Motion Tab Settings & Center Point

Working in Final Cut Express HD, I am trying to use wireframes and the motion tab setting to run a series of cropped clips in a "box" in the corner of the screen. I do this by reducing Scale and Crop Left and Right to certain, set values. But since i am cropping different parts of different clips, I need to figure out what the Center Point settings should be for each one so that the "box" is always in the exact same spot on the screen -- even as it cuts from clip to clip inside the box. Using the naked eye to place the frame on a grid is not precise enough...
In other words, if I am cropping 25 off the left in one clip, and 15 left and 10 right on another, I need to know how many "Center Point" coordinates equate to 1 "Crop" point in those Motion Tab settings to make it fit exactly.
Any ideas or help would be GREATLY appreciated! Many thanks.

But doesn't that ONLY work if each and every clip is cropped in exactly the same way? In other words, if a "box" is 50% wide and 100% tall, and i use one clip that takes the left 50% and then use another clip that uses the right 50%...and I want them both to places in the upper left corner of the screen, won't they have different X and Y center points?

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Can I change the center point for a motion scale

I would like to motion scale an image with the center for the scaling at the bottom of the image, not the center of the image. I tried changing the anchor point numbers, but that moves the photo as well.

Try setting the Anchor Point - NOT the Center Point. The Ccenter Point is where the center of the image will be; the Anchor Point is the point at which the image is anchored.
-DH
Message was edited by: David Harbsmeier

Motion tab over-rides anything in Filters tab

If I use some filters in the 'Filters' tab, and then decide I want to use the 'Motion' tab to zoom/tilt/etc a picture and use keyframes to give it a little action, FCE seems to be ignoring anything on the Filters tab (as though Motion is over-riding Filters)... is there a way around this?

Keep in mind that within the same clip FCE processes filters first and Motion second: however, what you see in the canvas or the viewer window is always the +result of both effects combined+.
Namely if your filter has a point control (e.g. Reflection Center in the Perspective/Mirror filter) the red crosshair displayed on the frame, and also its new value when you click on the frame, is positioned where you expect if Motion has default settings, and it is offset somewhere else otherwise.
I know, this is quite confusing: my suggestion is that you apply the filters first (no Motion), and only when you are satisfied with them you apply Motion.
If you don't want to lose your Motion settings, you could first save them in another clip and copy them back after applying the filter: select the source clip and copy (cmd-C), and select the target clip and past attributes (opt-V) selecting Basic Motion in the dialog.
Piero

Ease-in ease-out weirdness in motion tab FCP

I've been doing a lot of animating stills in FCP by keyframing SCALE and CENTRE in the MOTION TAB of the VIEWER. I discovered the EASE-IN and EASE-OUT options by control-clicking the end key frames, but when I play back the animated clip, it does these weird lateral curve motions despite my only animating the still in a straight line. How do you ease-in a still and ease-out without this weird motion action occurring? Anyone sorted that? Do I have to use *After Effects* or Motion, or can it be done well in FCP ?

Try moving the image with Anchor Point instead. Some time ago, Tom Wolsky posted the following reply to a thread that is long-gone:
+Let's say you're zooming into a picture. You're starting say a scale of 20% centered on the screen and you going to scale up to 100%, and as you zoom in (scale) you want to move to the upper right corner of the image. Scaling takes place around the anchor point. The anchor point is normally the center of the image. As you move toward the upper right you're actually scaling around a point that's moving farther and farther away from where you're going. This causes overshoot, especially if the scale and center values are eased. (Scaling is not exponential anyway so this exacerbates the problem.) If you animate the anchor point to move opposite the center point, the scaling will continue to happen around the anchor point, which is now moving with you toward where you're going. It'll give you a bit better motion, but you still have to give yourself a little wiggle room.+
+Let me give you some numbers. I'm starting with an image that's 3600x2670. At it's start the image is centered and scaled to 24%. I can't go all the way to 20% because I'll get overshoot on the start when I put on easing because scale is logarithmic, while center is arithmetic. At the end of the motion the image is scaled to 100. It's center is now -1335, 932. (Again because of overshoot I can't go much closer to the edge.) Easing is set for center and scale, and as I'm sure you've seen you get the image sliding off the screen even with leaving the slack that I did. Now add the anchor point animation. Set the start keyframe at 0,0 the same as the center point. Set the end keyframe to 1335, -932, the opposite of the center keyframe and you'll get a motion that stays in the screen. If you could set easing for the anchor point it would be even smoother, but that's not practical in the FCP interface. You get a little snaking effect at the end. All in all pretty inadequate for good motion control.+
+I tried it Motion as well. The first problem is the application can't handle the image at full resolution. It could do the movement with scale animation and a motion path behavior. It was kind of adequate, but easing on the scaling was pretty poor and didn't achieve good results.+
+A major issue in both applications is the the scaling starts quickly and gets slower and slower. This is because of the lack of exponential scaling, and until this is addressed neither application will be more than barely adequate at best when it comes to large scale motion control. Basically neither of them are acceptable for professional work on large format, large scale images. I won't even go into how totally inadequate FCP is for easing stop and go motion.+

