Effect presets too limited? Try out Motion.

I just wanted to break the routine and try to post something usefull again.

In another topic we had the question how to add a simple drop shadow to a clip.

Crying, wining: where's the button for drop shadow button like in the previous stuff?

Apple is stupid! 299 $ and no drop shadow button! Trainwreck!

Thanks to Geoff for this example, for a clip scaled to 50% with added drop shadow:

„The solution is do do it in Motion. Only took me a minute to figure it out.

Basically, you create a "Final Cut Effect" in the project browser of Motion, and take a clip (any clip will work, it seems), scale it down to 50% or whatever, add the drop shadow (easy to find), and hit Save.

Motion will tell you it's "publishing" it, and ask you for a category. I created one with my name.

Go back to FCPX, my new category appears instantly in the Effects browser, and there's my shadow effect in that category. Drag your newly created effect to the clip you want to effect, and there you go.

The nice thing is, having your own saved effects makes it easy to be consistent when you want to apply that effect to several things.”

That means that we now have the power to create our own effect presets. Reusable with one click.

Powerful stuff.