New development with time remap tool

Question

It turns out my time remap tool works just fine in other projects just not this one. I do have alot of still shots with some motion graphics which is starting to extend my render times extensively. My question is, how do I solve this rendering time problem? Is there a way manage rendered footage better? Compress it? I'm new to this motion graphics and would appreciate any help.
thanx
John

Answer 1

John,
Keyframing smooth moves takes a little bit of practice and a BIG Canvas window to really see what you're doing. You'll be using the Canvas window and the Motion tab of the Viewer window a lot for this.
Once you have the Canvas window up-sized (but still keep it at "Fit to Window" or smaller), set it to Image+Wireframe mode. When you click on or highlight a clip in the Timeline, you should see the Wireframe for that clip in the Canvas window (as long as the playhead remains over that clip). But first, double click a clip in the Timeline to load it into the Viewer window then open the Motion tab.
Depending on what you want to do, you can approach most keyframed motion tasks two ways; move the Wireframe in the Canvas window, or enter values in the Viewer window. I usually do a bit of both.
When you set a keyframe that shows up as a green dot (Scale, Rotation, Crop, Opacity, etc), you can right-click on that keyframe and select "Smooth" from the contextual menu. You'll see the purple bezier handles added to the keyframe. You can leave them as they are, or you can move those handles to manipulate the desired action. But for items like the Center control (black dot keyframe), you don't have this option in the Viewer window. Say you want to move the center point over the duration of the clip. Set the beginning and ending keyframe - or just set the beginning keyframe then move the playhead to the end point and manually drag the Wireframe in the Canvas window to the new location and FCP will automatically add a new keyframe. You should now see the path of the clip shown in the Canvas window displayed as dotted line. Right-click on the end or beginning keyframe and select "Ease In/Ease Out" from the contextual menu. Now you should see the same purple bezier handles added. Again, you can use the handles to smooth out movement, or slow down or accelerate a clip (by extending or shortening the length of the handle). If you have a multiple keyframed motion path, you can make wonderfully smooth curves with the bezier handles.
For more info, look up Bezier in the user's manual, or better yet, go to Amazon.com and buy Kevin Monahan's book; "Motion Graphics and Effects in Final Cut Pro."
-DH