The Gradient generator in FCPX

[Geoff Dills]

Looks like Motion is needed, but you can easily create a NEW generator and publish the color controls as well as any other controls you like so you can easily access them in X.

Best,
Geoff

[Winston A. cely]

Well, shoot. I was hoping to not have to go into anything like that. I’m developing a very quick and simple 1 day lesson on how to edit with FCPX. I mean super simple, so I was hoping to avoid needing to go to Motion. Looks like I’ll have to add a quick Motion tutorial or just tell them to make a still in Photoshop (which they’re used to using) and bring it in that way.

Thanks!

Winston A. Cely
Editor/Owner | Della St. Media, LLC

Mac Pro 3GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
8 GB RAM | Final Cut Studio 3 | Aja Kona LHe

“If you can talk brilliantly enough about a subject, you can create the consoling illusion it has been mastered.” – Stanley Kubrick

[Geoff Dills]

The power of Motion to customize effects, generators, titles and transitions is what Motion is best for at this point in time as it’s a pain to roundtrip from X. But what it can do is allow you to make your customized Motion creations available easily in X. It took me about three minutes to do what needed done for a color control in a gradient, but I already knew the basics on how to do it, just had never done it with a generator.

In Motion, if you click on the far right of each parameter you want to “publish” (that’s what it’s called) to X, a pull down menu appears and one choice is publish (or unpublish if that control has already been published). When you’ve selected all the parameters you want to see in X, do a save as, give it a name, and when you open X you’ll find it in your generators. If you take a gander at the sister forum, X Techniques, you’ll find an amazing number of things some very sharp minds have kindly offered to share with the rest of us slobs.

Best,
Geoff

[Winston A. cely]

Right. I just didn’t want to get into using anything else with the group of people I’m training. They’re not likely to need more that simple cuts, dissolves, simple text and simple background. Things that are built into FCPX but used to have a little more inside the app control in legacy versions of FCP. At least as far as the gradient generator is concerned. 😉

However, I’ve got FxFactory plugins installed and that has a gradient generator that’s controlled completely in FCPX (or legacy versions), but that doesn’t really help with this class, as I don’t want them to feel they have to buy more stuff just to do simple tasks.

Winston A. Cely
Editor/Owner | Della St. Media, LLC

Mac Pro 3GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
8 GB RAM | Final Cut Studio 3 | Aja Kona LHe

“If you can talk brilliantly enough about a subject, you can create the consoling illusion it has been mastered.” – Stanley Kubrick

[Geoff Dills]

Just occurred to me there might be a way to do this inside X, and so I clicked on the inspector’s Video tab of the selected generator in the timeline and was able to use the color board to adjust color.

Best,
Geoff

[Winston A. cely]

Hmm. I wonder if I’m having some issues with the software, because I’m having to open and close my Inspector tab just to get the selected generator’s properties to show up….

EDIT: That was frustrating. Crashed on me twice, but I was finally able to get the color board to show up, and adjusted it that way. Thanks for the tip!

Winston A. Cely
Editor/Owner | Della St. Media, LLC

Mac Pro 3GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
8 GB RAM | Final Cut Studio 3 | Aja Kona LHe

“If you can talk brilliantly enough about a subject, you can create the consoling illusion it has been mastered.” – Stanley Kubrick

[Nick Toth]

Check out free third party effects and generators from these guys (including a gradient generator or two). They are awesome!

https://my.creativecow.net/Simon-Ubsdell

https://my.creativecow.net/Brendan-Gibbons1

There are others. Check the FCPX Techniques board and also https://fcp.co/

I am not affiliated with any of them but have used a number of their effects – all of them generated in Motion 5 and all of them FREE!

NT

[Winston A. cely]

Thanks for the links!

Winston A. Cely
Editor/Owner | Della St. Media, LLC

17″ MacBook Pro | 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7
4 GB RAM | Final Cut Studio 3 | FCPX | Motion 5 | Compressor 4

“If you can talk brilliantly enough about a subject, you can create the consoling illusion it has been mastered.” – Stanley Kubrick

[Jeremy Garchow]

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/344/2912

[Simon Ubsdell]

I don’t know if you’ve already found this or another solution but here’s my Gradient Generator which hopefully should help you.

2742_tkygradient.zip

Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com