I have a time-lapse sequence on my desktop (1000 stills in numbered sequence). But when I imported it into Final Cut, it made each still 10 seconds long.
How do get it to import the stills as single frames?
EP
Final Cut Pro X, Mac OS X (10.7), want them to import as single frame
Use the QuickTime 7 player to open the image sequence and set the frame rate. Export as a QT movie in ProRes.
You can use QT 7, as Tom said. But not everyone has QT 7 Pro (it used to cost $30...).
Using only FCP X, you could create a compound clip in your event, drag all your stills in there, select all, ctrl-D and enter the duration (in this case, just 1 and "enter"). Now you have your time-lapse clip in your event browser to use wherever you please.
Thanks. But it turns out that I don't have the Pro version of Quicktime on here. I've just got Quicktime 10.
There's a way to do this in FCP X, I think, But I haven't gotten it to work yet.
EP
I've got allof thsatills into the Event, and I selected them all, but "ctrl-D" doesn't seem to do anything. Is there a menu option to get to the screen where you designate the frame rate for each still?
EP
Control-D activates duration in the Dashboard. Type 1 and press enter/return.
I still can't get it to work. I imported all of the jpegs into an event, and it made them all 10 seconds long again. So now I've got a huge amount of material in this event, but I don't know how to keep it to just a single still frame from each jpeg.
If I select them all and hit ctrl-D I just get a mistake blurp, and nothing happens. I don't understand how I'm supposed to get them onto the timeline as 1-frame durations. ??
I figured this wouldn't be that hard to do. Maybe I should use another program to create the image sequence if FCP X doesn't do it?
EP
You're not making a compound clip as Luis said. Select all the stills and make a compound clip from the File menu. Double-click the compound clip to open it. Select all the stills. Use Control-D and enter one frame.
Guys. I appreciate your help in figuring this out. I'm relatively new to FCP, and I can't find any mention of creating an image sequence from stills in the user manual.
So I've tried to do what you suggested, and still haven't gotten it to work.
I created an empty Compound clip in the Event.
I tried to drag and drop the files into that clip, but that doesn't work.
I tried to use Import to get the stills into the Compound Clip, and that resulted in 10 seconds of video for each still image. That ties up my computer for a long time, and is not what I want to do.
I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but I can't seem to get the stills into FCP, as stills.
The instructions you gave me said to "select the stills" then to make a new Compound Clip, but the stills are in a separate file on my desktop, and not in FCP, so I can't do both. If I select the stills, then FCP isn't operating because I've clicked on another file on the desktop.
Any idea what I'm doing wrong?
EP
the stills are in a separate file on my desktop, and not in FCP
The stills have to be in FCP. The mechanism for this is not very good. I would recommend using QT 7 if you have a large number of sequentially numbered stills.
Thanks Tom.. I guess I'll give up triying to use FCP alone to do this, and create the sequence with another program. Just out of curiosity, you said that the "mechanism for this is not very good". IS THERE a mechanism in FCP for loading stills into the event browser? I couldn't find any mention of it in the manual.
EP
You just import them. File>Import>Files. Shift-Cmd-I.
If anyone reads this thread later, here's what I did. I found a great little app called "time lapse assembler", which works great. And it's free.
EP
Follow-up note 01.26.2013: Tom's method of using Quicktime 7 is really a time saver, and more, assists a lot in organizing clips in the FCP X Event. My short project today involved 30 video clips, 4 audio clips, and three time-lapse sequences using stills from a GoPro cam. Lots and lots (several hundred) of stills. Placing all of those stills in the Event Library is really visually distracting. Instead, using the QT7 method, I have three time-lapse clips which I can re-time easily, if needed, in FCP X. Thanks again, Tom.
I got the compound clip method to work - ok, but it is really a hacky methodology. But why is it we can't just import frames with a specific duration? The preference setting does nothing, but I'd love to be proven wrong. Is there a way to add this to the bug list for FCPX?
The preference is not an import preference, but a selection preference. Use QT pro or Compressor to convert image sequences to video.
The application is working as designed. Feature request? Feedback in the FCP menu not working?
import stills from GoPro time-lapse sequence as video?
