Add/Remove Text Lines FCPX

Ok I'm in Motion now and it's really fun! So far I've been able to change the color and all kinds of other things but I'm still having trouble with the op's problem. I'd like to stop the title from spinning to text spaces that I've removed. Which setting is this? Thanks

Tom, please let me know if I should start a new thread?

How do I get the bottom line of text:

1. smaller than the top line?

For this screenshot in particular it's not as important, but when I show the score in another line I don't want the losing teams name to be bigger than the winning one.

2. bring the whole line of text up closer to line one?

When I change the baseline both lines move up or down. I've tried the vertical alignment on the far right but it still changes all lines.

3. copy the exact look, type, and style of this text to paste and use on the remaining two text lines under published parameters? Even if I copy the same statement if it looks the same I could type what I want it to say.?

Thank you

Yes -- it is possible to move the text lines around (but they will still be under the influence of the transform controls). If you can manage to double-click-select the text in the canvas, you should see a small "onscreen control" on the baseline near the first character. Clicking on that will allow you to drag the text off the canvas (or wherever.) You will still have to deal with the timed animation of the spinning wheel though.

Last night I hacked this title, but there are still issues that need addressing. You can have a look at what I've done so far.

http://sight-creations.com/fxexchange/WinnersCircle.zip

With it you can do 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 lines (selectable from a dropdown in the inspector.)

I first worked this to : cut off the lines not needed and halt the animation past the last needed line. As it turns out, this was not necessary because there is no way to control the timing of the effect other than by adding a Project Loop End marker (forcing the animations to be consistent no matter how long or short the title is sized in the storyline.) With the marker, all that's needed is to cut the effect where you want it to stop. But! that doesn't give you a "delay" or pause after the last line is displayed and if you just use 1 or 2 lines, it's too short.

To get around this limitation, you can take the title as you create it with the number of lines used and trim it to size, then, create a compound clip of the title. Afterwards, you can create a "hold" frame (or retime the whole effect slower) on the compound clip.

I thought there might be a way to clone the texts and have whichever the last line displayed show the clone to lengthen it's time on screen (and with the spinning animation stopped, then the timing could be controlled more naturally.) It got a little more complicated than I cared to get into so I backed off from it... but it is a direction worth considering if you have the time to put into it.

Good luck!

I'm the one that's sorry! You are a brave soul. Most come here too timid to try most things out - you're already slogging around in the guts of a fairly sophisticated template (difficulty points due to 3D orientation and behavior animation of material.) I guestimated your abilities based on such.

My modified suggestions:

1) you will not need to clone anything [save cloning for another day 🙂]

2) Find the Text Layers Group

3) Delete the 2nd through 5th "INFORMATION" text layers (in order of appearance - top to bottom)

4) Delete the 2nd through 5th Ramp behaviors (at the top of the "folder" -- in order of appearance... etc.)

You should be left with one "INFORMATION" and when played, the wheel should spin and stop with the text in the correct location.

Select the Text "Information" layer and under the canvas in the timeline, click and drag the right edge out all the way to the right. This will keep the text "on" the rest of the length of the template.

Play again and make sure the "Information" stays on screen for the entire length of the template.

Click on the time clock icon under the canvas so that the clock hands read quarter past 12 then double click on the time and type "5." (number 5 plus a period) + enter (set the length of the template to 5 seconds.)

With the Information text layer still selected, Command - D (duplicate the layer - you should now have an INFORMATION copy layer.) [both of these text layers will be independently editable in FCPX (that includes Fonts and size, etc...)

For the duplicate layer:

In the inspector > Properties, try these coordinates to start:

X: 486

Y: -1195

Z: 23

Rotation:

X: 0

Y: 0

Z: 78

Scale:

X: 95

Y: 170

Z: 85

Shear:

X: -24

Y: -9

[You can play with any of these settings to get the "look" you prefer -- I was just trying to "match" the design somewhat -- and it's a bit of a guess...]

