FCE4: How to create an analog round faced clock ?

Ian R. Brown wrote:
That is extremely impressive!

skalicki` wrote:
The book is called [After Effects Apprentice| http://www.amazon.com/After-Effects-Apprentice-Second-Chris/dp/0240811364 ] by Chris and Trish Meyer.

... As such I don't think I can just share the media with you unless you've bought the book or the image from Artbeats, as it's probably violating some sort of copyright rules.

I hope my previous explanation was clear enough about how to go about animating it in FCE, but if not then I can try to create or locate some media free of copyright regulations and make you something if necessary.

Let me know if you have any more questions, and sorry for the confusion!

skalicki` wrote:
Not sure if it would be legal if you were using the video commercially, but if you're not planning to then it should be fine.

I'd be happy to help! If the media is the same, I can use the clock from my CD if you like the look of it. Just shoot me an email at the address you can find by clicking on my name so I know where to send the file to.

To be clear, you just want a clock that goes from 6:29:40 to 6:30:00? Is the clock in the video I showed good enough, or do you need a second hand that rotates around the actual face of the clock? Do you want the time to be kept as normal or is the clock supposed to go in fast/slow motion? What are the sequence settings that you are using, and is it ok if I send you an Animation Quicktime file with an alpha channel so you can composite it over your video in FCE?

As soon as you answer these questions and send me an email, I'll do my best to create something that will work.

Sasha

skalicki` wrote:
Ok, I created a clock with the specifications you wanted and sent it to you by email. You may have to look in your "Junk" folder though, as it was sent as a download link from an external website. The email should be from "DoNotReply@TransferBigFiles.com."

Basically, I created a six second composition of the clock going from 5:20 and ending at 6:38. I gave you a second or so on each side (before the animation starts and after it ends) so that you can play with how you want it to begin and end in your sequence. I created it as a standard DV-NTSC movie with a 720x480 frame size and a frame rate of 29.97fps. I forgot to ask you what format you were working in, so if you need it at 25fps instead I can easily change that. I tested the file in both a SD DV-NTSC and a HD 1920x1080 sequence within FCE, and got good results. You should import the file (it's a QuickTime movie file created in the lossless Animation codec with a preserved alpha channel to maintain transparency) into FCE and place it on the video track above your video. You should be able to scale it and position it as required and still maintain relatively good quality. No matter what you do you'll have to render it out to view it in real-time and before exporting your final movie.

As for the clip itself, it is basically what you saw on YouTube except that I deleted the background to give you some transparency and applied your preferences to what time the clock starts and ends at. All clock parts have drop shadow effects applied and the moving clock hands were also given some motion blur to enhance the effect.

If you have any requests or changes I'd be happy to send you an updated version.

Sasha

Ian R. Brown wrote:
I don't know either but I have often used NTSC countdowns and short video clips in my PAL timeline and they have all worked well.

I'm not saying that each second will be exactly a second but it's so close nobody notices.

skalicki` wrote:
To be brutally honest, I have no idea why it would work in a 25fps sequence. Normally you can't really mix frame-rates in FCE.

It might be safer for me to convert it to DV-PAL in After Effects and send you a new download link, if that's alright with you. I'll probably be free to do that later today.

Does the actual clock look good though and work well time-wise? If so it will be easy to simply create a DV-PAL version for you. If you have further suggestions though for tweaks I could make I'd be happy to do that too.

Ian R. Brown wrote:
Don't worry. From my experience it will almost certainly be fine . . . . ours not to reason why . . . . .

skalicki` wrote:
I can certainly do that, but recall the great trick of creating a freeze-frame of the last frame of the clip, and placing it afterward. That tends to work great too!

Anyway, I'll send you a PAL version later today, after I get to work on Ian's spaceship. 😉