Animation with FCP? (or Motion)

I created this short animation in a class using Adobe Premiere.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dv7ifASoYk
I found it extremely easy to use in conjunction with Adobe Illustrator. I would basically design the parts in Illustrator, save the .ai file and I would be able to import the file into Premier and animate from there using the movement tool.
But that's at school. I have FCP at home and I would like to work on things at home.
I can't even figure out how to get a vector image into FCP with a transparent background.
I've tried Photoshop and Illustrator, multiple file types (.psd, .ai. .tiff .png).
I even tried importing a .png in Motion with the video and it distorts the vector image completely.
Anyone know the secret recipe to get a vector image into FCP with a transparent background?

Any way to import a logo that has a transparent background?
Make a TIFF or PNG that has either an Alpha channel or is pasted onto a transparent background.
Transparency will composite automatically. Depending on how you make a graphic with an Alpha channel, you might have to adjust settings in the Composite Mode menu.

Similar Messages

Two Radeons 3870 with FCP and Motion?

Hi!
Have you tried to use two 3870 with FCP and Motion?
I just wanted to have all 512MB of video RAM for my canvas and use the second card with my Matrox MXO to display broadcast preview.
I know it could be risky, but as I remember earlier the problems shows only while rendering some of the plugins in FCP (my test was on 2006).
Do you have any experience with pair of 3870 cards?
I've just ordered two of them:)
regards
arti

From what I've read on this forum, FCP doesn't work properly with two video cards.
-DH

2 imacs v 1mbp for use with FCP and motion.

I'm in need of advice. I'm in the market for a new computer(s).
Let me give you a rundown on my situation.
HOME COMPUTER- dual 800 1GIG ram G4. probably 6-7 years old -i got it 2nd hand in 03 i think-
(its about 6 years old and very noisy and update needed)
WORK COMPUTER- AL PB G4 1.5ghz 2gig ram 17". Bees knees when released almost 4 years ago.
(redering and Motion are getting beyond tiresome with how slow they are).
The WORK computer I do all my editing on while the HOME computer I use for internet surfing, itunes etc. I use FCP for editing wedding dvds, work related videos etc. but I'm thinking of taking a break from the wedding filming & editing business to concentrate on other things. I will still continue to edit and film but not as much in the past 6 years. As of last week I don't have any projects or side jobs in the pipeline but that may change within 6 months.
MY QUESTION- What should I get?
1. 1 x 2.6 Ghz 4gig Ram 17" MBP at around 3,500 dollars (i'm in japan so about 360,000yen) and then use my AL powerbook as my home computer
OR
2. 2 x imac 20inch with 4gig ram which i think comes in at just under the MBP price
OR
3. 1 x imac 24" 4gig ram & 1x imac 20" with 4gig ram.
Is final cut pro and motion3 going to work better on the imacs than on my current AL powerbook? surely!
I still use motion1 and that really pushes my computer to it's limits. and the last 2 years have been a hectic one editing wise so I didn't want to upgrade computers during the course of projects ongoing.
(playing with fire in my books)
THING IS i need to be able to edit at both work and home. I take a my laptop with me to work everyday, but if I were to get 2 desktops I could just use external hard drives for my projects (which I do anyway). That's why if both computers are desktops they both need to be able to handle motion 3 and fcp6 to a competent level. and if I got two desktops I could try and sell my AL PB. It's still in superb condition due to me keeping it sleeved whenever not in use.
I heard rumours that apple will be releasing new imacs sooner rather than later as well.
ANY thoughts would be highly appreciated.

From what I've read on this forum, FCP doesn't work properly with two video cards.
-DH

Fcp and motion 3 with Yosemite

I Recently upgraded the operating system of my 2009 Mac Pro to Yosemite and consequently FCP and motion 3 no longer work. Can I do a clean install of Mavericks on a spare hard drive, install FCP and motion 3 on it and not have any conflicts with the other hard drives?