Go to the Text > Format inspector. At the bottom of the column to the right of the word "Text" - when you pass the mouse over the region, a disclosure triangle will appear -- click it and select Publish from the dropdown.

To publish colorizing elements:

Select the Gradient > Gradient layer (bottom of the list -- if it looks like two blue squares, open up that group and select the "generator" icon (ultra miniature monitor looking thing with a test pattern). In the Generator inspector > Gradient, right click on the word Gradient (just over the color bar) and select publish from the dropdown.

Right OVER the gradient folder, the bottom item of the Text Layers folder, select "Rectangle" (just under Replicator.) In the Inspector: Shape > Style > Fill section, click on the word gradient just over the color bar (again) and select publish.

One more thing:

Drag the playhead to the 2 second mark under the canvas. Click anywhere in the layer's list that's NOT on any item (that is - deselect any and all items in that list.) Type the tilde key (or accent grave key, however you look at it) -- that will add a marker. Immediately type Command-Option M , which calls up the Edit Marker dialog. In the Type section, select Build In Mandatory... then OK.

Save the project.

You now have a 1 Score (Winner/Loser/Tie) winner's circle template. Use a new instance for each score in the storyline. You can trim the template or drag it out in time in FCPX -- the animation at the beginning will always play with exactly the same speed.

PS - an oddity is occuring with my copy: the lower Information text is ending up under the upper text (like a drop shadow) and repositioning in Motion makes no difference -- if that happens to yours, just double click on the "under" text and "slide it out" to where it belongs (in FCPX).

Anyway, it should look a little like this (at around the 2 second mark):

For completeness: if you need "subtitle" lines, these can be accomplished in FCPX. Type a return at the end of the title and continue with a second line. Select only the second line in the text box (text tab of the inspector) and resize the font (restyle it any way you like actually...) You shouldn't need to add extra lines to what you already have (in the Motion template). Also, if you need to get rid of one or the other -- select the text of it, and type in a space character (why a space? So you have something to double click on in the canvas if you need to find it again.)

HTH

Last night I did everything (almost) you posted about unchecking the information and ramp but did it a bit differently. I'm happy that I got it close on my own, but you can see the screenshot instead of me trying to explain. Is it ok to keep that way, will it still work?

Then today figured out how to copy the one line of title text plus all it's properties and pasted it on the other two lines. I did that in Final Cut. It's ok but I'm sure there's (yours) a better way.

And just now I got up to the point of changing the time to 5. and now I'm lost and confused. I didn't like the time change and tried to command+Z but it doesn't take me back to pre time change and I don't remember what it was. I started following your directions at the point of (Select the Text "Information" layer and under the canvas in the timeline) and it looked great!:) but now I have no clue what to do and don't even know what any of those controls are. Before changing the time the timing pane would play the whole title within the pane. If that makes any sense?

I'll hope to get your reply and then start up again. Thank HTH

I believe the original length of time is 10 seconds (and command-Z does not undo project length changes!) Under the canvas, you have your playhead/project clock which can display either Frames or Timecode. Depending on the "status" will determine what kind of information you can type in -- frames for Frames and time for Timecode. (click the disclosure triangle to pop that menu.)

There are two indicators: the first is playhead position. You can tell if you look closely -- at the end of the narrow mark there is a single dot indicating "position". The "project" length indicator shows a dot at the end of each "arm" of the clock and a blue arc to indicate a span of time. The time on the clock looks like 12:15...

Just click on that clock icon until the project length is shown.

Double click on the time and type in a new value.

In Timecode, it is legal to type in "10." to mean 10:00 or ten seconds; "10.." would mean 10 minutes. It is not necessary to enter "leading zeroes" for any value; so 10.6 would mean 10 seconds and 6 frames. "1..6" would mean 1 minute and 6 frames (there's 2 dots in there!)... however, if you're moving the playhead, and that time would be beyond the end of your project, Motion will just place the playhead at the end of the project.

