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Why is Keyframing in FCPX so shite?
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I have been struggling with the keyframing in X since it’s release. For the last two days I’ve been dealing with it’s weirdness, and I find myself wanting to drink at the end of the day.
It’s absurd how flaky it is. The timeline jumping to some other clip is only one problem. I’ve tried applying the last keyframe first… or the first keyframe first. I find it works about 50% of the time. Sometimes I restart FCP X to get it to work correctly.
Apple really needs to fix this… it’s embarrassing. Clients are noticing the problem and I’m having to adjust my billings to reflect the wasted time…
Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.” – Winston Churchill
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If you only use the inspector you will get a linear movement. Using the viewer you get curves. The keyframing is really not that bad once you get used to its quirks. I’ll post a link of how I see the bug. I work with keyframing at Promiflash in Berlin, and I would never in hell get the work I do done as fast in Legacy.
“Always look on the bright side of life” – Monty Python
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Here’s a quick screen recording I just did. Sorry about no sound and the framerate a little off, but you should see whats going on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdmxUfIpCik
“Always look on the bright side of life” – Monty Python
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Amen brother. And don’t anyone tell me to use Motion. FWIW Motion is pretty much crap at keyframing too. Perhaps I’ve used AE for too long, but when FCP X can’t even perform the most basic keyframing tasks of Avid or AE from 1996 (when I started using both) then it’s junk. FCP X keyframing is 99% the same concept as FCP 1.0 keyframing. Just on a different interface. No copy and paste. No multiple keyframe selection. Problems with easing and bezier consistency. (X has one problem, legacy had another). Good thing about legacy was that linear worked. The problem in legacy was when you didn’t want linear.
FCP keyframing sucks. Apple doesn’t really do Keyframes.
Alright, perhaps I should put the Pale Ale down. Or the iPhone. I’ve made my choice.
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Damn it man now I’ve spewed my Pale Ale. 🙂
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Agreed. Fortunately for me I rarely use keyframing because it was so terrible in FCP 7 also. I’m also not sure why you thought it was good in Avid, I thought it was atrocious there too. The only software I’ve ever used that comes close to being usable is AE, and even that could use a lot of help. I don’t know what it is about keyframing that no one seems to be able to get it right.
However, I can’t agree with the rant. I’ve never heard anyone “defending” keyframing in X. I think we’re all in agreement that is sucks. But, the notion that one aspect of the software (which I personally rarely would use anyways) makes it unusable I don’t think is right. Don’t like FCP X? Move on. The boons do outweigh the banes as far as I’m concerned.
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The keyframing really needs improvement, but its not useless. I’ve been using it a lot in the last few months and I’ve figured out its quirks and how to work with them, I don’t do simple edits, in my case I like and need Bézier curves for what I’m doing currently.
But how much keyframing do we really do as editors? Over the years I’ve bee involved with different kinds of formats and when I’m doing high end work for commercials or TV I rarely get asked to animate anything complicated. Perhaps some basic title animation. And most editors I know, myself included use other software to do any complex keyframing anyway, I use motion, others I know prefer AFX.
I never liked Avids keyframing, but I’ve always liked working with the software. FCP Legacy was affordable, that’s why most of us got it in the first place, honestly I never really liked Legacys UI, but I had to make it work and I still like and use the software a lot.
The fact is that Xs quirky Keyframing issues haven’t hindered me to do my work, especially since X is so damned fast (imac 2013, SSD, thunderbolt drive).
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[Bret Williams] “FWIW Motion is pretty much crap at keyframing too. “
I couldn’t disagree more with you about keyframing in Motion. Motion is actually excellent at keyframing and very versatile. It’s only real issues are in dealing with selecting and moving keyframes under certain circumstances in the keyframe editor.
But in Motion, you can get great animation without even using keyframes by using behaviors instead. In fact, because I have issues with keyframing in FCPX, I’ve taken to creating stackable move behavior effects that I can apply in FCPX to give me much better animations quicker than I can trying to keyframe in FCPX alone.
That is until I saw Nikolas’s solution to ease curves in X by using the inspector. Good on you Nikolas.
Andy
https://www.timesavertutorials.com
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If the best argument for keyframing in Motion is to use behaviors, then isn’t that in and of itself an indictment of Motion’s keyframing process? I’m all for scripting to save time. I think expressions are the best thing to happen to AE in the past 10 years. But if the basic functionality of AE keyframes was subpar, as it is in Motion, expressions would not change that fact. Until you tell me that I can grab a whole stack of keyframes from different layers, representing different parameters, drag on them with a modifier key, and proportionally shrink or expanding their timing together, I won’t be impressed.
Professor, Producer, Editor
and former Apple Employee -
[Chris Jacek] “Until you tell me that I can grab a whole stack of keyframes from different layers, representing different parameters, drag on them with a modifier key, and proportionally shrink or expanding their timing together, I won’t be impressed.”
You’re describing AE’s keyframing, right? Because AE can certainly do that. Easily.
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