Motion tab

ok, heres what i want to do, i have a clip that i have 'frozen' and at the point where it freezes or pauses, i , using the motion tab, adjusted the scale of the image so that over time (3-4 seconds) there is a zoom in effect (its like what they do in the beck video 'devils haircut' ). The problem that i have is that i want to zoom in towards the top right hand corner of the image but it zooms in towards the center. Now i thought it might be sorted by using the 'anchor point ' or 'center' options under the motion tab but as yet have had no success, i'm hoping one of you out there can help me.
Thank. Anthony

Add a center keyframe at the begining of your zoom and the end of your zoom.
On the second position keyframe (where you are zoomed all the way in) adjust your x,y coordinates until you see the framing you want to end on.
Tweak to taste.
Tom

How do you change the default setting in the motions tab?

Greetings!
We have two macs in our editing suite. Both are running FCP studio 2. One of the macs has a default setting for the drop shadow of 2 in the motion tab. The other mac has the default setting of 10. How can I change the default settings (not as a favorite) so that when I open a clip in the viewer the default setting will always be my preference (1.5) instead of the standard 10. I also want to change the opacity to 90% as the default.
Thanks for your help.
YmirJr

Larry, et.al.
Below is a step-by-step process for changing the default font in CS6, Illustrator, Mac, Mountain Lion, 10.8.2.
There are several additiional steps needed to make this work.
Please feel free to us this for other inquiries.
To Change Default Font in CS6-Ai-Mac-Mountain Lion, 10.8.2
On desktop menu bar, hold down Option key, go to GO, pull down to Library.
Open Application Support, ~ Adobe, ~ Adobe Illustrator CS6, ~ en_us ~ New Document Profiles
Six choices appear (you can change each that you use, one at a time)
Example: Double click Basic RGB.ai
A Basic RGB.ai blank document window opens
In Menu Bar, go to Window ~ Type ~ Character Styles
A sub-window opens with (Normal Character Style) highlighted in Blue
Double click the highlighted name and another sub-window opens
In left of this window, choose Basic Character Formats
Change to desired Font Family, Font Style, Size, etc.
Click OK when finished, widow disappears to reveal Character Styles sub-window
Click anywhere on the blank document in order to get option to Save
Save the document
Close Character Styles sub-window
Quit Illustrator
Re-launch Illustrator CS6 ~ New document … check Font tool to confirm changed default font
Hope this works for other "Lost Adobe Souls" like myself.
George

FCP motion tabs and things

When I am im (for example) the motion tab in FCP, and i want to increase a slide (say the scale slider) how do i increase the scale by an increment of 1 at a time. The only wa i see of doing this is
-typing in a new figue
-moving the slider
In horrid Avid I would press the up or down arrow and the settings would change accordingly so it's easy to fine tune and not be guessng figures...there musy be a way of doing this in FCP?
MacPro, (and others!) Mac OS X (10.4.9) Quad core 3Ghz, Kona LHe, 8 gig RAM, 3TB fibre channel,RAID, 30" ACDisplay

Doh.. am i being thick here? < </div>
Well, yes, you are, but we are all members of the DOH! Club.
Some of us won't admit it.
You are going to find that the increments on some of those FCP motion and effects sliders are nonlinear or completely nonsensical.
bogiesan

Can I copy the filter/motion/effect settings from one clip to others?

