export transparent bg in FCP?

M

mrWr0ng

Well-known member
Hi guys,

I have to do a lower-third bug (ala CNN, Cspan, etc) for this nonprofit I do video work for. They want a bug that another distributor they use can put in programs they shoot for us.

I know how to make one that's not animated, I can make something that's transparent using photoshop, but is there way to make an animated one w/ a transparent background in FCP and then export it (with transparent bg intact) as a movie file that they can hold on their hard drive and drop into the timeline?

I don't want anything too complicated (ie "drop this in, move to this position, crop to these dimensions) because I don't know if they'll be able to follow it. Right now I'm designing one in photoshop that's drag-and-drop into the timeline, but I'd REALLY like to do an animated one.

Thanks!
 
AE/Shake/Motion...

AE/Shake/Motion...

You'll want to create the animated one in a compositing software package. That should allow you to retain the alpha channel (transparency information). I believe most would allow you to export something that can be easily read by many NLEs (like a quicktime). Then it would be just drag, drop, resize, and voila they have their bug.

I've done this with Shake many moons ago. That might be a little overkill though for creating this. Not an After Effects or Motion guy myself, but I would think those applications could do it as well, especially After Effects. Also, After Effects is quite widely used and so you could give them an archived After Effects file that they could keep.

Anyway, that's how I would go about doing so.

cheers.
 
After you've created your animation, have you tried exporting a movie from FCP using the Animation codec set to millions of colors+ ? That should create a file with an alpha channel that could just be dropped into the timeline in a new project.
 
Make the animating in FCP. Leave the background black. FCP will treat the black as an alpha. Export it in the format you normally edit in (ex. NTSC-DV). This is where knowing about Composite Modes really helps.
 
BenB,

That is probably an easier solution, but does it require mrWr0ng's client to know that the composite mode in the new project has to be set to something other than normal, as opposed to their just dropping it in their timeline with the alpha included in the file provided to them?

Kevin
 
Yep, the client has to be told to right click the clip in the Timeline window and select the correct composite mode. Or do something in a codec that supports alpha channels and render the whole Timeline each time it's used. 6 to one, half dozen to another.
 
But if they don't use FCP...

But if they don't use FCP...

If you just try and go with a black background then you are hoping that whatever NLE it is used in can interpret the black as an alpha. What if they're not going to use FCP? It looks like using Quicktime Conversion export and selecting Animation w/ millions+ is the way to go.

Now while I can't confirm its validity, I did find one person that said if you export a MOV w/ the sequence settings as Animation (rather than using the Quicktime Conversion), than make sure the sequence isn't rendered. If it is rendered then break that link. According to them it won't work right if its been rendered. But seems like the QT conversion method would give you your alpha channel MOV and then you don't have to worry about this.

cheers.
 
Thanks a lot for the help you guys. My client is using FCP as well, so there's no issues there. I'm most comfortable animating in FCP, so I'd prefer to do something simple in there as opposed to trying to teach myself A/E for one project - my imagination would get cut short trying to figure out just how to make something work.

But I think I will do the export and have them correct composite, and that should be doable. Thanks!
 
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