Chris Lehmann
Forum Replies Created
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Does anyone have a link to a capture of when they showed the three screens? I’d be curious if you can see any FCPX UI changes on there. I currently use three screens and when I went from FCS to FCPX it was a bit disappointing not to be able to use the third screen efficiently.
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According to the animations on the apple site, the whole cylindrical case slides off once the locking tab on the back is released. RAM trays fold out and are user upgradable. The flash storage looks like it just clips in, so that should be user upgradable as well.
The graphics cards look like they might be on removable trays too, although the way they come out in the animation could just be to show how it all fits together. If they are upgradable, it looks like only special apple cards would work.
Over all it’s pretty much what I expected, focus on GPU over CPU. More reliance on external thunderbolt technology and not a giant box.
I’ll be curious to see what they cost and if it’s time to replace my 2009 mac pro with this new one or a top of the line imac.
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I’m working on a large project with many layered photoshop files right now and I have a few tips for updating them without problems.
If you make significant changes, add layers or resize the image you might have to re-import (remember to import from the menu rather than drag and drop or you might not get the layer selection screen!) and then re-link each object under Inspector>Properties>Media>To>Layer. This is thankfully not always necessary.
Add a bit of extra space around the edges of your image with the crop tool. If you have to change the image size later, the X/Y positions in Motion get shifted around and you’ll have to reposition everything. If you give yourself a bit of working room you can just save in photoshop and it won’t shift around on your canvas.
If you think you might need extra layers later, turn the visibility off on those layers in photoshop and import them into Motion. They will come in disabled but are available and positioned right if you need them later.
Plain raster layers are your friend. Start using a lot of smart objects, text layers, masks, layer styles etc. and Motion can get a bit unhappy and crash a lot.
Very large images can cause problems. I try to stay under 4000x4000px. Also make sure you are working with square pixels. Some of the photoshop “video” templates use non-square pixels and while they still import, the quality is noticeably lower. Of course, make sure you are working in RBG color and I’ve always used sRGB color profiles with good results.
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Just a note since you said you bought your FCPX training over a year ago. There have been many significant changes and additions since then and you might be heading down the road to total confusion. On Lynda.com they actually pulled their old training videos completely and released new ones.
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Try moving the object into a group and applying the behavior to the group instead. Also, make sure under group controls that “fixed resolution” is not checked.
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I have a Mac Pro with three screens connected to 2 Mini DisplayPorts and 1 dual-link DVI. Currently the options in FCPX allow you to move the library OR the viewers to the second display. The timeline and whatever is not set to the second display stays on the main display. As far as I know there is no way to utilize the third display with this configuration.
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“The Cloud” is the new “Cyberspace” of the 1990s or “Web 2.0” of the 2000s. Don’t you know if you attach the buzzword of the day to any product it immediately becomes cool and cutting-edge?
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Reading the responses in this thread makes me wonder why many video pros I talk to still scrunch up their face at any mention of FCPX. I was talking to some video guys at a conference a few weeks back and mentioned I cut the videos for the conference on FCPX. They scoffed at this and said they would never touch it because they knew it was “complete crap”, “iMovie Pro” and “a toy”. Why is this attitude still so prevalent, and what has to change for people to change their knee-jerk reaction to it’s initial release?
I’m a convert from FCP7 and I love the X workflow once it clicked with me. The biggest benefit, as others have said, is that you can accomplish the same things you could in other programs in half the time. Especially for fast-turnaround stuff like news and broadcast this is a massive advantage!
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Just a thought, does each drive have a unique name?
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If you’re in news, speed is most likely of huge importance and that’s where FCPX shines.
As far as graphics go, neither FCPX or Premiere is meant to create graphics from scratch. On one hand there is Motion 5 (for $50!) which integrates perfectly into FCPX and makes custom lower thirds, titles and so on VERY easy and drop into your timeline and then customize right in the editor. This is definitely faster than going into another application and rendering them out every time. 3D with Motion is a bit tricky, it’s more like 2.5D but passable for many things.
However, After Effects offers more features and is so ubiquitous you’ll definitely want to know how to use it as well.