Adjusting Motion Template Media in Drop Zones in FCP

The Motion User's manual claims that you can adjust certain parameters of Drop Zone media in templates in FCP. I'll go to the template's Control tab in the Viewer and there are no options and I do not get a red cross-hair in the Canvas as t says I should.
Any suggestions? Thanks in advance!

Speaking off the top of my head, if you click on the drop zone then head over to the Inspector pane, there should be a well you can click and drag from to get rid of old content. Not sure why it should hang around though in the first place.
hth
adam

Similar Messages

Trying to find termplates with drop zones for FCP 6 Help please.

I'm on FCS 2 (FCP6) and I'm looking for some templates that I can use to create a short video montage. I wold like to have images moving slowly around the screen with 'firework' effects going off around them. I've seen this done with a template but that was done on FCP 7. This would take the rest of my life to do manually so the question is are the kinds of templates WITH DROP ZONES available for use in FCP6? I've searched around but can only find templates for fonts, transitions and so on. Any help much appreciated.

I've just realised that the template I was looking for in FC is actually available in Motion and I'd failed to install it, so I'm sorted. If there is a source of free templates I'd be thrilled to find them.

Corrupt media causing dropped frames? FCP shuts down without warning.

Hello,
I have a project that was working fine, then one day we started getting numerous dropped frame warnings during playback on the timeline (specifically during sequences that have multiclips); then two days later, playback causes the entire project to freeze and FCP shuts down.
We are on 17" MacBook Pro, 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB 667
Mac OS X 10.4.9
External drive: Western Digital 1 TB, My Book Pro Edition, FW 800, 7200rmp, 650GB used
FCP 5.1.4, DV-NTSC project, source media captured from DVCam
I have tried all the normal adjustments for dropped frames issues including boosting the ram allocated to FCP, closing additional sequences and applications, hard drive is formatted OS X Extended, etc. Multiclip squences have only 2 video/audio streams at a time, so I can't imagine that its bottle necking here.
One thing to note is that the second external drive, which has duplicates of all the same media and copy of the most recent project is working fine. The only difference is that the problem drive also has media that was ripped from DVDs using Mac The Ripper, and then compressed using MPeg Streamclip into .dv (then changed to .mov before importing into FCP). We are using the DVD material as scratch until we can obtain the original footage as we get closer to going online. We are in the process of obtaining permissions from directors/distributors/studios, but this obviously takes time.
DVD material is totaling close to 55GB. Also, even though the clips are .mov, we are still getting a red bar and having to render the media. Audio is at 48hz so no problem there. Not sure why it still requires us to render.
Is it possible that the project is somehow corrupt? Is all the rendered material too taxing for FCP? Am I handling this extra footage inefficiently?
I have spent hours on this forum looking for the answer, but haven't come across a solution yet. Thank you for your help.

I'm not sure I understand. You have duplicate media on another drive? You're having problems playing back the media from one drive but NOT the other? Sounds like your drive might be failing. Try running Diskwarrior (to repair any possible directory structure problems) and techtoolpro (to see if there's any physical problem).
I have had problems with multiple firewire drives from different manufacturers connected at the same time. Try disconnecting everything BUT the problem drive.
You shouldn't need to do any rendering if the clip settings exactly match the sequence settings. Try this: select one clip, control click and choose make multiclip sequence. Is there a red bar in the sequence? If not, your clip settings to not match your sequence settings in the problem sequence.
Good luck

Template Drop Zone

Let's say your adding data to a template. The template has two drop zones (square box with arrow).
You have added the text in the appropriate text fields but you do not want to add any content (photo/video/whatever) to the drop zones.
*However, the drop zones remain in the template which of course you do not want to see in the final canvas.*
How (if possible) can you eliminate the drop zones entirely from the template. Can it be done in FCP (control/filter/motion tabs) or do you need to round trip the template to Motion and back for you to eliminate the drop zone boxes from your template?
Thanks
Dan