HHi Nick, thanks for the response. My question however was : can I have one hard drive operating Yosemite and another operating Mavericks with FCP and motion 3 without conflict in the same computer? Any ideas?

Experimenting with FCP/ Real time rendering question

Hello, I am preparing to purchase a Mac Pro and spent some time at the local mac affiliate store playing with FCP and motion.
In fcp I took two clips and dropped them in the timeline, adding the 3d cube transition, and some filters to both clips.
I was looking at performance of real time rendering on teh base config of the MP I plan on purchasing.
I then added another clip above these two, intending on dropping the opacity to further push the RTR (real time rendering). This clip overlapped the transition of the two other clips in v1 and v2.
When attempting to play the timeline the viewer window now said "Not Rendered"
My question is:
Is there a limit to how many tracks can be run under the RTR? Why did I get this message?
My main reason of the move to a Mac Pro is to get away from constantly pre-rendering.
Thanks everyone in advance!

In fcp I took two clips and dropped them in the timeline, adding the 3d cube transition, and some filters to both clips.I was looking at performance of real time rendering on teh base config of the MP I plan on purchasing. I then added another clip above these two, intending on dropping the opacity to further push the RTR (real time rendering). This clip overlapped the transition of the two other clips in v1 and v2.
<
Sounds like you know what you're doing and what you expect. A factor that has not been mentioned yet, besides RAM, prefs and drive speeds, is your video format.
Also, the new rev of FCP is taking advantage of tons of processing overhead, vastly increasing the amount of stuff you can do in real time. However, real time is largely a preview operation, regardless of the machine or system, unless you are using proprietary codecs, such as Media 100, that might be hardware-assisted. Output is almost always a rendering issue, multiple stacked or processed layers require the creation of new media.
The only way you're going to be able to decide if Macintosh and FCP are right for you is to demo thoroughly and that requires using your own footage.
bogiesan

Use Flash MX or Motion for animation to FCP 4.5?

I'm writing a one-man performance piece for myself, consisting of spoken words, text display of phone conversation audios, songs and instrumental music, video sometimes with stills, and in particular one song (4 minutes) right now that I need to do animation with. The animation will consist of stills of a dancer (me, such as I dance) in movement composited over both video and stills backgrounds.
I'm just going through the tutorials in a book I got for Motion 1, Getting Started with Motion by Mary plummer - very good. I have Flash MX, and searching the archives it appears that at least one version of Flash can export a QT compatible movie to import into FCP. In what I've read so far about Motion 1 it seems to be primarily for 8-10 second animations. Will Flash, the MX version, be better? Or Motion 1?
I haven't learned Flash at all and I'm under deadline pressure. My final output is to DVD Studio Pro 3 to DVD with which I'll interact for the performance. If Motion 1 can hack it, I'd rather stay with it, but I don't know.
Gracias.
Frank Fitzpatrick
G4 800 (2002) Mac OS X (10.3.9) 1.5 GB RAM, FCP 4.5, DVDSP3, Motion 1, Finale, Digital Performer, MOTU 896HD

I haven't learned Flash at all and I'm under deadline
pressure.
When the deadline is tight, go with what you know. In my experience and professional opinion, using Flash is a better and more efficient way to create animations for use in video.
But you need to be a pretty sophisticated Flash authorer before you can start creating those animations in a manner that will actually work out for you to import into video. Flash is a very difficult program to learn, at least initially.
If you understand Motion, and you can do what you need to do in Motion, then do it in Motion.
If Motion wants you to work in short clips, then that's OK. you are going to edit them together in FCP anyway, so transitions will be seamless. There's lots of good logistic and project management reasons to chop up your program into modules anyway.
I've done lots and lots of animations in Flash, both for web and video. I love working in the Flash environment.
I've also spent a good chunk fo the past 30 years doing various kinds of media production work, especially video.
So I repeat to you my initial advice, when the deadline is tight, go with what you know. If you know Motion, then use Motion.
Good luck

Motion 5 and compressor 4 with FCP ?

