The Position Tool Does Not Disable Ripple Mode – Here’s Why

[Neil Goodman]

just playing Devils Advocate here, i actually hate the magnetic timeline with a passion. Hate connected clips/storylines adn pretty much everything FCPX introed except maybe background processing.

but

If you break it down. Media Composer works similiar. Although the timeline isnt locked in ripple mode. You cant have gaps on the timeline either. Instead you have “filler” which can be manipulated, trimmed etc, even add filters to it . It is essentially a gap clip as well. The difference is MC has two segment modes, one for rippling, one for overwites .If FCPX had these two different modes, problem solved right ?

Neil Goodman: Editor of New Media Production – NBC/Universal

[Steve Connor]

David, gap behaviour is perfectly logical and not a bug at all.

Gaps are the last line of defence between clips in the FCPX, if there is no gap then there can be no space between clips.

It would be illogical for FCPX to have behaviour where when you move or edit a gap, another gap is created!

It assumes by default if you are editing gaps then you don’t want that space there and moves everything accordingly. FCP7 does the same, if you delete a gap between clips it ripples by default.

The position tool manipulates clips without rippling, not gaps. You ignore the gaps because they can be overwritten by clips, they are simply the black space between clips as in FCP7, you don’t edit the gaps in FCP7 you move the clips to fill the gaps.

[David Lawrence] “On an open timeline, if I want to delete a clip or a range, I simply select and delete. In FCPX, a simple delete aways ripples by default. If I don’t want to ripple, I must insert a gap.
“

Not true, Shift delete deletes the clip and leaves a gap automatically, you do not have to manage the gaps at all, you don’t have to touch them, you don’t have to create them.

“My Name is Steve and I’m an FCPX user”

[Bill Davis]

This is overly simplistic I know…

However, if one of the coders in FCP-X simply wrote a call to CoreGraphics and let you switch the appearance setting metadata tags of all your gap clips to “transparent” you’d have exactly the same visual representation in the FCP-X timeline that you do in Legacy, wouldn’t you?

What you wouldn’t have is the ability to tie those gaps to ANYTHING. They are just mostly useless forced pictures of time representation – which, while comforting for all of us conditioned to “see” time in the traditional timeline representation – really have no practical function beyond acting as “visual comfort food”

As “gap cliips” one could presumably write some code to “return aggregate time of all gaps in my project” and other DB functions that might be very useful at some point.

Essentially I’m saying that the difference between viewing a particular timeline aspect as a discrete “thing” or as “not a thing” is a primary concept. I can do something with a “thing.” I can’t do much with a “not a thing.” comforting as it may be visually.

(thanks for indulging me – it was kinda fun to write that last paragraph!)

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[David Lawrence]

[Neil Goodman] “If you break it down. Media Composer works similiar. Although the timeline isnt locked in ripple mode. You cant have gaps on the timeline either. Instead you have “filler” which can be manipulated, trimmed etc, even add filters to it . It is essentially a gap clip as well. The difference is MC has two segment modes, one for rippling, one for overwites .If FCPX had these two different modes, problem solved right ?”

You’re absolutely right. MC’s gap implementation is nice. I think the key is that in MC, you don’t really have to think of the negative space as an object unless you make a cut or need to use it as a slug. Then it transparently changes function. It’s smart and useful. And of course, ripple is a mode, not default. If FCPX changes to behave this way, it would solve a lot!

_______________________
David Lawrence
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[Jeremy Garchow]

Great, post David. My question to you.

The position tool, when grabbing any “object” as you call it, leaves a gap, so why move a gap to replace it with a gap? There is a flaw in the movie, and there is certainly looks to be a bug. It looks at first blush to me that FCPX is wrongfully assuming something (go figure) or is it? 😀

The flaw: If you grab that gap and really move it out of the way, the timeline ripples accordingly by the amount of time that is that is the gap (not just simply move it up, but actually pick it up and move it to a different place). If you grab a video object, it is replaced with a gap, and the timeline does not ripple. So the position tool assumes that you know what you are doing, in that you are essentially trying to replace a gap, with a gap, and it’s getting confused. Or is it?

