Final Cut Pro X and Motion 5 Compositing workflow

M

MarcusWolschon

Active member
What is the most usable workflow to use compositing operations from Motion 5 in a Final Cut Pro X project?
I can edit Effects with just one click but how would I go about using Tracking from Motion 5 to stabilize shots or integrate greenscreen footage or have some of my tracks distorted and tracked so they apear on surfaces visible in other tracks?
There doesn't seem to be a way to select some clips from your FCPX timeline and select "replace with Motion compositing" or similar. At least I haven't found it yet.
I'd really like to avoid creating separate Motion 5 projects, finding the same footage again, doing the compositing and rendering them out as flat, non-transparent video files to be imported and used in Final Cut and then rendering and importing and replacing them again every time I do a change or change the output format.
 
Well...unfortunately there is no "Send to Motion" in FCPX (yet). And it is a huge disadvantage to the Adobe suite´s integration of AE into PP right now.

What I do is this:
- identify the "CGI shots" and if I fear I might have changes later on
- In Motion create an effect, title or generator for FCPX (not a mere Motion project!)
- then do the tracking, speed ramps, titling, 3D moves etc in Motion
- PUBLISH this to FCPX (if you have more in one project, simply create a THEME of effects)

Now in FCPX you can import this generator or effect and tweak it with your published parameters. You can get very sophisticated in FCPX now with your stuff. If you need to tweak more you can right click the effect/generator in the browser and "Open in Motion" to add more effects etc.

Not a very elegant way to start with, but once you have the Motion-tools published it is powerful in FCPX.

I really hope they fix this and allow us to integrate Motion-timelines into FCPX projects and to send single clips to Motion like they did in FC-Legacy.
 
Can I import effects on a per-project basis?
I fear I may break old projects if I go this way and later decide to clean up and remove imported effects that where only used in older projects.
 
You can always right-click the effect in the Browser, and select "Open Copy In Motion".
Change it up as you wish, save it with a new name.
Done.
 
MarcusWolschon said:
How does this answer any of the questions?
Click to expand...

Well...it does answer the "per-project" question. Once you have your effect (or any preset effect for that matter) in your effects-browser you can tweak it in Motion and give it a name that ties it to a project. Even better.....you could rig according to projects depending on what you do.

Again...I think we are not done with the Motion-roundtrip yet and it feels clumsy to get to Motion, but once you have your clip in Motion and publish your effects it works great from there.
 
NoahK said:
Here's a plugin that might help your FCPX<>Motion 5 workflow out a bit-

http://www.alexnking.com/2012/02/20/fcpx-send-to-motion-app/

-Noah
Click to expand...


Cool!
Thanks a lot for the link!
It seems to still have a lot is issues but it's a start.
From the comments: (so any reader doesn't have to scan all the comments himself)

  • frozen clip bug
  • no way back from Moton 5 to FCP X
  • only clips on the primary timeline
  • no compound clips and I guess multi-camera clips too
  • no still graphics

Does anyone know where to get FxPlug 2? It seems to be the only plugin API
for develpers there is. No idea what it gives access too.
 
Damn, that was well hidden.
All the search function would ever come up with was the documentation of the fxPlug SDK but not the SDK itself.
You'd think there would be some link from the documentation to the proper sub-sub-subpage of the download-section.


...looks like I can only do Filters, Transitions and Generators.
No way do to things like adding menu options and accessing the open project or timeline with an object oriented API or something.
 
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