One of the reasons you're having a little trouble with the 5 second duration is that 3 text lines will span 6 seconds of animation (plus the "rest pause" for the text). If you "cut" the template in that "region" - consider the frame where Ramp 4 starts as the point to cut.

Did you get this answer from using AppleCare and contacting the pro apps department? I've been thinking about calling them myself after coming up empty through exhaustive searches on the "Winners Circle" title. I need to change the ugly orange color that doesn't even associate victory, yet hoping resorting to Motion wouldn't be necessary. Thanks for your post

Sorry, I was able to find the layers with the gear icon and uncheck them along with the "information" boxes and uncheck them, but the length of the title is still the same. I'll keep messing with it but if you could give me a quick tip on how to shorten it and like the op said, have it fade out? Thanks

I was just about to post in the Motion thread and realized this is in Final Cut. Is it not possible to change these in Final Cut? I thought I've watched videos showing text being dragged around and put anywhere onscreen but can't locate it. If this is definitely for Motion I'll ask but wanted to double check. Thanks

Thanks for your reply, I'm going to spend some time re-reading it because it's way beyond my ability right now. However your last paragraph peaked my interest but it's a bit different than what I'd like (I think). When you say "clone" the texts, that is what I'd like to do, but "lengthening the time on screen" I'm just confused about. Is it possible to clone the look of my second screenshots text and use that for the other stop points text? Instead of figuring out what I did to get it to look that way and then applying that to the other animated stop points? Because honestly I don't really know what I'm doing, I just mess around until it looks good then go from there. Sort of learn as I go:) Thank you

Your link is a zip file that seems to be just a copy of winners circle, is that correct?

It's the version of the Winners Circle that I manipulated to be used with 1 to 5 lines of text depending on choice. If you use the method of creating a compound clip and then applying a Hold to the last frame, you can effective freeze frame the last line in for as long as you need. It's an effective workaround and a lot easier than trying to redesign the effect in Motion.

All cloning does is make a rasterized copy of an object, or group(s) of objects. This is very handy for Text objects because clones retain things like font, size, etc. AND the text used without having to link all these parameters to say, a duplicate copy. If you change any one of the parameters for the original, the clone automatically updates since it's basically a "snapshot" of an object. [Another cool thing about clones is that they can loop animations or even play them in reverse... but that's a whole other can of worms...]

For this effect, the way to implement the "end phrase" is to create a separate (unanimated) folder/group for the clones and for each line of text, create a clone (for lines 2 through 5; it is understood there will always be at least 1 line used) and move it into the other group. Each clone's starting time in the effect needs to be moved to just where the spin animation would restart and it's length should be dragged out to the end of the project. It's visibility properties would need to be added to the Rig (in my version) that controls the visibilities and spinning of the effect depending on # of lines to be used. This way a "hold condition" could be created and the effect could "end naturally", the project loop marker could be removed and the timing of the Title could be user controlled in FCPX by dragging it out or shortening it. [I might have time to fool with this later tonight.]

Sorry man but I don't follow 95% of what you wrote. Maybe you missed my previous comment about how I'm new to this. Your comment is not geared towards a beginner whatsoever and from what I can tell it doesn't even answer my question. I meant cloning text as in copy, reproduce the same look of the text from one part to the rest. Thanks for the effort

Great, that was helpful.. I tried adding the 10. a couple times and it didn't work at first so I toyed with the Frames and Timeclock which got it to show ten seconds properly. Then went up to the canvas playhead and extended that all the way out because it still didn't play right, then the third and last information text wasn't playing out anymore either, so I extended that too and all is well again. Man, the little things really make this tough!

Is the reason the info text stopped playing out because of the time change I initially did? I'd like to be able to show you what I've got so you can tell me if I'm getting at it the right way? Will try to add it to a post..., maybe😕

Yes, you have to resort to Motion.