The bug?: You move it just a little bit, and it will ripple the timeline to the amount of the space you are trying to move. But if you move the gap completely out of the way, the timeline ripples correctly. What seems to be happening here is that FCPX is assuming you want to position that gap by overwriting the timeline, that’s what you can do with a video object, position right where you want, overwriting anything in the way. So it is actually assuming correctly, and it thinks you want to do that, overwrite the position (and create a ripple with a gap clip in this case). Perhaps what it is wrongfully assuming is that you would want to replace that gap with a new gap of the same length. I think FCPX is assuming that this is a goofy way to do things, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t do it (why not just copy and paste that gap? Something you CAN”T do in FCP7, you cannot copy and place empty space. This is why I like gaps, they are way more flexible and allow much more control than space, including exactly how long that space is in time). This is an interface choice that could easily be fixed, but I’m not sure it should be if you know how to use the tool “correctly”. I think they would need to fix it to protect people from using it incorrectly, which happens, just look at clip collisions.

Hopefully I can make a movie of this, but I would encourage you to try this on a video clip and watch exactly what it is the position tool does, then rethink what it’s doing with a gap clip especailly when it relates to the position tool.

[David Lawrence] “Instead, the Position Tool simply acts as a workaround in the same way that the 10.0.1 update automatically creates secondary storylines when transitions are added to connected clips.”

I’m sorry, I just don’t find this to be true. The addition of the transition to connected clips is a script (add transition key = make secondary + add transition). The position tool is not a script action, but actually is a tool of intent. “Move this clip to where I want, do not ripple timeline, overwrite anything that is the length of my selected clip at the destination. If the clip I am moving is a gap clip, then overwrite right were I stand” (and then ripple, because why the hell would I use a position tool on a gap?). The movie you pointed out is sort of buggish, kinda.

[David Lawrence] “In FCPX, space in no longer space. Space is now an object.”

Therefore by definition, much more controllable. The a trackless world, you need this control. They are also easily trimmable, you can connect clips to them and move them (in case you wanted to move where your space is…in time/space).

[David Lawrence] “This means you must now manage all the negative space between your clips in addition to the clips themselves. For anyone like myself who depends on a spatial workflow, this is simply unacceptable.”

Perhaps, but I don’t see it as a hinderance, I guess. If I want to add space, I hit option-w to create gap, c to select it, control-d and a time (let’s say hit “6.” to make it 6 seconds). There it is. Make it 24 minutes if you want to. That space will always the same distance between your work area and your sketch area until you don’t want it to be.

[David Lawrence] “In order to delete, you must insert space.”

Yes. instead of delete, you back-delete (function delete on other keyboards, but also works on full keyboards), it’s one key stroke difference and does the same thing. (I know, you say it doesn’t, but space as an object makes sense to me).

[David Lawrence] “You’re essentially being asked to perform the opposite action of your intention. You’re training yourself to work backwards. Sure, you can learn to do it. But why? Does it make sense? Is it intuitive? Is it really a better way to think and work?”

I do think it forces you to think about what you’re doing, not such a bad thing.

[David Lawrence] “We haven’t gotten into tracks vs trackless or the trim tools yet!”

Yeah, the position tool is essential to the tracklessness as it does override the ripple when used as intended.

[David Lawrence] as quoting Michael Gissing “As broadcast dies sometime in the next decade, it might become a mature app and useful to my business. I resent Apple trying to engineer the demise of broadcast like they have with floppy drives and bluray, regardless of whether history eventual proves their point. “

Wasn’t this supposed happen with firewire when tape become more of a generic data protocol? Did broadcast die? Why waste time on the obsolete (meaning why waste time developing FCP7 when they know it’s not going to last)? In Michaels’ argument, if there was an OMF export, FCPX would then be viable.