Tom
I was meaning templates found in the 'Effects' tab in the FCP browser.
At any rate, I know what you mean about removing them in Motion, Tom.
As a side note : I just dragged some freeze frames into the drop zones. I figured: why not?
Sometimes you just want a totally minimalist look. And I love deleting things to get to that level.
My living space looks that way. Spare, clean, cold, white. A major turn off for many.
Anyway, I like my video projects to look the same way.
.....but I digress.
Dan

Motion 5 / FCP X - Frustrating Drop Zones

I've been (trying) to use Drop Zones lately on a number of projects and while I've been able to kludge things here and there to get them to work properly, they sure have frustrated me. The projects I'm working on need snippets of properly timed video floating around the screen, usually within the opening sequence for the video. The trouble is I've never been able to really figure out the timing for these things.
1) Initially, the logical thought was (for me, at least) to set at least an in point for the video before dropping it into the Drop Zone in FCP X. That certainly didn't work because it appeared as though FCP X totally ignored my clip's in point. I wanted that clip video to start exactly at the beginning of that drop zone.
2) Since that didn't work I did some Internet research and someone posted that Drop Zones ignore clip in points. They said that when selecting the clip for the drop zone to place the cursor on the exact frame where you want the video to start before applying it to the Drop Zone. Well, that works to an extent.
Here's what I found after doing some experimentation in both Motion 5 and FCP X (latest versions of each). First, I created a video with timecode in it so that I could accurately track where the video really started on the first frame of the individual Drop Zone. The video starts with 10 seconds of color bars followed by 5 minutes of burned in timecode, then another 10 seconds of color bars. I created a simple Motion Generator with four Drop Zones - upper left, upper right, lower left and lower right. Each Drop Zone was placed exactly 10 seconds apart. So, for example:
For the first test I placed each Drop Zone within one Group in Motion. Drop Zones start at the following timecode for each location as follows:
UL: 00:00:00:00
LL: 00:00:10:00
UR: 00:00:20:00
LR: 00:00:30:00
After publishing the project, I loaded it into FCP X. I used the same timecode video for each Drop Zone starting it at timecode value 00:01:00:00. Now, one would think that each drop zone window, having been placed exactly 10 seconds apart, would show timecode values for the inserted videos also each 10 seconds apart. But they don't! All four Drop Zones show exactly the same timecode value. They are acting as if all four were placed within the Motion 5 timeline starting at 00:00:00:00. But they weren't.
So, I thought, what would happen if I placed each Drop Zone in Motion in a separate Group? I created four Groups, each one holding only one Drop Zone. It didn't make a difference. The timecode videos in each window were still in sync with one another.
The only way I can get this to work properly is to offset the beginning of each clip by -10 seconds. Unfortunately, if there's not enough "preroll" in the clip to do that, I'm out of luck.
But it gets stranger! Further experimentation leads me to believe that all of the Drop Zones within a project reference themselves to the very first Drop Zone within the project. I picked a new point within the timecode video - in this case, the 2 minute point (00:02:00:00) and dropped it into the UL drop zone. I did the same then for the other three and now they all track based on that 00:02:00:00 point within the video!
But it gets even stranger!!! I tried one more experiment, this time loading the Drop Zones in reverse order. That seemed to work. But still, why should I have to mess around like this trying to sync drop zones in some of weird order?
The question is, why do Drop Zones work this way and what can be done to fix this problem? However I select the first frame of video for a particular drop zone should be what that drop zone references when rendering. Ideally it would be great to be able to use an in point on the clip, but I'm also happy with just moving the clip's cursor to the first frame. It's easy enough to do. Hopefully the software team working on these apps can come up with a solution that makes sense. Thanks.
John

I've had this too and the fix then was to delete my project render files (FCP that is).
Russ

Drop Zone Template changes from 8 to 2 sec

Why does a template with a drop zone change the duration from the existing duration to 2 sec? I drop a picture into a drop zone either in the viewer or on the project window. Am I doing something wrong? Library selection/drag to viewer or project window/drop on drop zone.

Brian,
The carousel one as featured here?
http://idustrialrevolution.com/component/option,com_sobi2/sobi2Task,sobi2Details /catid,2/sobi2Id,15/
Or is the the other slightly diferent one? The Moments1 template has been released as you can see from the above & got a good testing/bashing, so I know it works!!
Its a bit late here, so give me a few hours on Monday & I will test the Moments2 if you say its that one.
Peter
I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.

