[Matthew Woods]

Sounds about right. I usually render an all screens pro-res master from Final Cut. Then depending on the player/players I either crop and cut it up into individual vids for each projector, or remap it to fit the requirements of the player.

A recent 4 screen project that I worked on was installed on a brightsign, and needed a single 8k file where each quadrant was the output of 1 screen. The screens were different sizes and orientations, so I had to scale, rotate and crop my edited master vid to fit each quadrant.

A little bit of self promotion. If you are dealing with screens that are in perspective, or are hitting multiple screens with 1 projector you might find this tool that I wrote helpful. It will blow up a perspective portion of your vid to full screen so you can use the native corner pinning tools on-site to map it into its final location.

https://fxfactory.com/info/reversecornerpin/

AE’s “Power Pin” tool will do this too, but I wanted the ability to do it in Final Cut.

Good luck,

-Mat

[Matthew Woods]

Hi Helen,

You could also try exporting an XML of your timeline, and importing it into a fresh project to see if that makes a difference. While you have the XML export you could try importing it into other editing software and see how it works there. Premiere’s constant crashing is what made me switch to FCPX. FCPX is wacky if you are used to other editing software, but it is so fast and solid that I don’t miss Premiere at all. Fixing the translation errors from a project that I started in Premiere was what helped me learn it. To import into FCPX you need a piece of software called SendToX available in the App Store.

Good luck,

-Mat

[Matthew Woods]

I have the same issue, and would dearly love Apple to create an easier way to do this. Something like After Effect’s Command+Option+/. This is the best method I have found for swapping a shot in FCPX. Note, I usually edit in secondary storylines above a dummy main storyline. If you edit on the main storyline, you could lift the proxy clip from the storyline first.

First, park the playhead at the beginning of the proxy clip. Drag the head of the proxy clip to its extent. Next place the master in a layer above the proxy clip and make sure their in points match. Drag both proxy and master in points back to the playhead. Copy the proxy clip, then Paste Attributes (Command+Shift+V) onto the master clip. Copy any transitions from the proxy to the master. Toggle the Master visibility on and off to make sure it matches the proxy. Delete the proxy. Merge the master back into the primary storyline if necessary.

Thats a lot more busywork steps than it feels should be necessary. It goes pretty quickly once you get the hang of it though. One nice thing is that if both proxy and final are the same aspect ratio, and set to spatial conform “fit”, all transforms, KenBurns crops, color correction and effects are transferred perfectly.

Hope that helps!

-Mat

[Matthew Woods]

Final Cut is excellent for editing multiple screens with a large number of layers. That is the reason that I switched to it from Premiere. I am amazed at how many simultaneous streams of video FC can play back unrendered from a fast SSD on a high powered modern Mac. I would at least try editing them all on the same timeline, then chopping them up afterwards. Makes it much easier to do synchronized moments. I just finished a 4x4k project where I edited in 8k and chopped it up. I have done a 9 screen program with screens of various sizes projected on using 2 4k projectors. How are your screens configured? All in a row next to each other? I usually start with a template layer with an alpha channel that corresponds to the locations of the screens. I never edit on the primary storyline, so I put a still on there (usually a bright solid color so I can make sure I am covering it). I edit everything on secondary storylines below the alpha template and above the main storyline template. If I need to move stuff to open or close a gap, I blade the main storyline layer, and adjust that. All the secondary storyline layers move with it. Good luck! -Mat

[Matthew Woods]

I would say M1 (M2,M3) reigns supreme. After Effects was almost unusable on my 2017 iMac Pro. I could never get previews to playback reliably at full frame-rate no matter what I did. I had to export a movie just to preview my animations. Also, it crashed all the time. Now that I have an M2 MacBook Pro, and am running the Apple Silicon native version of AE, I am finally starting to love AE again. It’s snappier, previews fine, and has been very solid. I thank Apple for forcing Adobe to rewrite their ancient crumbling code. The only problem is plugin compatibility. I have several older plugins that won’t work in Apple Silicon Native. The biggest ones that I miss are the Trapcode Suite. Maxon has updated the the Red Giant plugins, but they are only available for Mac as part of an expensive subscription. I don’t do enough particle work to justify it. Trying to do without.

