TOPIC:

Since there's been some new interest in this I thought I would revisit it to make it a bit more useful, mainly by doing a bit more work on the textures to make them work better as edge mattes. I've also changed a couple of the default settings to give a better starting point.





Using some of the textures supplied with FCPX, here is an interesting mask effect for adding "roughness" to an image border - but with a bit of ingenuity you can find lots of other uses for it.



With controls for:

- Texture selection, including a drop zone for a user generated texture (high contrast works best);
- Texture Scale and position;
- Grunge mix;
- Centre scale, position, opacity and roundness (an area where you can control the opacity to keep things visible).



Let me know if you can think of any improvements.

Hi Simon, first of all I would like to thank you for this Mask realy like it. On you screen shot the mask was blue mine is black is there a way to change the clour pls ? Also in the user texture I put a picture and origialy it's in colour but I can see it in black can you tell me what I'm doing wrong please.

Thanks again

Hi RGV

I should have been a bit clearer in my description of this.

The effect creates a matte for your image (with the greatest strength around the outside but some effect in the middle as well if you choose). That means that what you are seeing as black is in fact "see-through" to anything you put underneath.

In the sample JPEG I posted, I used one of the FCPX Paper Generators as a background (Watercolor 1), hence the colour around the edges. You can use any image as a background including moving footage, but the FCPX Generators are a quick and easy place to start.

To clarify the user-defined texture question: the Drop Zone will only work if you have already selected User Texture from the Texture Selector Dropdown menu at the top of the interface.

The purpose of this is to provide a matte (mask) rather than to be an image in its own right. The luminance values of your User Texture will define what areas are solid and what are transparent with white being fully transparent and black being fully solid and shades of grey being semi-transparent.

For this reason you will generally need to do a bit of work "preparing" your User Texture - use Photoshop if you have it, but any image manipulation software will help. Start by making it black and white; increase the contrast of the image; try to make the central areas of the image more white and the edges more black. The best thing is to experiment and see what you like and what works.

Here is an example of one of the Textures I have used in the Effect to give you an idea of what to look for. (This Texture F which is the one used in the sample image above.)



The kinds of images that will work best are more abstract images like paint-strokes, rough walls, cement, rough fabric and so on, but really anything can be made to work - just have fun and experiment! You can generate loads of interesting textures with a white sheet of paper, a paintbrush or pen or chalk, and a scanner.

Hi Simon,

Thanks for the detailed info. It's not you it's me, I should have experimented more before putting this post. I already tried it with a background and look great. I will keep trying new things with these. Hopefully apple will soon make an update of FCPX cos with no preview on an external monitor I cannot be sure if the framing is right .

Thanks again for your help

Note that the User Texture can also be moving video as well as just a still image - with the right footage this can give a really interesting effect.