[David Lawrence] “Yep. That sounds about right to me. But it’s still fun dissecting this thing and learning what it is, what it can do and how it changes our industry.”

Agreed!

Thanks for keeping this going.

Jeremy

[David Lawrence]

[Steve Connor] “David, gap behaviour is perfectly logical and not a bug at all.”

Watch the video again. Just lifting and dropping the gap with the Position Tool causes the the clip to the immediate right to be swallowed. Why? Because the timeline is rippling under the lifted gap. If the Position Tool automatically creates gaps when you move a clip object, why wouldn’t it also create gaps when you move a gap object? To my mind, this is inconsistent behavior.

[Steve Connor] “It would be illogical for FCPX to have behaviour where when you move or edit a gap, another gap is created! “

Why?

[Steve Connor] “Not true, Shift delete deletes the clip and leaves a gap automatically…”

Sure, but technically shift-delete is replace with gap. It’s the opposite of FCP7 but I can adapt — not that big a deal.

[Steve Connor] “…you do not have to manage the gaps at all, you don’t have to touch them, you don’t have to create them.”

I find this to be untrue. Gaps are objects. You have to deal with them. If you want to extend open space to the right of a gap, you have to trim forward from the gap tail. Something you could easily accomplish in FCP7 with T or TTT and a quick drag. Or Try applying a cross dissolve at the head of a clip. In FCP7 the dissolve begins at the head of the clip. In FCPX the dissolve centers between the gap and the clip. There’s currently no easy way to start the cross dissolve at transition end.

I realize that FCPX provides other tools to accomplish the same goals. But as long as gaps are objects, you have to deal with them. My $.02

_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
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[Simon Ubsdell]

[David Lawrence] “In FCPX, space in no longer space. Space is now an object.

This means you must now manage all the negative space between your clips in addition to the clips themselves. For anyone like myself who depends on a spatial workflow, this is simply unacceptable.

Consider is how unintuitive things quickly become. Here’s a simple example:

On an open timeline, if I want to delete a clip or a range, I simply select and delete. In FCPX, a simple delete aways ripples by default. If I don’t want to ripple, I must insert a gap.

Think about that for a second in terms of intention and required action.

In order to delete, you must insert space.”

As always this you make some fascinating points – I just wanted to observe that maybe we are dealing with semantics here.

Consider this from the Media Composer manual:

When you use the Lift/Overwrite tool, the application adds filler to the sequence to maintain sync.

Isn’t it possibly the case that what we are sseeing in FCPX is just a more explicit representation of something that has always been happening in other NLE’s without our being actively aware of it?

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

[Jeremy Garchow]

[David Lawrence] “If you want to extend open space to the right of a gap, you have to trim forward from the gap tail. Something you could easily accomplish in FCP7 with T or TTT and a quick drag.”

And completely unnecessary in X. You don’t have to select the entire right side of the timeline, you simply insert space, then define it’s length. Everything else moves along with it. Easy.

[David Lawrence] “There’s currently no easy way to start the cross dissolve at transition end.”

Definitely not as easy as “start at beginning”, but the precision editor (control-e) does allow more control and gets you want you want. If not, you simply move the clip up to a connected clip (option-command-up) and start it right there, and trim the clip below it.

[Simon Ubsdell]

[David Lawrence] “Gaps are objects.”

Again, this is clearly true in Media Composer as well, as is made much clearer in MC 5.5 where you can select them and manipulate them in ways that are fundamentally the same as what is happening in FCPX.

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

[David Lawrence]

[Simon Ubsdell] “Again, this is clearly true in Media Composer as well, as is made much clearer in MC 5.5 where you can select them and manipulate them in ways that are fundamentally the same as what is happening in FCPX.”

Agreed. but in MC, they’re basically invisible unless you decide you need to use them for something. And you can turn timeline ripple mode off.

_______________________
David Lawrence
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