Transparent Background

[Kyle Cherry]

Hi Mark.

Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask this question, but i saw the transparent topic and had to ask:

In Motion 4, how do i make the actual letters of my text transparent?

I want to put a video inside the letters in FCP 7.

Your help would be greatly appreciated!

Kyle

[Mark Spencer]

Apply an Image Mask to your video (Object > Add Image Mask) and then drag the text to the well in the HUD.

—
Mark Spencer
Freelance Producer/Editor/Motion Graphics Artist
Apple-certified Master Trainer
Author, Motion 4 from Peachpit Press
https://www.applemotion.net

[Mikhail Bekhterev]

This looks like a happy ending. My story went total opposite. Clips were posting properly with transparent background (Motion 4 to FCP 7) but then FCP began to crash before completing render. Went through a bunch of steps suggested by Apple rep except the last one – replacing motion files with rendered quicktime movies. After I moved old Motion files and replaced with QT files transparency was gone. Now neither QT nor old motion files post with transparent background. Anyone had to resolve that issue?

[Zak Peric]

Have you tried to see what is the codec of your movies in Quicktime. Open the movie in Quicktime and go to Window/Movie Properties and check that you have saved your movies Animation codec with Millions of Colours + (+ being alpha channel). Or the same would apply to Apple Pro Res 4444 where + would be an alpha. I recently had a problem with Quicktime, I fixed my problem by reinstalling Quicktime from Apple Website.

Also maybe you need to re-ender your movies making sure that it is with Animation + codec.

Let me know how did you get on.

[Mikhail Bekhterev]

Thank you for the suggestion. The QT does show that the files are million +. Prior to the black background issue I had another problem. I had lower-third and a logo over the main clip in FCP from Motion. Clip under 3 minutes long rendered fine but longer clips kept crashing. FCP tech support recommended reinstalling FCP and rendering Motion files. After reinstalling FCP I ended up with neither Motion nor rendered QT files showing transparent background (solid black instead). After writing here and couple of sleepless nights I remembered that I have the TimeMachine enabled and went back to the day before I reinstalled FCP. Now transparent shows properly and as far as the rendering is concerned I did it by rendering clips in sections and closing program after each render. Otherwise it would still crash and when loaded back up show as if nothing has been rendered. I’ll try rendered QT files next but hope that soon we’ll be able to skip that step and be able whole motion clips in FCP. 🙂