Tweening in FCP5

[Chris Tompkins]

I don’t believe FCP has tweening. Can u re-render the animation @ 30fps?
You can “contrl click” on a key frame and choose smooth (Ease in/ease out)

[Tom Wolsky]

Tweening is an animation term that refers to the ability of an application to determine the frame by frame differences between changes in keyframed parameters. Yes, FCP has the ability to tween. Your description makes it sound like something less.

All the best,

Tom

Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 2 Editing Workshop” Class on Demand “Complete Training for FCP5” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy” DVDs

[Chris Poisson]

In FCP and many other apps, “tweening” is refered to as interpolation.

[Zak Mussig]

Depending on what your animation really is, you may be making infinitely more work for yourself then you need to. If you’re just trying to pan and zoom on a still then bring in one copy if it, throw it in your timeline, double-click it to open it up in the viewer and set key frames for the first and last frames on the scale and center parameters, and adjust the values of each keyframe for the beginning and end of your movement.

If you’re using tons of stills because they are frames of an animation, you should A) Go back to whatever program made the animation and try to export an image sequence, and / or B) put them all in one sequence then put that sequence into another one and animate the whole thing (as mentioned above) rather than individual frames. FCP is resolution independent, so make the first sequence whatever resolution your images are, and make the second whatever format you’re exporting to.

I also like to turn keyframes on in the timeline, and set the canvas to image and wireframe view for keyframing.

A quick search in the PDF manual (Help > Final Cut Pro User Manual) can answer an questions about keyframes or how to make and modify them.

Zak

[Dananderiq]

Zak

I am not looking to simply create two key frames with different center points becuase 2 things happen incorrectly when I do that.

1. I get image blending, especially on really fast moves.
2. My animation was drawn at 15fps. So every 2 frames, the image changes. If I were to use key frames, FCP would automatically interpolate at 30fps. I only want motion once every two frames to match the animation that was drawn at.

I could do the moves by hand, but clearly as you’ve pointed out that would be “infinitely more work”. So I’m looking for a feature that would break up a clip or at least allow me to interpolate my key frames, once every two frames instead of at every frame.

Also, to your comment about nesting the images in a sequence and bringing them into my timeline, that is a great strategy and I thank you for the tip. But I have a question about that too. My stills are 2538 by 2000, so I would want to nest them in a sequence at the same resolution. But a sequence that big runs extremetely slowly on my cpu. I was wondering if you could recommend a better work flow?

[Oliver Peters]

[eriqneedshelp] ” I was wondering if you could recommend a better work flow?”

I would recommend doing this in After Effects and not FCP. You have far better control. You could also try to work in a 15fps timeline in AE and then render that out as an image sequence. Not sure if you can double-up rendered effects in AE by nesting your comp, but you could sure do it by manipulating images in an image sequence string.

Another idea if you are determined to work in FCP is to create a custom set-up with a 15fps timebase. Do your moves and render the files as a self-contained movie. Then import and retime in FCP or AE at 50%, making sure to turn off any frame-blending. This method might generate some unwanted artifacts (not sure), so it definitely should be tested first. This is also a non-standard workflow, so none of the video cards (AJA or BMD) will support RT playback this way. You will have to render your moves and watch on the computer display only.

Sincerely,
Oliver

Oliver Peters
Post-Production & Interactive Media
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Zak Mussig]

Eriq,

Maybe I’m still fuzzy on what it is that you’re trying to do…

Some quick responses to your points:

1) If you try to push the movement too far too fast then FCP won’t play nice with you. At the end of the day it’s still just an editor, not a motion graphics app.

2) I kinda see where you’re coming from in terms of your 15 fps animation (which, after checking, I don’t believe is an option in FCP 5). Unless your stills are jumping across the screen 15 times a second (e.g. you bookend your position keyframes, so that the change takes place over 1 frame rather than being interpolated over many.) aren’t you getting the same effect? If you change the x and y coordinates of something by 4 every 2 frames, isn’t that the same as changing it by 2 every frame? It’s still moving from point A to point B over a set period of time.

Oliver is probably right… you should try using another program for this. AE is good bet if you have it. I like Motion (because I have it and know how to use it, which is what makes it different than AE). With stills that big you’ll run into Motion’s 2K texture limit, so that may not be a great bet either.

If you do this in FCP, yes make a custom sequence the resolution of your stills. All you’re going to do in that sequence is put them in order and get the timing right. Then you’d drop that sequence into another sequence to animate it as a whole. It will run slowly, and make you sad, but that’s the price you pay. I had a bunch of 15 minute or so sequences with high-res images in an HDV timeline (tell me about it). It was a dual 2.5 GHz G5 with 8 gigs of RAM, and the performance was awful.

Now it’s time for coffee… good luck,
Zak

[Dananderiq]

Zak,

Thanks for sticking with me. At this point, I think I’ve got the answer from all the help on this thread. The answer is FCP isn’t going to let me do it, unless I do it by hand. Not the answer I was hoping for but oh well.

Oliver probably is right, I SHOULD use AE. Unfortunatley I don’t have it or know it. So using in on this project is out of the question, (as with motion – my gracphic card won’t even run it)

but just incase anyone stumbles across this thread in the future, I’ll to clarify what I am trying to do,

1) I’m actually not try to do motion graphics, but the complete opposite. Something FCP should be able to handle fine.
Instead of taking a 1 sec still frame and animating it with a digital camera move, I want to break that clip up into 15, 2 frame stills and then place each of those stills along the path of the digital camera move. So instead of using key frames and focing FCP to interpolate the inbetween frames (which it isn’t good at and creates a frame blending), it would just play back an image sequence.

I know FCP can handle it, it’s just a question of it FCP has an easy option for how to do that. PLacing stills by hand/eye would never look 100% right. The only way I would know how is to get out a pen, pad and calculator and do the math. Then plug in the values to each still – not an efficient use of time.

I’ve given up that this will happen on this project and I’ll jus tlive with the frame blending and faster animation.

2) You’re right, 4:2 is the same ratio of 2:1. I’m still going from A to B. But I’m not concerned with ratios. That’s the easy part, I’m concerned with frame rate. My hand drawn animation is at 15fps and the digital camera moves are animating at 30 fps. FCP digital camera moves are more detailed and faster. They are too good, too perfect, too detailed. I want to dumb them down to match the drawings I did.

At the end of the day, it seems like I will have to live with 30fps digital camera moves. Not the worst problem in the world. It’s just a detail that has been bothering me the entire life of the project.

3) Glad to hear that nesting is jsut slow in general and it’s not just me (though, once again not the most fun answer to have)

thanks for all the detailed help I got in this thread everyone!

[Bret Williams]

I think someone had the answer already, just make a 15fps sequence/project, non-interlaced. Then, when it’s all the way you like it, drop that sequence into whatever timebase sequence you like. For example, if you’re outputting to aja, drop it in a 29.97 uncompressed 8bit sequence and output to tape. If DV, drop it in a NTSC sequence.

[Rafael Amador]

I tryed to post this yesterday but..I agree with Oliver. I would recomend you use AE or Shake. With these two applications you can import the numbered stills as a sequence and manipulate it a a normal movie and you only must set it 50% speed to get your 30fps. As Oliver says, set not frame blending because you just want every frame repeated. For paning and zoomning these programs are also more appropiated and you can get better results than with FC. to avoid any look of frame being blended, export in PROGRESIVE mode and disable any MOVEMENT BLUR. There is a very god article in The Cow call: Professional Motion Control