Kind of challenge for the cool guys ...

We had a discussion here in Germany for a few days. (Maybe we Germans are a crowd of idiots)

There was a question how to create a special text effect
An example/reply (I created)

used just a clip and a standard title template with stencil alpha and added a cross dissolve at the end of the title.
Works fine for me but for nobody else even though I used nothing but the build in templates or effects. Trying to use another machine with exactly the same setup didn't allow this effect.

Anyway there are several ways to create this pretty simple effect, but they are not that simple as described above.

Here another video from one of the guys involved


My example project (10.0.9) can be downloaded from here:
dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/63959366/keyProject.zip

A virtual drink for any answer

-Andreas

• add the title to the storyline
• set compo to alpha-stencil
• select title, hit cmd-G
• apply dissolve to newly generated 'clip' ....

(my tiny MacMini is a bit overwhelmed ... FCPX + screen-recording = stutter ...)

Karsten,

I'm breaking my head on this

I have downloaded your project file. The cross dissolve you have added to the title with a Stencil Alpha blend mode applied to it works perfectly on my system, just like we can see in your first movie. However when I delete this cross dissolve and add a new one from the Transitions pane, exactly the same Cross Dissolve as the one you have added on your system, it does not work. It just cuts the image to black at the start of the dissolve.

There seems to be some kind of voodoo in the cross dissolve you have added, but I cannot figure out where it is. The default Cross Dissolve in FCPX is a core video transition, i.e. you cannot open it in Motion to change it. So that's not the issue. I wonder what causes this strange phenomenon...

Anyway I am keeping copy of your "magic" cross dissolve just in case I need to dissolve out of a clip with a blend mode applied to it. Thank you!

ronny courtens wrote: Karsten,
…I have downloaded your project file. …

I'm not Andreas ...
(harsh A. accent: "Vee Zermans arr nott al ze zame!"

I uploaded the screen grab how it works.
The 'voodoo' is to un-select the title AFTER applying cmd-g ...

Thanks Karsten!

The deselect seems to do the trick on every machine I have.
Your post probably will make several people happy.

-Andreas

I was wrong with my confirmation of your "voodoo"
It doesn't work a second time.

Anyway, lot of thanks.

-Andreas

Same thing here. I have tried Karsten's workflow a couple of times on my home MacPro and... it does not work for me. And I'm sure I did it correctly: apply the title over a video clip, set Blend Mode to Stencil Alpha, select title clip and create Storyline, click in empty space to deselect everything, then apply Cross Dissolve to the Storyline. Does not work, the title cuts to black at the start of the Cross Dissolve.

However: every time I copy the the Cross Dissolve from Andrea's project and paste it onto my test Project the title does dissolve out, even when I haven't placed it into a Storyline first. Still confused :huh:

This is fiddly, but worked for me:


1. Detach the audio of the clip you want to add the knock out to

2. Blade the start and finish of where you want the title to be

3. Select the centre part of your clip and use Command-Option-Up arrow to turn it into a clip connected to a gap

4. Add the title as a connected clip:



5. Change the Blend Mode of the title to 'Stencil Alpha'

6. Make the two connected clips (the middle video clip and the title) into a compound clip.

7. Add dissolve transitions between the clips in the primary storyline

8. Use the trim tool to slide the transitions under the compound clip:





@Alex4D

Thanks Alex,

As I said in the beginning there are several options to create this effect.
Funny thing is the simple straight forward method doesn't work (quite often enough to get a bit upset)

I wasted some time this morning to figure out the mystery behind.
So definitively point 1 is the Cross Dissolve has a kind of bug.

Here why:
To make it easy for me to check I created a TIFF with alpha - means in this case black background and black text on white as alpha.
Imported that into FCPX and attached it to a clip. Result: You will see what you normally get with the comp mode using Stencil Alpha.
Then I've added a Cross Dissolve. This works -- but 1 time only. If you want change the duration of the still which now is a secondary storyline cause of the applied "Cross Dissolve" you have to delete the "Cross Dissolve" first.
After changing the duration and applying the "Cross Dissolve" again it doesn't work anymore as expected.

To achieve this effect in a "reliable" way, you have to export your title text as single frame, modify it in PhotoShop or something similar to reverse the alpha, get a foreground color etc. Import it into FCPX and keyframe the opacity.

Funny thing is that once you succeeded to make a "Cross Dissolve" working in that way you want for this kind of effect you can save the project as your "magic cross dissolve" and copy/paste the transition were ever you want -- and it's working.

As mentioned earlier the "Cross Dissolve" can't be modified in Motion as it's a hard coded/low level transition.

Maybe you can write a transition similar to "Cross Dissolve" which is working

-Andreas

P.S.
I don't use this kind of effect. It just started to help somebody out of his trouble.

Sadly the effects system doesn't get sent the correct thing.

Motion templates that do transitions are sent frames from the outgoing clip and incoming clip.

In the case of transitions on connected clips, if the connected clip is a title with a Stencil Alpha Blend Mode, the transition is sent empty frames as the frames for the incoming clip. There's nothing useful the transition can do with empty frames!

@Alex4D

Thanks Alex,

I don't know much about creating Motion Templates or Generators. I know how they organized.
I do know about the things you mentioned.

The idea is to create a cross dissolve for real existing frames from movie files with alpha.

As mentioned in my last post I used a TIFF instead of using a comp mode.
I can send you the project.

-Andreas