Andy Neil
Forum Replies Created
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[Gareth Randall] “For some reason, pretty much all of the Motion particle tutorials I’ve ever seen have involved creating very cartoony or otherwise “not real objects” effects, whereas there are many AfterEffects tutorials about how to create photorealistic or “organic-looking” particle effects.”
The tutorials I’ve done in Motion regarding particles and emitters are simplified because the concept of particle effects is not always an easy one for people to grasp.
Most of the AE tutorials I’ve seen fall into two categories: ones that are simplified to make the understanding of the concept easy, and ones that are just step by steps with nothing explained and mostly using plug-ins which may or may not be available to the viewer.
Of course you can make photo-realistic particle emitters in Motion. Motion has 3D cameras, lighting, shadows, depth of field. In addition you can use actual photos of elements to create your particles from.
If you want volumetric lighting, you’re going to need plug-ins to help with that, but you need plug-ins for a lot of the really great effects that AE can do as well.
Andy
https://www.timesavertutorials.com
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[Stephen Nahroniak] “I also notice there is no keyboard shortcut to nudge clips by frame inside the the viewer.”
Not sure what you mean by this. You can nudge clips frame by frame by selecting them in the event browser and using the left and right arrow keys to advance one frame forward or backward in the clip.
The viewer itself doesn’t have a scrubber, but that’s just the way the program works. You scrub the filmstrip in the event browser to view the video in the viewer.
Maybe I just don’t understand what specifically you’re trying to do in X.
Andy
https://www.timesavertutorials.com
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There isn’t one. You need to hover with the cursor and use C or X. Send feedback to apple via the Final Cut Pro menu. it’s something we should definitely have, even if it’s just using the arrow keys to jump the “select” box to another clip.
Andy
https://www.timesavertutorials.com
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Ok, here goes. This is a simple project, but there are places where you can improve the look of the graphic by playing around with color and shadows and such:
Open Motion. From the project window, choose Generator from the template choices. From the preset, choose the same preset as your project, or just make it a 1080i (29.97). FCPX scales and adjusts frame rate to fit different projects.
Grab the line tool. It’s among the other shape tools at the bottom.
Draw your progress bar. Hold shift to constrain the line to vertical or horizontal.
In the shape tab of the inspector, change the start and end caps to “none”. Here’s where you can also change the color, and adjust the width so that it looks like a nice, solid bar.
Go to the behaviors button at the bottom (looks like a little gear) and choose Shape — Write On. This will animate the bar from beginning to end of your project.
Save your project and in the publish dialogue, give your generator a name and category. If you’ve never made an effect for FCP before, choose New Category from the drop down and give it whatever name you like. I use Custom for my custom effects.
When it’s saved, go over to FCPX and add your graphic as a connected clip to your project. If you used the default length of the project, it’ll drop 10 seconds into your timeline. Just stretch it out however long you need it to be and the animation will slow down to accommodate the length of the clip. And you’re done.
There’s lots more you can do, including publishing parameters for position, color, opacity, but I didn’t want to get too complicated. Hope this helps.
Andy
https://www.timesavertutorials.com
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[Sascha Engel] “Could you elaborate on the roles, since that is a part of FCPX I am not so familiar with yet.”
Here’s a primer tutorial I did on the Roles feature.
Hope this helps.
Andy
https://www.timesavertutorials.com
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You should be able to just check the box on import that says, “Separate Mono and Group Stereo audio”. Otherwise, you could select all your clips once you’ve imported and in the inspector change the audio configuration to dual mono instead of stereo.
Andy
https://www.timesavertutorials.com
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Actually, you reminded me of a great trick that could help OP. Open the timeline index and make sure it set to show everything. Then in the search bar, type, “undefined” because that’s how FCPX categorizes the “role” of transitions. This should isolate all the transitions in your timeline where you can delete as many as you need to at a time.
Andy
https://www.timesavertutorials.com
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Open up your sequence settings. CMD+0 to go to project library, and then click the wrench icon in the inspector for you selected sequence and uncheck the Drop Frame checkbox.
Andy
https://www.timesavertutorials.com
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I know David gave you what you need, but I just wanted to say that you could build this as a generator in Motion in about 2 minutes and then you could apply it above your video and drag it out to match the lengths of your sections and the bar would automagically retime itself without the need to keyframe anything. If you’re interested I can talk you through it.
Andy
https://www.timesavertutorials.com
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