I've got a series of photos in my timeline, each will move with some random little rotation and zoom in/out pan, etc... on a black background. Can I save some time by setting up one photo with the effects the way I want it and then copying those settings to the other photos?
After doing that, I would have to adjust the settings on each photo to randomize them. Or would it be just as easy/easier to just start from scratch with each photo?

Hi(Bonjour)!
Once your clip's motion and scale is adjusted, select your clip in timeline, use copy command. Now select all others clips in timeline, use the contextual menu (control click) over the fist one, and select "paste attributes menu--" select "basic motion".
You can also use option-V shortcut to invoque the paste attribute contextual menu.
When all your clips have the same movements and scale, simply recenter (motion tab) each one to put some variation in motion.
You can also set two ot three movements (clips and paste item properties in random order (manually) to other clips.
Michel Boissonneault

HT201328 Error after unlocking - need to reset data settings Access Point Name

Hi -
AT&T unlocked my phone few months back. I restored the phone and got "iphone unlocked message". After inserting the new SIM card, I cannot get on the cellular network. I think I need to reset the data settings access point name. However I am unable to access this option. Can someone help?
Thanks

I had the same problem and I fixed it as following (See if it's the same case for you) :
1. Goto Tools > Options.
2. Under Advanced, select the Network Tab.
3. Click on Settings in the "Connection" box (open connection settings).
4. Check if "Automatic Proxy Configuration URL" is selected. If it is so, select "No proxy" instead or manually enter your proxy if you are using one.
The option "Automatic Proxy Configuration URL" was the culprit for me and some others as well and selecting "No proxy" instead cured our problems. It is a bug and has already been reported on Bugzilla as you can see here :
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=734828

Who do PHOTOS animated using MOTION TAB look so crappy?

Very frustrating..... I've created a sequence of imported photos (JPEGS) and have animated them (simple pushes, tilts and pans) using the motion tab. They look fine in fcp, but when I create a qt movie and use 'toast' to burn to dvd, it looks terrible! During the motion the images are quite pixellated, once the image settles, it's fine. Are there field dominance/interpolation/settings issues I'm not aware of?
I'm an AVID editor trying to make peace w/FCP but it ain't easy.....
Any advice?

Mark,
I routinely produce photo-montages which each image having some basic motion added to them using the Viewer window's Motion controls. They come out beautifully, even when projected at a commercial movie theater (we're talking REALLY big screen).
I suspect that much of your problem lies with the DVD encoding. In tests I've conducted comparing QT Conversion, Cleaner, Compressor and Toast for DVD encoding, Toast was by far the worst in terms of quality - QT Conversion and Compressor were best.
You should also be monitoring your work while your editing on an external NTSC or PAL monitor. That's the only way you'll spot problems BEFORE going to DVD. Your progressive scan computer monitor just won't cut it unless you're editing content solely for CD-ROM or web delivery. If some of the problem is in fine areas of detail in the photos, either scan them at a lower resolution, or you can blur specific areas of the image in Photoshop.
I typically scan at a resolution 2 to 3 times what's needed for SD video so the sharpness of each image will be maintained even when pushing in to small areas of a photo. Save the scanned images in a uncompressed format (I use TIFF), import them into FCP and drag the whole folder of them to the Timeline so you can see what they'll look like on your external TV monitor.
When you see one that's problematic, open it in Photoshop and adjust or correct accordingly.
-DH

Timelines Get Funky in Motion Tab

In FCP 6.0.2, This isn't a major problem, but fairly often when I am keyframing some simple motions using the Viewer's Motion Tab, I add a new keyframe using the little diamond button, then Scale and Center timelines will instantly shift left about half a cm and look glitchy. This is frustrating and the view must be scolled left/right and then the timelines all magically line up again. I seem to remember this happening in 5 as well but I'm having a hard time figuring out the exact steps that cause it.
Anybody else seen this or know a fix? Searched for a bit but don't have tons of time to look. If there is any interest I'll post a screenshot-
Robert

yep, been like that for a long time ... its only cosmetic tho.