Hi,
Is it possible to use motion 5 and copressor 4 with FCP 7 ?
Thanks
Ivan

Sort of – by exporting and reimporting as clips. There is no round-tripping. For example, you can't send a clip as a Motion project to Motion4, save and have the clip update in FCP. You'd have to export a clip (or sequence) as a self-contained movie and bring it into Motion (or Compressor), make your changes, exporty and reimport as a clip, see how you liked the result, etc. Much easiier to stay within FCS.
Russ

Will Motion 5 work with FCP 7?

Since I am not interested in downgrading to iMovie Pro, will the new Motion work ( templates, etc. showing up) with FCP 7?

Check out the Motion 5 section here: https://discussions.apple.com/community/professional_applications/motion_5
Alan

Animation with motion path like flash

Hi at all,
is it posible to animate an object in circle move like motion path in flash?

@resdesign
If you were right, the example below won't work ;-)
Rotation is rotating an object around its origin. If the origin is outside the object, it moves in a circle.
Here is the example: http://mcmm.com/edge/circular/circular.html
It has been done like in my description above.
All objects in the example are simply animated with rotation. The earth rotates around its origin and the planets do the same.
The only difference between earth and planets is that the earth has its origin untouched while the planets have their origin outside.

Round Trip problems with FCP, Motion and 16:9

Hello all-
I've been having some problems with FCP5 and Motion 2. I am working with anamorphic footage (mini dv), and my problem lies in trying to use the "send to" feature in FCP to Motion 2. If I send some footage to Motion 2, edit it, and then go back to FCP to look at my edit, the anamorphic flag has been removed... the video is squished and there are black bars on the right and left sides of the film. I can easily fix this if I find the clip in the FCP browser and check the anamorphic flag, then drag and drop that clip over the original in the sequence, but I was wondering if there was an easier way. Is there a way to make it be anamorphic when it comes back into FCP from Motion 2?
Thanks!
Dual 1.8 G5/2GB & 12 PB G4/1.25GB Mac OS X (10.4.4)

Yes, it loses the anamorphic flag on round trip. Just
ctrl/right-click on the Motion project in your
timeline, select Properties/Format and click on the
anamorphic setting column.
Patrick
Patrick-
Thanks for the reply. That's exactly what I've been doing, but I was just wondering if this was an actual bug or not. I guess we will have to wait for Apple to fix it...
BTW- Whenever I check the anamorphic culumn, I always have to re-drag and drop the clip in the timeline again. Is this right? Or should it go ahead and change it in the timeline automatically?
Thanks again!
Dual 1.8 G5/2GB & 12 PB G4/1.25GB Mac OS X (10.4.4)

How to employ RAID with FCP, Motion etc.

Quick question I'm in the process of initialising an 8.0Tb RAID (and boy is it taking a long time in the background) and when I start my next project I'm wondering if there is an optimum way to organise my new workflow. I once remember reading in Premiere Pro that you should keep your project files off your program file drive, and your capture scratch on a third drive, although that's on one of those awful PC's does anything apply like that on Mac with FCP? Should I use the RAID as a capture scratch, and keep project files and everything else where? Any working practices I need to adopt with a RAID?
And I've tried to find speed test to download to check the speed on write and read on the RAID but can't find the AJA Kona test to download, anybody know of another, hyperlink?

http://www.aja.com/products/software/

Fcp and motion

Hi!
I finished a clip with text animation in motion and imported it in fcp. And as always it´s problematic. In fcp my motion file isn´t playing at all, neither in dvd 3. I have to finish this project next week!!!!!!! Help!
Mel

"Always" implies you have never been able to get Motion to work properly so it wouldn't be prudent to try stuff against a deadline. GEt out the Getting Started book and run it again. Now that you know your way around the interface, you can concentrate on the format settings and procedures.
"Problematic" doesn't help us help you. Frame rate, alpha, image quality, aspect ratio, color space? Try adding some descriptive information.
Without knowing what you think you're seeing, these problems are usually user issues because Motion only does what you tell it to do. So, go over your settings again and make sure the project specs match your FCP specs for image size and frame rate. Check the properties of the movie you've imported into FCP.
bogiesan

