In the computer world, that’s we mean when we say intuitive.
On the other hand:
[Steve Connor] “as I keep saying, you can only understand this if you actually spend a considerable amount of time learning the software.”
If this is true, then it’s unintuitive by definition.
_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl -
[David Lawrence] “[Steve Connor] “as I keep saying, you can only understand this if you actually spend a considerable amount of time learning the software.”
If this is true, then it’s unintuitive by definition.”
Fair point, although most software we use is unintuitive to start with. Resolve, AE, Smoke etc
Steve Connor
‘It’s just my opinion, with an occasional fact thrown in for good measure” -
[Steve Connor] “That really is stretching a point to fit your argument, even if Apple did allow multiple primaries, then they would still allow secondaries and my example stands”
Steve, I do agree with you that you can get absolute time behavior in FCPX by cutting a gap into the primary and then connecting everything to it. You could consider a traditional timeline to be much like this, except that the primary gap clip is invisible to the user.
I’m just pointing out that this technique is still based on the same set of rules. FCPX timelines are built away from time zero on the timeline, and must be supported by some structure in a near physical manner, be they clips, gaps, or connection anchors.
If Apple allowed multiple independent primaries, they would need an absolute grounding in order to still function as primaries — or they’d need that invisible gap clip.
As it stands now, nothing in FCPX can hang out in space, totally disconnected and unaffected by the rest of the timeline, because objects cannot exist outside of a relationship (or extended relationship) to the first clip of the primary. Using the P key does not position a clip in absolute time (visually, absolute space on the timeline); it creates a gap as necessary and uses that to anchor the reposition in relative time (visually, absolute space on the timeline). FCPX abhors a vacuum.
With every editorial operation, FCPX re-flows the timeline according to the magnetic timeline rules.
That’s were I was going with the river analogy. In a traditional timeline, you can essentially only manipulate all the water directly by grabbing it and moving it around through a fixed river bed. In an FCPX timeline, you can move the earth beneath the water — the network of supporting structures — the related clips — and in doing so, you can move the whole river.
This is why I keep blabbering on with Franz about clip relationships; they are foundational to FCPX’s timeline data structure (just look at FCPXML) and FCPX’s toolset for manipulating clips on the timeline.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
[Steve Connor] “That really is stretching a point to fit your argument, even if Apple did allow multiple primaries, then they would still allow secondaries and my example stands”
No, because to be useful, multiple primaries would require a fixed external frame-of-reference for time in the project window. Relative time goes away and secondaries and clips could be connected wherever the editor wants. It would be the best of both the tracked and the magnetic world and would be much more flexible than the single primary allows.
_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
facebook.com/dlawrence
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[Steve Connor] “Fair point, although most software we use is unintuitive to start with. Resolve, AE, Smoke etc”
Yes, absolutely true.
Some of the most powerful applications (the ones you mention, for example) are unintuitive almost by necessity. Power, control and complexity often go hand in hand. It’s not necessarily a bad thing if the benefits are worth it.
_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl -
[David Lawrence] “The iPhone was completely different than any phone that ever came before it. But regular people could pick it up and start using it with virtually no training. In the computer world, that’s we mean when we say intuitive.”
David, I don’t know about this one, X is about as intuitive as editing can get.
There are children on-line offering tips on it.
X was cracked on for being too simple at first and now too complicated.
It can’t really be both can it?
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