Copying from the motion tab?

I am doing a project that has pictures flying in from the right, staying for a moment and then exiting left. Is there a way to copy the settings from the motion tab and paste them into other clips or do I have to do it all manually for each one? Appreciate the help.

Select the clip with the motion that you want to copy...hit Apple-C. Now highlight ALL the clips you want to apply this motion to, and hit OPTION-V to Paste Attributes...paste the BASIC MOTION attributes.
Shane

FCP7 Speed change with keyframes on motion tab

I am trying to change the speed of my video in FCP7 with keyframes. I am cueing where I want the speed change to begin and clicking on the motion tab in the
viewer. next I change the speed percentage and click a keyframe then I cue on my timeline to where I want the speed to go back to 100% and click the keyframe button in the motion tab. I render it to see it and the whole clip in the timeline is in slow motion. This does not coincide with what I am trying to achieve. Just want to start out 100% speed then go to 50% speed then back to 100% speed then the clip ends. Thanks.

that's probably way overkill in terms of the quality of material shot on an iphone. Is that the pixel dimensions of the original file from the iphone?
What's your end use for this material? The web? DVD?
And what are your sequence settings? make the timeline active and hit command-zero. in one of your posts you said 720 30p . 30p is actually 29.97 frames per second.
Because this is a non standard format, you may need to convert them to match your sequence settings. First thing to do is to take them into cinema tools and conform the clips to 29.97. This will slow them down slightly but there is no loss in quality. Each frame remains the same, they are just played slower. It may not work with this format, so you may need to convert them to a standard format as I said above.
If you still have the original files from the iphone, going back to them to do these conversions may be the best way to maintain quality.
If you have a short clip directly from the iphone and would like me to do a quick test of the (hopefully) best workflow, I would then be able to describe it to you concisely.
My email is [email protected]

Center Points for Mapping - MOTN3

I am sending a camera down a polka dot road to end up revealing text.
I can keyframe the camera but i can tell that i am not on center. I have to keyframe soft rotaion as the camera is going around a curve. So i am just having a ball spending 1hr on 3 keyframes.
So is there a way to connect the center points of the circles to form the path points. This way all i would have to do

Preditor wrote:
So is there a way to connect the center points of the circles to form the path points. This way all i would have to do is key the rotation.
If I understand your question correctly, then yes. You can use the replicator to create your polka dot path.
Use the shape tool to create an open bezier path that will serve as your polka dot road.
Create a circle and replicate it. Use Geometry for the replicator shape and drag the shape path into the well.
Then create your camera and apply the Motion Path behavior to it. Change the path shape to Geometry and use the same shape path for the camera animation.
Andy

Paragraph Indents vs Tab Settings

Trying to format a book length document using paragraph styles. So far, so good.
I've made separate styles for 'chapter body text - first paragraph,' and 'chapter body text.'
I'd like regular 'chapter body text' to be indented by, say, 0.25".
Question is, do I use Paragraph Indents or Tab Settings to achieve this?
Paragraph Indents seems to work, but I don't really know what Tab Settings are, and haven't been able to determine their behaviour by experiment.
thanks,

Hi SSS,
Your paragraph indent is the way to go! Keep with it.
Tabs: You might find View > Show Rulers helpful. To add a tab stop, click on the ruler. In this screenshot, there is a tab stop (blue right pointing triangle) at 1 cm in from the left indent (blue down arrow) on the ruler.
The Tab stop will align a Tab character typed from the keyboard. You can have several tabs stops per line.
Another way to add a tab stop:
Inspector > Text > Tabs > Tab Stops and click on the + button. The screenshot shows there is a left tab stop at 1 cm. You can double click to edit the position, or drag the Tab Stop on the ruler.
Page 94 of the Pages'09 User Guide: Setting Tab Stops to Align Text.
Download the Guide from the Help Menu in Pages.
Regards,
Ian

Motion Tab Settings & Center Point

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