Exporting DV from FCP or Motion results in only black video

I'm working with DV footage of a wedding that wasn't shot by me so I don't have the particulars on what camera was used. The video information related back from Quicktime is that it's a DV 720x480 (640x480) at 29.97 fps. My problem is that whenever I send a clip to motion to do a stabilization processing (for example) the resulting video when rendered is just a file with no video (just a black screen instead of video). I also have this problem if I export from Motion using the dv codec. I'm using the DV-NTSC settings in both FCP and Motion. Am i overlooking something, or is this typical behavior? Any help would be appreciated.

Am i overlooking something,
The most common user error is incorrect export/render settings from Motion. You want to stay in DV, not the default Animation codec. but without watching what you're doing, it's almost impossible to give you more advice. It should just work, and it does, so we are left with any of several user errors.
If you can see the footage in FCP and in Motion, the DV files are good so it's got to be your output from Motion.
bogiesan

Roundtripping with FCP extended?

I'm also encountering a second problem in my need to lengthen some Motion files involving the roundtripping with FCP. Initially, I highlighted the clip in FCP and sent it to Motion for graphics work. Now that I need to slow the animation down, I need to extend into the next edit/shot back in FCP. (I need to do this in a number of places)
However, now I can't seem to find a way to get the next edit/shot included back into Motion despite trying everything I can think of. If worse comes to worse, I'm thinking about doing a lot of copying & pasting from earlier edits, and then copying/extending the Motion files again.
This is my first time roundtripping with FCP, so any advice from anyone would be greatly appreciated.
~Chris

Well, I ended up copying/pasting the clips from earlier edits, selecting the longer multiple edits needed, sending them to Motion, then copying the Motion file onto the new longer clips, and then going back to FCP.
It didn't take too long, but if there's not an easier way, let this be some cautionary advice that unless you know your exact timing, you might want to give yourself some extra footage to play with. In my case, I started with a short clip and built versions out of that, but in cases where I could go longer, I was stuck and had to lengthen all the different versions of the motion files as well as extend the footage they ran over.
~C

IMac which one with FCP 5.1.4 ?

Hello, I have been using a Powerboog G4 with my FCP no problem so anything would be better!!
Now that I have FCP Studio with Motion and would like to to upgrade. Can't afford a tower... So I'm getting an iMac but I'm stock with which modeel and graphics card is best.
The 20" it comes with 2 400firewires, the 24" with one 400 and one 800 firewire. Save the money or spent an extra $500??
I edit DV from a Panasonic DVX100. Except for Motion I have no other need for a super duper video.
Three options ( withstudent discount)
$1,900:
iMac-20", 2.33GHz, 2GB SDRAM, ATI Radeom x1600/256MB-VRAM
$2,336:
iMac-24", 2.33GHz, 2GB SDRAM, NAVIDIA GeForce7300 GTO/128MB-SDRAM
$2,449:
same as aboe 24" but w/NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT 256MB SDRAM
To the above I have to add Apple care plan. If I get the more affordable option I can also buy an exteranl drive. with the other option, I'll wait.
Thank you in advance for your feedback.
iMac Mac OS X (10.4.8)

It's always advisable to get the best that you can afford, but if you're going for the imac, you need an external drive so I'd recommend going for the middle option with a decent external HD.
Have you absolutely checked that you can't source maybe one of the earlier Mac Pro models via an authorized reseller or maybe the apple refurb store (the refurb store currently has one at $2199, I'm sure you could find one cheaper).
The imac is compromised in terms of expandability - do a search on this forum for more details.
Having said that, I coped for a couple of years with FCP 4.5 and a G4 imac and an external HD with no probs, so if you can cope without the expandability and you'll be sticking with SD you'll be OK - don't forget FCP 6 is just around the corner and you'll have to check the system requirements carefully to see if it'll run on an imac should you decide to take this route.

Animation with FCP? (or Motion)

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