Simon Ubsdell
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COW Coins
Forum Replies Created
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“The promo was cut on Apple FCP X and graded on Adobe SpeedGrade.”
That’s just weird.
Simon Ubsdell
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
There’s no way to do the text import that you want as far as I know.
But you can change the parameters of multiple text layers (not groups) very easily by shift-selecting the ones you want to change and altering the parameters of just one instance.
The only exception that I know of is that it doesn’t work with text alignment, but font. color, tracking, all that stuff works just fine.
A very powerful feature of Motion. It applies to any two objects that share the same parameters.
Simon Ubsdell
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
Outstanding as always! Great explanation. And pictures too 😉
Simon Ubsdell
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
That’s neat 🙂
If we just had the Motion Channel Mixer filter (and a Dilate/Erode option, as in the Motion MinMax filter) in X there’s a lot more one could do with building custom keyer components.
As you say, the built-in keyer gives some pretty nasty edges – and there’s nothing you can do to fix it.
Simon Ubsdell
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
[Bret Williams] “The light wrap idea sounds great, but never looks anything but blurry. Probably for the reasons posted.”
Incidentally building a light wrap is really very straightforward.
It involves blurring the matte and then combining the blurred version with the original of the matte in order to create a edge that overlaps into the foreground. The amount of the blur determines the depth of the light wrap. This matte is then used to composite a blurred version of the background image back over the foreground.
This simulates the effect of the light from the background encroaching over the foreground edges as it does in the real world. It can really help a lot of green screen composites – but as with all things to do with keying it needs to be used with discretion.
The problem is that Apple haven’t executed the blur properly so as to crop it at the edges of the frame – as I say, it’s a really easy fix.
And pace Bill, not remotely computationally expensive.
Simon Ubsdell
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
[Bret Williams] “With apples keyed, it appears amazing at first. As if it just needs a tweak to take it over the edge to a wonderful key. But no amount of tweaks work to get rid of the halo around motion blur or the harsh edge that exists around compared to keylight. “
Indeed.
I think what we have here is yet another case of an Apple image processing offering that is just “good enough” but no better.
The reason I wanted to raise this issue here is that I think it bespeaks a certain development philosophy and attitude to the marketplace.
Good marketing (hey, have you seen the cool new keyer in FCP X!), less good delivery.
Simon Ubsdell
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
I should add that their Unsharp Mask filter in Motion 5 (not available in FCP X for some odd reason) exhibits the same error.
Shoddy quality control … or is it ineptitude?
Simon Ubsdell
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
Quite so.
Yes, it’s very fast, but I’ve read countless comments about how it’s so much better than Keylight, for example!
It’s very handy if you need a quick result that looks OK, but otherwise it’s not really much use.
All that said, the point is that no-one at Apple (even after all this time) spotted a really obvious and easily avoided error!
What does that say about their attitude to image processing in general?
Discuss.
Simon Ubsdell
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
One method you could try is using the Text Type on option and animating the values to get the words to come on when you want.
Make sure you have Fade In turned off.
Keyframe the start and end of your animation for the line of text setting the end value to 100%.
In the keyframe editor, set the interpolation method to Constant.
Go to where you want your first word to appear and set a keyframe – the for safety move the playhead a few frames later so you can make sure you are doing the right thing. Drag the keyframe you’ve just made upwards till the whole of the first word has written on.
Go to where the next word needs to appear and do the same thing.
It’s quite a quick way to work and you might find it helpful.
Simon Ubsdell
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
Try duplicating your video layer three times and applying the Trails filter to each.
Set the second and third layers’ Blend Mode to Add.
Then add a Channel Mixer filter to each layer.
Set the lowest layer Channel Mixer to 1.0 on Red-Red and 0.0 on the other channels (leaving Alpha-Alpha at 1.0).
Set the next layer up to 1.0 on Green-Green and 0.0 on the other channels.
Set the top layer to 1.0 on Blue-Blue and 0.0 on the other channels.
Then adjust the Trails for each layer to get a suitable offset.
Or you could do away with the Trails filter and simply offset the timing of the three layers – I prefer that look personally.
That should do it.
Simon Ubsdell
http://www.tokyo-uk.com