Creating a Title Template with Drop Zones in Motion - What is cropping my screenshots?

Question

Level 1

26 points

Creating a Title Template with Drop Zones in Motion - What is cropping my screenshots?

I'm creating my first 100% custom Title Template that involves Drop Zones, and as the complexity grows, I'm having a hard time understanding what's what. Basically, the whole concept is simple.

Background layer - Simple 2- color gradient
Drop Zone 1 - Will contain a screenshot news article from the internet. I wanted to create a mask over the drop zone so I can round the edges of any screenshot that I insert, and so I can scale and position different sized screenshots to all appear the same in FCP.
Drop Zone 2 - Will contain a second screenshot. It is essentially a duplicate of the first screenshot Drop Zone, but shifted down and to the right slightly.

The problem I am having is... when I insert a screenshot into each drop zone, it appears to be cropping the screenshot prior to be making any changes to the scale or position. So when I adjust the scale, I can go UP past 100% fine, but if I try to resize below 83%, I can see where the edges of the screenshot have been cropped by... something.

I will try to show my work with images...

Here is what it all looks like now in Final Cut Pro

Drop Zone 1 moves into position.

A few seconds later, Drop Zone 2 moves into position in front of it.

Here is what it all looks like in Motion...

Here are several other screenshots that show as many settings as I can think of showing you...

This last one is the FULL screenshot that I would like to insert into the drop zone... and being able to Publish the Scale and Position parameters so I can make it fit into the 1600 px wide "frame" how I want it to fit. But if you look at my first screenshot (way above), you can see where it is cropping it. It just so happens to crop THIS screenshot in a place that doesn't look SO bad. (right on the edge of the content), but it isn't something I can ignore. Because it won't always work out like that.

If you need me to take any further screenshots, clearly I'm happy to do so.

Posted on Mar 22, 2023 1:42 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Luis Sequeira1

Level 9

74,274 points

Mar 23, 2023 8:18 AM in response to Dolmetscher

When you add an image to a drop zone, it is effectively cropped to the shape of the drop zone - which is basically what you are seeing.

I am sure that Fox M will have a more comprehensive answer, but here is something that I do with Drop Zones, which I think will solve your problem:

1) In Motion, temporarily add some image as the source for the Drop Zone. It can be anything you have in Motion, since it will be removed in step 3, anyway.

2) This adds some extra parameters that you can control and Publish: namely, Pan and Scale. They affect how the source of your drop zone is set up within the drop zone.

3) After publishing these parameters, you can revert the drop zone "Source Media" to just "drop zone".

Now in FCP, when you add an image, adjust its pan and scale appropriately, so it is not cropped.

Reply

Answer 2

fox_m

Level 6

13,378 points

Mar 23, 2023 11:10 AM in response to Dolmetscher

Drop zones give me a headache...

Technical:

A drop zone begins as a 1200x1200 image (.tif) that, when applied to a project is scaled (internally!) to fit the "longest" dimension of the project, THEN, Cropped to fit the "shortest" dimension of the project. If the project is square, no cropping is applied.

Adding a drop zone to a 1920x1080 project scales the 1200x1200 tif image by 1.6 to fill the horizontal dimension, then crops 420 pixels from the Top and Bottom (total of 840px).

This behavior is automatic. Looking at your screenshots, I have no idea why your drop zones are still square (but there's at least a couple of different ways to pull it off... like I said... drop zones give me a headache.)

You have to actually ADD an image(/content) to a Drop Zone to produce the Pan and Scale parameters for the DZ. These controls will allow you to fit and position the content into the VIEW PORT (that is a drop zone).

When you add content to the drop zone, if the aspect ratio doesn't match, the image/content will be scaled to fit (and this will result in some cropping).

You can change the dimensions of a drop zone to anything you like. It will still behave like a view port. If you don't want to "suffer" the cropping, the dimensions need to be larger than your project (and use Scale and Pan to position/arrange the content). If your template is intended to be used in multiple different display aspect ratios and match those ratios, then you need a way to change the dimensions of the drop zone (Crop Left/Right/Bottom/Top can be manipulated with Links and/or Rig Widgets).

If your project will be using the same format Drop Zone content for repeated use (as it looks like you're setting up this one), you can "shortcut" the creation of the drop zone by importing the formatted image (or video) of the content into Motion and from the Image panel of the inspector, you can change its Type ("purpose") to Drop Zone. This will create a Drop Zone with the exact same dimensions as the original with NO cropping (the Crop feature isn't even turned on/remains unchecked.) Basically, if all your subsequent images to be used in the drop zone are exactly the same as the original, they will always fit - and never be cropped.

If you want to start with a "blank" drop zone for the final template, you will need to create a "blank" image (a custom drop zone image) with the exact dimensions you want for the drop zone.

Confused yet?

Reply

Creating a Title Template with Drop Zones in Motion - What is cropping my screenshots?

Similar questions