Scaling within a drop zone

I'm working in MOTION 3.
I'm working with a template that has drop zones into which you're intended to place pictures or video.
When I drop the pictures in, they are too large...meaning parts of the picture are being cut off,
or are outside the parameters of the rectangular drop zone.
I want to scale the pictures down so they are completely visable in the drop zone, but I don't
want to change the overall size of the drop zone itself...I want the rectangular box (the drop zone)
to remain the same size.
I know how to scale the drop zone itself, but not the image that I'm placing inside the drop zone.
Minimally, I need to be able to move the image I dropped into the drop zone around in there,
so I can see the most important part of the image.
Any assistance would be appreciated.

In Motion 4, you'd be able to use the Link behavior to make a scale adjustable template... ala: Mark's tutorial (thanks Mark!)...
With Motion 3, I'd say edit the template. You have the option to save it just for this use, or globally. I'd say make your adjustments on a use by use basis...
Patrick

Motion 4 (upgrade) Templates Taking Longer to Render in FCP?

I've noticed that templates created in the Motion 4 upgrade when used in FinalCut -- more specifically those with text -- take much longer to render... in fact, up to 10x longer.
I have text-only templates used for the lower-third, after trying to figure out why a 10-second sequence was taking 12 minutes to render in FCP, I removed the video-track containing the Motion template, which result in a render-time of about 20 seconds.
Using a very-similar text-only template from Motion 3 (created before the upgrade) resulted in a negligible increase in render time. So I opened the .motn file in the upgraded Motion 4, exported as a new template... and the render-time jumped back to 12 minutes. Same text, same transition, but the Motion 4 created template significantly increased render-time in FCP.
Is anyone else seeing this? And is there a solution/fix/workaround?

I want to use some Motion-designed templates for some specific text transitions (nothing too crazy, but which is much more simple to use in a template, for a regally occurring webisode project) in a lower-third.
A 20 second clip with a "Text-A template" saved from Motion 3, takes less than one minute to render in FCP.
The same clip, with the same "Text-A template" saved from Motion 4, takes nearly six minutes to render in FCP... with the same render settings.
It appears to be only related to templates that contain text... I've not noticed any new slowness with templates that contain drop-zones for photos or video.

Loving my Drop Zones

Man, Talk about a time saver!! Spend a little time creating templates and those drop zones will pay themselves off ten fold. Just spent the last couple of days creating a GFX Toolkit for one of the shows... As goofy as this sounds I think its my favorite part of M3 update.
Nava

ope... just in M3.
1. drop content in M3 template I made
2. Make a movie
3. Drop template in FCS
That whole round trip thing was never fast enough for my work flow.

Drop Zones Freezing in FCPX with multiple 3rd party plugins

I am running FCPX 10.0.6 and just noticed something. When using my Crumplepop Effects Generator plugin 'Split Screen' the applied clips in my split screens either freeze the length of the effect or only play intermittently.
Same thing is now happening in the drop zones of my MotionVFX templates. Even if I go back to an older project that was previously working fine, it now has issues. In one instance a template with 4 drops zones - the first plays fine but now the remaining 3 the dropped in clips are frozen.
I figured maybe a recent FCPX update caused this. Any ideas?

