Fcpx to motion 5 workflow, best approach?

Katherine Sierra wrote:

My pre-FCPX way was:

* edit my video in FCP

* use Send to Motion for the pieces that need additional f/x and animations

I understand the lack of Rountripping now. I cannot use the workflow of importing the original clip into motion because I only want to add animations and f/x to my final edit.

My questions: (and I am still a video newbie)

* Should I export my entire FCPX-edited movie and then bring it into Motion 5 to add the animations/composites/f/x and have Motion be the final step?

* If so, is there a specific export setting that I should use?

This would be the least diseriable way. You can do this but you raelly want the finish to be in FCPX.

Katherine Sierra wrote:

* OR... Can I export certain pieces of my in-progress FCPX movie into Motion 5, then export them back out and bring them BACK into FCPX? (seems extremely cumbersome!) and if so, am I losing information with each generation of export?

Yes, what you can do is to make a compound clip with the clips you have cut together in FCPX. You can then double click on the compound clip and get into the compound clips timeline. Now here you'd think you'd be able to export just that section...but the last time I tried this it exported the whole timeline (I swear it worked before). What you need to do is to select all the clips in this compound clip and copy them. Then move back up to the project level and make a new project. Then paste in the copied clips. Now you can export this new temporary project and use it in Motion. Render out of Motion and bring this render into your original project and lay it over the compound clips as a secondary clip. You can then turn off the compound clip and you will have the new Motion renderd clip in place.

Sounds like a lot of monkeying around? Yes it is but for now thats what you can do. Soon soon soon hopefully some of the features of last version will make it into the new version.

As to generational loss, in FCPX you export in the format that the timeline is using so rendering to the same format isn't hurting anything. In Motion you want to render back to the same format as the FCPX timeline and to add the Motion effect your going to have to render anyway so no extra loss there. Really its no big deal to go back and forth once. You can go twice or even more if you want to set your rendeing to the highest settings just know it will take a long time.

I hope that helps, short anwser is things will get better... we hope.

TOnyTOny

Just as I as for an Update we get one.

TOnyTOny

Now here you'd think you'd be able to export just that section...but the last time I tried this it exported the whole timeline (I swear it worked before).

I can confirm that you can't export just a section of a project - you can only export the entire timeline.

I say it with some confidence (at least assuming we're on 10.0.0/1) as Michael Wohl has a tutorial on MacProVideo in which he laments the lack of this feature & shows a workaround for it.

The workaround is pretty much the same as what you explained.

I agree that the lack of integration is quite frustrating for a professional app. I sure expected something more like Adobe's "smart objects" where I could embed a Motion project in the FCPX timeline. I garther that this was possible in prior versions?

Equally frustrating for me - learning Motion for the first time with Motion 5 and FCPX - is that the UI is so inconsistent between the two apps. This issue of exporting part of a project is just one example: the Share menu looks pretty similar between the two apps, but Motion has an Export Selection to Movie... command: how hard would it have been to include that in FCPX. All kinds of shortcut keys differ between the two apps, keyframe methodology differs, etc. Not the place to vent about all of that, but I've been using the 'Provide [product] feedback" links in each app and hope that others are as well... and that Apple is listening. ;-)

Cheers,

Karl

Yep.. for me it works wonderful from the compound clip: export to master and load it in Motion as: create a project from file.

I just think it is truly a hassle.. All the hardware is controlled and all the software.. just let it talk to each other.. would be an enormous benefit as to working with other programs on all the hardware and software combinations (as in: Bound to get jammed)..

I'm rooting for an: 'Open in Motion' and 'Return to FCPX' button in both.

But I'm sure they have actually thought of it and ran into problems when making it..

You can export a section of the project. Just open it up set and in and out ( or range I should say) and export.

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