With FCPX magnetic timeline,the non-linear is linear again!

[Greg Burke]

I agree that the magnetic timeline is a “neat” Idea..but in Steve Jobs own words. “…it’s 10% better, 50% worse” heheh see what i did there.

I wear many hats.
http://www.gregburkepost.com

[Chris Kenny]

[Douglas K. Dempsey] “Is there a logical way to do that kind of thing with Compound Clips and Secondary Stories, etc? Am I better off sending it to Motion where the layer concept still thrives?”

You can still layer as deeply as you want with connected clips. As an added bonus, if you’ve got, say, six title layers that conceptually make up a single clip, you can collapse them into a compound clip to eliminate visual clutter on your timeline.

—
Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.

You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.

[John Godwin]

On a related note, I just managed to make a storyline / timeline with an animated background, a layer to appear behind the talent on the background, and the top layer is the talent on greenscreen. The key, btw, dropped right in and made a perfect key, as far as I can tell.

I’m not sure if I constructed this in the easiest or best way. I started with a middle layer, a video shot, then added the greenscreen layer over that, and evidently made a compound clip, which I could then place over the animated background. It all works and I can go in and do things (add titles, some effects and color correction – this is all for experimentation, not yet an actual piece) but in FCP 7 I’d start with the top layer, the greenscreen shot, and then add below it. Anyone have suggestions on how to best build something like this?

As an aside, I’m testing this on a MacBook Pro 2.6 core 2 duo with 4 gb of ram, and everything works, but it is stressing the machine and the fans are working like I’ve never heard them work. But it’s all working, no crashes.

Best,
John

[Douglas K. dempsey]

Thanks Chris. That’s the kind of thing of functionality that originally appealed to me in the Supermeet Demo, and the visual clutter issue you mention is important when I teach my video class to high school students. The KISS rule “keep it simple stupid” really applies there. If you throw too many layers, options, waveforms, keyframes and such at them too quickly, it can become soup. Which is frustrating to them because the kids are taking other art courses like photography and drawing, painting etc. The idea of a heads-up display of info superimposed over all the visual work they are doing can be depressing to some; it’s so distracting from the visceral FEEL of the visual arts.

Doug D

[Matt Callac]

[David Lawrence] ” The magnetic timeline is the biggest UI FAIL I’ve ever encountered.

Want to try something fun? Drop a clip on the timeline. Use the Position tool to move it – let’s say 10 seconds on the timeline. Because maybe, just maybe, you want 10 seconds of black at the head of your show. Done that? Good. Now let’s say you want to put a 1-second fade-up from black at the head of your clip. Click on the head of the clip and type command-T on the keyboard. Watch what happens. Can anyone explain WTF the thinking is here? Totally wrong behavior. Total UI FAIL.

I swear, the more things I try FCPX the more it pisses me off.”

Not a UI fail.. a U fail/Default preference fail. Go into the preferences under editing and select apply transitions using “available media” rather than “full overlap”. This will keep transitions from rippling.

This just illustrates a point that people who’ve already decided to hate FCPX totally give up once they’ve hit a wall and something doesn’t work like “it should”. Then they just claim that it doesn’t work, rather than trying to figure it out.

-mattyc

[David Lawrence]

@mattyc –

I just went into editing preferences and changed the apply transitions setting from “full overlap” to “available media” as you suggested. It makes *no* difference whatsoever. It sounds like you’ve figured it out so please tell me what I’m doing wrong here because I can’t make it work.

[Matt Callac]

[David Lawrence] ”

I just went into editing preferences and changed the apply transitions setting from “full overlap” to “available media” as you suggested. It makes *no* difference whatsoever. It sounds like you’ve figured it out so please tell me what I’m doing wrong here because I can’t make it work.”

It’s still rippling your timeline?

-mattyc

[David Lawrence]

It really is!

BTW, I don’t intend to be a hater. I want to love this thing. But I’ve been working with NLEs since their invention and I’m really appalled by some of the UI decisions I’m seeing. Here’s a functional spec I co-authored in 1987 to give you an idea of my perspective and background:

https://www.propaganda.com/sfsu/econo.html

I’m all ears. If I’m missing something please point me in the right direction.

[Reed Black]

“I wish people wouldn’t pass judgment until they really went through the program in detail. It’s very different than FCP7 It’s quite powerful despite its missing features, once you learn it.”

I totally agree. Surprisingly, I was able to pick up the new timeline very, very fast. I was a bit confused why people were having problems with the magnetic timeline. I personally love it. But it can simply be turned off. So why all the complaints about it?

This is very, very easy to use, fast and smooth. It has all my main tools; JKL – I-in/O-out, blade tool, match source command (which can be mapped) and my favorite is the select tool. FCP7 – the “T” button. In this its a bit different and took a bit getting used to but I like it a lot. It really is a well thought out and very, very powerfully new approach to editing. The viewer (source window) I was bit annoyed by at first but after figuring out how to adjust it to my liking, I think its a very cleaver design. Look – we all know about FCPX’s short comings and there are quite a few but overall as far as look and feel, features ease of use, I think its extremely powerful. And I do strongly believe Apple will add back all the features we miss. I see no benefit not to. They can have an app that’s suits both the Pro’s and prosumers.

Just my take.

[Reed Black]

Dude, I did this in like 10 seconds. LITERALLY!

1. Add clip to timeline.
2. Select clip.
3. I typed +10:00 and hit enter. Moved my entire clip ten seconds ahead. (my usual way of moving stuff in FCP7).
4. Clicked the top of the clip, like you mentioned and hit apple T and guess what, I got a nice fade from black.

I apologize if I missed something in your post but this was just like working in the old FCP7. I didn’t even change the preferences.