Thanks for the info.
Here is the reply I received from CrumplePop:
Sorry for the trouble with SplitScreen X! In Final Cut Pro 10.0.6 there is a brand new workflow for adding content to Drop Zones. This means there are a few new things to learn to use SplitScreen X in 10.0.6. Also there are a few bugs to watch out for. We have a new tutorial about using SplitScreen in 10.0.6 on our website here: http://www.crumplepop.com/final-cut-pro-tutorials/
Just incase you want to see written out steps I have included some below.
Adding Content to SplitScreen X from the Event Library:
- Add the SplitScreen X generator you wish to use to the timeline.
- Move the playhead to the location you will want your clip to start on the timeline, usually this is the first frame of the SplitScreen X Generator.
- Once your playhead is set, click the image well for the Drop zone you wish to place your clip in.
- Then in the event browser move the cursor to the "in point" of the clip you want to place in SplitScreen X and click. After you have selected the frame you wish to be your inpoint, hit the "Apply clip" at the bottom of the viewer.
Adding Content to SplitScreen X from the Timeline.
- Add the SplitScreen X generator you wish to use to the timeline.
- Select the clips you wish to place into SplitScreen X and time them out on the timeline.
- Highlight the first clip you wish to add into SplitScreen X and then right click and select "create compound clip." repeat this with the other clips that will be placed in SplitScreen X.
- Move the playhead to the location you want your compound clip to start in SplitScreen X on the timeline, usually this is the first frame of the SplitScreen X Generator.
- Once your playhead is set, click the image well for the Drop zone you wish to place your clip in.
- Then move the cursor to the first frame of the Compound Clip on the timeline and click. Repeat this process for all of the drop zones and clips then click "Apply Clip"
- Once the Compound Clips are all placed into SplitScreen X you can disable them by highlighting and pressing the "v" key.
- *Note* If you open up a Compound Clip that you placed in SplitScreen X you can make color correction changes or drag on effects and your changes will appear in the SplitScreen X Generator in real time!
SplitScreen X in 10.0.6 Known Issues:
- If you try to add a clip from the timeline before making it a Compound Clip it will not be timed properly in your SplitScreen X generator.
- Sometimes changes made to Compound Clips don't display properly in the first few frames of your SplitScreen X Generator. However, there is an easy fix. Try moving the starting point of the SplitScreen X Generator over just one frame, this should correct the issue. "

Apple motion 5 template drop zones play only 1080p video clips. 720p will play outside of dropzone.

I am also getting a -1 error when trying to export with the 720p clip in a dropzone. I bought the clip stock and they didn't offer this one in 1080p. Is there any explanation as to why this clip will not run in the dropzone but does on the canvas?

You shouldn't be "loading" drop zones in Motion. You should be doing that in FCPX (as long as the drop zone source well is published.) You do not have to use Motion to "bake" video for import into FCPX. Install the template for FCPX [ place the effect folder in ~/yourHomeFolder/Movies/Motion Templates/<TypeOfEffect>/<CategoryFolder - create a new one if you want>/<place effect folder here> ]
The types of effects are Effects, Titles, Generators, Transitions.
The effect you bought came in a folder. That folder structure must be maintained for FCPX. That usually means: a Motion document (.moef, .moti, .motr or .motn file), 2 .pngs and a Media folder. If any of these are missing, it will not work in FCPX.
To use the drop zone in FCPX, apply the effect to the clip (or if it is a Title, place the title over the storyline); click on the Drop Zone source well, then click on the clip you want to apply to the drop zone from either the Event browser or the storyline. You'll see a "2-up" display, and you should see an "Accept" button in the viewer to finalize the application to the drop zone.
If you have the same problems in FCPX, let us know!

MOTION 4 - I can't locate correct drop zones for template

I'm working in MOTION 4 and a template I purchased online.
I'm not deeply experienced with MOTION (one of the reasons I prefer
templates), but I have used built-in MOTION templates and those from 3rd parites
and other sources on many prior occassions. I'm familiar with dragging
the elements you want to customice into the drop zones.
The problem I'm having is with a Calendar template. I've been
playing for hours now trying to get
the video or image into the drop zone. For instance this template is
made of of a bottom part
that shows a January calendar, and the top of the calendar is the drop
zone where you drop in
the picture you want to customize to represent January. And there is a
counterpart for all 12 months and it flips through all 12 months.
No matter how hard I try, I can't drag my images into the right area of
MOTION Canvas or layers area to get it into the right
drop zone corresponding to the month I'm shooting for.
This seems straight forward, but the template is confusing. I've tried
trial and error for hours now, but they're not
ending up where I need.
Is there someway to see ONLY the drop zones in MOTION? I keep replacing things
I don't intend.
Any quick assistance would be appreciated. I've contacted the 3rd party I purchased the template
from but haven't heard back yet and on deadline. Help!

