Feather one side of a shape?

Hi,

I am trying to make a title template with a semi-transparent background rectangle that feathers off into the middle of the screen. So a left-aligned title would have a rectangle underneath it with sharp edges on the left and the edges would fade towards the right side of the title. A right-aligned title would have the opposite.

I want to make the width of the background rectangle adjustable in FCP so that the feather is adjusted along with it (for shorter / longer titles).

Thanks in advance for any tips!

I already figured this out myself but cannot find where to delete my original question.

Suzero wrote: I already figured this out myself but cannot find where to delete my original question.

Wot??
in terms of Community = helping each other, share your solution.

Karsten, you're absolutely right. Here is the method I applied.
If it's not the most efficient I am eager to hear suggestions for an easier one.

1. Draw a rectangle with a solid black fill. Place it in a group below the text layers.
2. Activate the Anchor tool and drag the anchor from the centre to the left border of the rectangle. (This is so that when the X-Scale of the rectangle is adjusted it only adjusts towards the right and doesn't extend left and right from the centre).
3. Create another layer in the same group as the rectangle.
4. Create a rectangle that fills the screen and fill with a gradient from black to white stretching across the frame left-to-right.
5. Add an image mask to the first rectangle.
6. Drag the layer with the second rectangle (full screen gradient) to the source parameter (in Inspector > properties of the image mask).
7. This should make the solid black background of rectangle 1 fade towards the right.
8. Click the GROUP containing all the rectangles and go to Inspector > Properties
9. Open up the Scale parameters.
10. Right-click on the X and choose Publish.
11. This means the rectangle can be made wider or narrower and the gradient will resize with it.
12. If you only Scale the rectangle itself, the gradient will remain as is and the fade off won't look as good.

Hi Su,

… my first reply was a bit too grumpy, even for my standards - sorry for that

To your task:

To create a fade-out rectangle, you simply fill it with a gradient, have a look:





A new 'Title' project, a rectangle 'under' the text. Fill is set to Gradient; now there are 4 (here 3…) handles: below the bar, you define the colors of the gradient, we need just one, so drag'n pull the right one away (it makes POOF and its gone9.

The upper handles define the opacity of each position - left is set to 100%, and on the right, by double-clicking into the bar, I created a second handle, which is set to 0% => fade-out rectangle.

(the third one btw the two defines the 'flow' of the gradient… just try out)

________-

Size/Width
I'm lazy, so I automatize the width of the rectangle (for sure you could 'publish' its Width parameter for manual control)





See? I added a Link Behavior to the Rectangles x-scale; drag the Text into the well; select the Width of the text.
Gives… <drumroll> :



… an auto-adjusting, faded rectangle Title-plugin!
I added my quick'n dirty version, feel free to modify to your needs…