Andy Neil
Forum Replies Created
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I was going to mention the Open in Timeline option but it sounds like you’ve already found it. It’s too bad that it doesn’t seem to be connected at all with the browser version of the clip. Open in Timeline could actually be very useful for the reason you’d like to use if for if it only transfered IN/OUT ranges, markers and such to the browser clip. As it is, it seems to be creating a temporary Compound Clip that only transfers things like effects and adjustments to audio and video layers.
My best suggestion is this:
Close the Event Library window (CMD+SHIFT+1) and the inspector (CMD+4) so that you’re left with only the Event browser and Viewer. Then switch the view to list view so you have only one filmstrip at the top of the Event Browser.
Then go through your hour-long clip and break it up with Tags. Just mark In/Out ranges of manageable chunks and assign it a Tag. For example John Smith INTV. Just make 5-10 min chunks and give it that tag. You can assign the tag quickly by making it one of the 9 shortcut keys (CTL+1-9). Once the hour long INTV is tagged, go to the collection and you’ll have the entire interview in a series of manageable clips that will be much easier to scrub through.
Andy
https://www.timesavertutorials.com
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[Jay Carr] “I have a animation I’m working on that involves about 400 stick figures that I have inside of a replicator. I need them to change in a random order.”
By “change”, do you mean animate? What you’re asking depends a lot on what you’re actually trying to do. Replicators are best when used to create patterns of things. Emitters are typically better for things that need to move. A lot of times, you can use either interchangeably, but other times, one or the other is specifically needed.
If you’re animating a stick figure and you want 400 of them to animate, but not synchronized, what I’d try is using a replicator in concert with a clone.
Animate the stick figure in a group. Clone the group. Replicate the clone. In the replicator tab, make sure play frames is selected and then click Random Start Frame to have all your replicates animating separate from each other.
Andy
https://www.timesavertutorials.com
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While you’re correct that the perspective lines disappear when you adjust the far plane of your camera (I never noticed that before actually), it only occurs in the Camera View and not in any of the other perspective views. The near/far plane values are displayed in pixels, so if you know how far an object is from the camera, you can figure out what your near/far plane needs to be.
Of course I just do it all visually by scrubbing until objects disappear and reappear for the camera.
Andy
https://www.timesavertutorials.com
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Unfortunately, you’re not missing anything. There is no visual reference for the near plane/far plane sliders. However, the values are displayed in pixels so if you have an object at Z -8000 pixels and a camera at 0 with a far plane of 6000, then you know that object will be invisible until you move the camera Z -2000 pixels.
Hope this helps.
Andy
https://www.timesavertutorials.com
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Issue 1: Perhaps there’s something wrong with your install, because I’m not seeing this issue at all. Fade In/Out works perfectly in PAL or NTSC.
Issue 2: I notice this issue when trimming the Timing parameter inside the Media tab of the inspector, but not if I use the Timing parameter in the Properties tab. This is an issue that existed in version 4, so it’s not new to Motion 5.
Issue 3: Your font issue is with your font. FCP has always been picky about what fonts it recognizes, and when it doesn’t, it’s forced to substitute for another, usually a system font. Futura Bold is not an OS system font. I have a basic system set-up with no extra fonts, and my Futura set includes: medium, medium italic, condensed medium, and condensed extra bold. When I build a Title template in Motion from any of those fonts, they show up exactly as such in FCP X.
Issue 4: True, the interface has changed in Motion, but most of the shortcuts are what they were in previous versions. Not sure which ones you feel are missing or different. As for the rest, it’s a matter of preference. I too would like some more control over how the interface displays, but in my case, it’s very close to how I use it normally.
Andy
https://www.timesavertutorials.com
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If you’re talking about FCP X and Motion 5, then yes, Motion can do this. It was redesigned to be able to do this. You just need to start with a FCP Transition project which will give you a Transition A and B drop zones. In FCP those will translate to the outgoing and incoming clip in your transition.
However, if you’re using Motion 4, then you can’t do this automatically. You can create the effect, but would have to populate the drop zones manually inside Motion.
Andy
https://www.timesavertutorials.com
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The short answer to your metadata question is yes. FCP and Motion seem to know the timecode and trim the clip accordingly, but it’s not visible in an easily modifiable way inside Motion.
Normally this wouldn’t be an issue except that you can’t currently send clips to Motion from FCPX. I would consider your workaround using FCP 7 to be the simplest solution, especially if you’re planning on using more than one clip from the same piece of media. Thankfully, Motion 5 can open Motion 4 projects, and in some cases, Motion 5 opens when FCP 7 “sends” to Motion (at least on my system).
However, there is a fairly quick way you can trim the in of a long media clip inside Motion without using FCP 7. From there you trim your out in the normal fashion.
Drag and drop your clip from the browser into your Motion project. Select the clip in the Layers pane and hit SHIFT+F to reveal the clip in the Media tab. Now, in the inspector, you should see a media tab for your clip.
Twirl down the Timing parameter and you can either type in a start timecode, or hold down shift and scrub the Start value until you reach the spot in the clip.
A couple of things about this method: The Start field is not based on the internal TC of the clip but rather each clip starts from 0 so if you’re typing in numbers, you need to know how far from the start of the media is the clip you want. That makes it less user-friendly than just scrubbing through the clip quickly with the SHIFT key held down (to increase speed). The second thing is that trimming in this manner does not change the length of the clip inside the Motion project. This is why I like using this method (when I’m not using FCP).
You see, if you trim the start point of your clip in the Properties tab of the inspector, it eats away at the In point and the clip can disappear off screen, and you have no way of knowing visually if you are in the right spot. Trimming in the Media tab keeps the same In/Out points for your clip allowing you to visually see where you are in the display.
Hope that makes sense.
Andy
https://www.timesavertutorials.com
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I’m familiar with the open. The images don’t rotate, but they do slide. The majority of the open can be done in either program as it’s not difficult, only elegant. The final reveal is different and was probably done using a plug-in of some sort.
However, you can approximate it with the particle emitter and whole ton of pictures.
If I had to guess, I would say that the open was built with AE since Motion has fairly low market penetration with this sort of thing. But I’d say Motion can do it as well.
Andy
https://www.timesavertutorials.com
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1) collapse the compound clip and the use the blade tool on that to cut through all the layers.
2) you could try creating a storyline for each angle. They are independent of each other.
3) there is a clip size setting in the bottom right of the timeline. Choosing the far left removes the thumbnails and waveforms.
4) don’t know. It might not be possible.
5) not sure, but why do u need to? You can open stills as an image sequence in motion if that’s what you’re after.
Andy
https://www.timesavertutorials.com