I'm having trouble finding out how to add a drop shadow to a layer. For example, I have an image overlayed over some video... I want there to be a border around it and a drop shadow. How do I accomplish this? I couldn't find it in effects.
I just want to do a follow-up on a method I found that works, but it's kind of crap.
I take my 1280x720 video and drop it on the timeline. THen I use the "trim", "scale" and "position" features to adjust the video however I see fit.... so If I want a section of the video to appear in the corner of my screen... I can do that.
Next, I drop a black generator BELOW the video. I copy and paste all effects from my video clip to the black generator... this will make the scale, position and trimming of the generator to be exactly the same as the video clip. Then I manually go into the inspector and adjust the "trim" left, rigt, top and bottom so that each is X amount of pixels smaller... this will cause the it to be "less trimmed" and thus appear as if there is a black border around my video clip.
Next, I select both the video clip and the black generator and make them a compound clip... and then I drop the "RT Drop Shadow" effect on top of it that I found here: http://www.rippletraining.com/using-the-rt-drop-shadow-in-final-cut-pro-x.html
... At that point, I can use distort to pin back corners and add dimension to it if I need to...
It would be nice if there were an effect that combined drop shadow with border, but the couple I found (such as RT Picture and Picture http://www.rippletraining.com/rt-picture-in-picture-effect-for-final-cut-pro-x.h tml ) didn't allow me to adjust the actual shape of the border... it was stuck as 16:9 and there was no way to make the border fit to the trimmed/scaled clip.
The drop shadow was overlooked by Apple.
Here's a generator. You'll have to add your images to the drop zone.
Features:
An onscreen control for positioning
The ability to scale the media within the border bounds or scale all
The ability to rotate the image/media in 3D space
Opacity (all)
Drop Shadow
Simple Border (solid bounds) [Color and border width]
download it from:
http://sight-creations.com/fxexchange/DropShadow.zip
Install in ~/Movies/Motion Templates/Generators/[the category folder of your choice or create a new one]/
Drop the entire "Drop Shadow" folder inside.
Thanks!
The lack of drop shadow, along with a few other missing options, also falls under the category of "what were they thinking?" I mean seriously! If it's so easy to layer on media, resize/crop/distort, why wouldn't there be a way to separate that layer visually from a background/storyline via shadows and outlines?! They need to get a copy of Duh! magazine. It's Design 101.
The generator is bare-bones, and it could be better; but if you have Motion and feel like tinkering, it's a pretty good starter project.
Fox_M, that generator you shared ALMOST worked, but it seems limited to images. I'm trying to trim a 16:9 video to a specific shape/scale and then add a drop shadow. That generator seems to only accept a freeze frame and also doesn't allow me to change the shape of the border without stretching the image.
This failing is almost as bad as the inability to copy and paste attributes. I was recently hired to help a young videographer with post production. Happily he was still using FCP Studio and showing him how to copy paste attributes is going to save him hours and hours. He was doing dozens of similar picture in picture effects without borders or drop shadows and being able to do one and then copy/paste attributes to resize, move, create a drop shadow and border in "one click" was fun to show and is a basic tool for any professional editing system. Not being able to even do drop shadows without resorting to a third party add-on leaves fcpx in the "let's see when development is finished" category. I still can't figure out who FCPx works for. Clearly some people love it and use it. I'm staying current with it out of general geek habits.
digibudll,I heard the constant backlash and tried to avoid FCPx until it was absolutely forced on me by a company I am working for (it's the only editing software they own). I went through 20 hours of online training to get up to speed... and in general, I really really like it. There are things I'm tripping up on (like this thread), but there are things that are freakin fantastic. For example, I work with a lot of screen capture footage (from software like Camtasia) and I'm finding that using the incredibly easy retiming features in Final Cut is an INCREDIBLE time savor. It use to be far more time consuming to split up a clip and add different speeds to them. I LOVE the way Final Cut X handles it. A couple years ago I freelanced for Fox Sports NW post-game music videos for the Seattle Mariners games... I was constantly adjusting speed of clips (at the time we used Final Cut 6) and this is SO much easier. Also, I really like a lot of the built-in effects and generators for Final Cut X.
And the more I get use to the way the timeline works (as opposed to track-based timelines)... I totally understand the logic behind it and see how it's a lot quicker to make adjustments. In the long-run, I think it's going to make editing quicker for me.
I'm a little annoyed about the inability to copy and paste keyframes like I can do in Premiere Pro... but as far as copying and pasting attributes... can't you just do that by selecting a clip and then "paste effects" into the 2nd clip? Unfortunately it doesnt allow you to copy and paste individual effects, but I guess you can disable the ones you don't want to keep.
I definitely have mild annoyances with the software, but in general the pros are outweighing the cons for me right now.
nedyken:
(download link at the end -- please read all of this)
First: the issue you had with the video media is a bug in Motion (since this last update!)... I thought I could get away with the shortcut as long as I thought you were just going to be using it for images. Oh well... I should have known better (😉). I know how to work around the bug (no big deal really -- just have to use my own placeholder image that's 16:9.)
Second, since you will be using this with various "dimensional" media (images and video), I had to dump the border filter and use a rectangle in it's place because skewed scaling results in uneven line thicknesses.
This version is a quite a bit more robust (I think) however the changes are fairly significant. So, basically starting all over:
Features:
This effect is now a Title effect (text capability included - full access to Text controls) Install accordingly.
The title (and drop zone) is set up for 10 seconds with a Project Loop marker (10 seconds of video will repeat if you stretch the length of the title beyond 10 seconds. If you cut the title < 10 seconds, this will not affect the playback speed of the video in the drop zone.) If you don't know what I'm talking about, see the youtube video linked down below. I considered making the default length longer, but I feel 10 seconds is probably longer than the usual use for this effect.
Scale (scales all but text - you'll have separate controls for text including Offsets and Text entry from the Title inspector)
Media scale
Pan media within its "context"
3D Rotation [Text and background/border respond to rotational controls keeping everything *consistent*]
Full effect Opacity
Background/Border width and height offsets (use this in place of Scale for dimensional changes)
Bg Color and Opacity
Outline (Border) Color, Opacity, and Width with optional "cornering" effect (Square, Round, Bevelled)
Controls to Draw On or Erase the outline/border (First and Last Points)
Whether to place the outline over or under the background
Full effect (including text if off the background) Drop Shadow
Drop Shadow for JUST the media (you must increase the opacity to "turn it on" (the option to uncheck it is not available [a quirk of how things interact in Motion].)
(Drop Shadow for text can be applied in the Text inspector)
The ability to Crop the media (Crop controls are ... unusual in this venue -- be prepared to "crank them up" -- click on the number values and drag -- most of the time, it will be required to go beyond the slider limits.)
You should be able to build just about any kind of "inset" effect with this (except fading the media over the background) that you can think of.
There's a caveat about video media in drop zones. If you need more information, see this video:
(discussion about trimming video for drop zones starts at about 2:30 in)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0kyqSJTa98 [PS: PiP HD doesn't do drop shadows...]
Hope this one is more what you want:
http://sight-creations.com/fxexchange/DropShadow2_title.zip
If you have any questions — you know where to find me.
made one last change: ability to keyframe the onscreen position -- redownload after this is added.
also... how do I add a border? I've trimmed an image and want to add a border around it. Is that possible?
Overlooked. That gets the humorous understatement award for the week. Nice generator.
How do i add a drop shadow?