[Matthew Woods]

Just saw there was a new version of AE and updated hoping they had fixed this, but no dice. According to Adam’s post on the Adobe Support Community they have fixed it in the beta version though. Thanks for posting that Adam! And thanks for the verification Walter and Matthew!

[Matthew Woods]

Thanks Walter,

Should have thought to try that. I colored my layers first so I could easily remember which were track mattes. Turns out the offender is the “Paint” effect. Something about it didn’t get translated well between versions.

[Matthew Woods]

I tried to get FCP’s VR tools to work and never managed it, and we actually have an old HTC Vive in our office that was supposed to be compatible with mac. Steam VR for mac never made it out of beta, and isn’t supported by the latest MacOS. I have wondered why FCP still says it can directly output to VR. Maybe they are hanging onto the feature for the release of Apple’s headset.

I have used the excellent NDI plugin for FCPX to stream video out of FCP over ethernet into the Vive connected to another machine (running windows). There may be an NDI viewer for the Quest, but I would recommend ethernet over wireless. Wireless got laggy when streaming NDI video from FCP. The Oculus Quest2 can function as a wired Rift when plugged into a Windows machine though. Here is the link to download NDI tools for mac: https://www.ndi.tv/tools/

In answer to Terry’s question about making a virtual iMax cinema, I edit projection mapped videos for museums where we are often projecting on unconventional surfaces or architecture. VR has been an excellent tool to preview these projections before we get onsite. I use Unity3D https://unity.com/ with Projector Simulator Pro https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/utilities/projector-simulator-pro-160554 and klakNDI https://github.com/keijiro/KlakNDI to create custom simulations of the environment so we can preview our FCPX edits. I also create some of my own tools with FXFactory to help me out with the mapping. https://fxfactory.com/info/reversecornerpin/

Good luck.

[Matthew Woods]

I hear and agree with all that has been said here. I have been a Cow for a very long time now, and have learned so much from this community, and tried to give back where I can. I loved this website. I loved the magazine. I’m not crazy about the new forum format. I know its the way of the future, optimized for tablets and phones and such, but I still prefer to read the COW on one of my big edit machine monitors. There is a lot of wasted space on a big screen.

The biggest issue I have is not with the COW though, but with Adobe. The After Effects forums were always the most lively part of the COW, and I feel that Adobe is slowly killing off After Effects. It is tragic because I loved After Effects. I still love the interface, and know it like the back of my hand. It is just so buggy and slow and awful now. I find it extraordinarily painful to use for anything other than still images. (I still find After Effects to be the best Photoshop alternative).

Lately I have been finding joy in FCPX. We made the switch from Premiere a couple years ago and haven’t looked back. It is far from perfect, but the speed and stability are a joy to work with. After some teeth gnashing at its differentness, I have actually come to appreciate some of the choices Apple has made with it. Unfortunately Motion is no AE alternative, and I haven’t found any other piece of software that approaches the amazing effects swiss-army knife quality of AE in its prime.

I would love to give Resolve a proper spin, but they don’t offer a demo of the full version. When I tried it, I kept running into limitations of the free version. I’m not willing to buy the software just for evaluation purposes.

I find myself frequenting FCP.co more now because that seems to be the most vibrant FCPX forum. It nowhere near approaches the old COW though. I do miss the glory days of AE and the COW. I still think the COW is the best resource for AE wisdom, but I don’t need that much these days. Forums for other software on the COW aren’t as vibrant. I think my favorite forum here now is the Creative Community Conversations.

-Matt

[Matthew Woods]

Heads up if you use After Effects, you should hang on to the 2013 iMac for now(Still get a new machine for Final Cut). I have that same 2013 model iMac, as well as a 2017 iMac Pro. The 2013 iMac is WAY better for After Effects. The iMac Pro is a little faster, though not a lot but it is much more prone to crashing and often can’t play back a Ram Preview in real time. I don’t have these problems on the 2013 iMac. It is one of the last machines that Apple made with an Nvidia card, and I think Adobe works much better on Nvidia. I hoped Adobe would fix AE for Apple Silicon, but reports sound like that is not the case.