ichbinesderelch wrote:have you tried using xrandr? xrandr -q shows available outputs, xrandr --output outputadapter(like VGA) --mode 1280x1024, as far as i can see, virtual monitor is set high enough that this should kinda work!
Yes, I tried xrandr:
$ xrandr --newmode "1280x1024" 65.0 1024 1048 1184 1344 768 771 777 806 -vsync -hsync
$ xrandr --addmode VGA 1280x1024
$ xrandr --output VGA --mode 1280x1024
$ xrandr --output VGA --right-of LVDS
At first this didn't work at all, so I tried to mess with screen resolution applet and got output on the second monitor, but not at the desired resolution.
I tried running these commands again and got output on the second monitor, but at the wrong resolution. The strange part is that the resolution I want is listed by xrandr:
$ xrandr -q
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 2304 x 800, maximum 2560 x 2048
VGA connected 1024x768+1280+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 0mm x 0mm
1280x800@60 60.0 +
1360x768 59.8
1024x768 60.0*
800x600 60.3 56.2
640x480 59.9
1280x1024 60.0
LVDS connected 1280x800+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 0mm x 0mm
1280x800 60.0*+
1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
832x624 74.6
800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
720x400 85.0
640x400 85.1
640x350 85.1
TV disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

Moving Still Graphics in Motion Template: Drop Zones

I am new to this and it is probably a simple answer. I have a portrait JPG photo to add to a drop zone in a template. How do I adjust the photo only so that it will not cut off the top of the photo. I am using fit in the image properties. It works with stretch but that option distorts the photo and centre makes the photo selection even smaller within the drop zone. The photo is quite large. Do I have to reduce it's size first?
If I move the photo down with the selection tool it does not allow me to move the photo down without cutting off the rest of the photo outside the drop zone box. All I want to do is move the photo down so it fits within the drop zone so that I can see the bride and groom.

hi,
what is the aspect ratio of the drop zone? if it doesnt match your photo then you are going to have to compromise on something. You might lose some picture either at the sides or top and bottom, or maybe you see some blank around the picure.
As Patrick says its a waste of power having a large picture if you are going to reduce its size and pop it in a frame. Further to this you might want to preflight your image to be the right ratio for your drop zone.
Hope this helps
adam

Motion Drop Zone template question

I am using a drop zone template to make a short promo video. I am trying to figure out how to transition from the drop zones flying in to open the video full screen to play. So the effect I want is a bed of music and the motion template flying in 6 drop zones. I want to see a drop zone expand into like a 20 second spot and then fly the drop zones again, pick a different one to expand into the full movie and so on. I have about 3 minutes to make this promo. I am using Final Cut Studio 3 and Motion 4.
What behaviors is there in Motion to do this or do I need to just bring in the motion file into FCP and use some sort of transition there?
Jeff

Which template are you trying to use?
I'd maybe do it this way...
1. Create the project in Motion using a frame that is twice the size of your editing format in FCP. If you're editing DV in FCP, use one of the HD templates. If you're using HD in FCP, you'll need to change the properties of the project to about 2160 pixels high. but the dropzones should be able to hold a full size clip.
2. Render it all out full size.
3. Import it into FCP and drop it into your timeline, set it to 25% or 50% scale, don't let FCP scale it to fit the sequence.
4. You will be able to use the scale and position (center) keyframes to zoom in on any single dropzone to fill the frame at 100%.
That's just one of many simple ways to do this without using a camera in the template. If you're new to Motion, save that for a later project.
Mark or others will have more interesting suggestions later.
bogiesan

Motion 3 template drop zone content won't play in FCP

I am new to Motion. I made a custom template and brought it into FCP. It inserts and previews fine. In FCP I place a clip into one of the masked-out "drop zones" under the "controls tab" and here is where I run into the problem:
The clip shows up ok in the template but doesn't play once I render; all I get is a static still from it.
I sense that I am almost there... any suggestions?
many thanks,
Alan
intel iMac, G4 Powerbook Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Hi, this problem has been solved over in the Quicktime discussions:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5106282&#5106282
Turns out you need to install Qmaster to play HDV files in QT (without FCP installed).

Adjusting Motion Template Media in Drop Zones in FCP

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for