[Martin Baker]

I’m with the “don’t know what all the fuss is about” crowd 🙂

There’s an easier way to set a specific duration without having to step back a frame or take a frame off in your head:

– With Canvas or Viewer active
– Mark In point as usual
– Press Tab (highlights the duration field)
– Enter the duration
– Press return

Martin
Digital Heaven, London UK
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[Martin Baker]

AFAIK the pipeline is this:

Speed Changes (inc Time Remap)
Filters (top filter in list applied first)
Motion Tab
– Motion Blur
– Crop
– Distort
– Basic Motion
– Drop Shadow
– Opacity/Composite mode

In your real world example, FCP would key the image first and then scale it down.

Martin
Digital Heaven, London UK
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[Martin Baker]

Yes you would have to render an animation codec clip but it renders faster.

The still cache doesn’t seem to get released automatically when you render an image sequence. Disabling then re-enabling other still clips, sorts the cache out.

You could use nesting but as we all know, nesting is a little bit unpredicatable on FCP sometimes. Incidentally, if you do import a folder of images then you can drag the folder itself to the sequence and all the images will get placed individually.

Martin
Digital Heaven, London UK
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[Martin Baker]

Change the RT popup menu at the top left of the timeline window to “Unlimited RT”.

Martin
Digital Heaven, London UK
Unique plug-ins and tools for Apple Pro Apps
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[Martin Baker]

There are also some disadvantages to using image sequences:

– Projects take longer to open and save because FCP has to load in every single frame rather than one file.
– FCP’s still cache will get used up very quickly if you use image sequences. This means you’ll lose RT on titles further down the sequence.
– The general pain of editing with single frame files.

Image sequences certainly have their place in high end or 3D projects where you need more flexibility but for simple renders from AE, a single QT in animation codec is far easier to deal with IMHO.

Martin
Digital Heaven, London UK
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[Martin Baker]

well if you didn’t render fields (which as you is optional) then that would point to a problem in AE rather than FCP.

Martin
Digital Heaven, London UK
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[Martin Baker]

Will

You don’t say whether you’ve rendered lower or upper from AE but I’m presuming lower to match the sequence. So for a DV PAL sequence:

If you’ve rendered from AE as lower field to Animation codec:
– Import into FCP
– Change the field dominance setting to “Lower” in the Browser, BEFORE you’ve added the clip to any sequence.
– Add clip to sequence (FCP should not add the Shift Fields filter because it knows the clip matches the sequence).

If you’ve rendered from AE as upper field to Animation codec:
– Import into FCP
– Do not change the field dominance setting (FCP assumes animation codec movies are upper as you’ve discovered)
– Add clip to sequence (FCP will automatically add the required Shift Fields filter)

It’s very easy to go round in circles with this because there is some weirdness. For instance, changing the field order of a clip already in a sequence has no effect at all. Anyway, the above steps work for me on 5.1.4

Martin
Digital Heaven, London UK
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[Martin Baker]

Tom, if you’re still watching this thread and have a moment, would you contact me off-forum. I’m writing an article about Avid and FCP and would like to talk to you.

thanks

Martin
Digital Heaven, London UK
Unique plug-ins and tools for Apple Pro Apps
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[Martin Baker]

Debe

If you get a second, could you contact me off forum. I’d like to ask you some questions for an article I’m working on.

Martin
Digital Heaven, London UK
Unique plug-ins and tools for Apple Pro Apps
NEW! Final Print for FCP
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[Martin Baker]

killideas

I’d like to speak to you off-forum. Would you mind dropping me an email

thanks

Martin
Digital Heaven, London UK
Unique plug-ins and tools for Apple Pro Apps
NEW! Final Print for FCP
Hot Tips video podcast