I'm working with some moving titles and I am having some trouble understanding keyframes in Final Cut. I've used Adobe, and you can add, remove and move keyframes depending on where you want them to occur in the timeline.
I see how to add keyframes and that it snaps to them in the timeline, but I don't know how remove these keyframes or move them...if that's how they are used.
First of all what version of FCE do you have ?
Till 3.0.x you could only keyframe Basic motion within the Viewer or the Canvas Window. Starting with 3.5 you have much more control on keyframes and you can apply them to any filter (effect) or generator as well.
It's not possible here to give full instructions, since they are quite complex; refer to the FCE Manual you get in the FCE Help Menu.
Just as a hint (in case you have 3.5) you can add keyframes by opening the clip in the Viewer, chosing the proper Viewer tab (Motion Tab or any filter in the Filters tab) and then:
1. position the playhead in the timeline where you want to add a keyframe; you should see the corresponding frame in the canvas, and a second copy of the playhead in the rightmost area of the viewer
2. click on the diamond in the center of the viewer, for the parameter you want to "lock"; eg in Basic Motion you can lock the Scale to 100 in that frame; the diamond becomes green to mark the keyframe and another diamond appears under the playhead
3. move the playhead to a different position
4. click again the diamond: this sets a new kayframe
5. change the value of Scale, eg 50%
You just set 2 key frames (in 2. and 4.) with different scales. If you play the clip you'll see the image to shrink from 100 to 50% scale.
Now you can:
- move a keyframe by dragging the diamond in the viewer timeline righ, left (changing position) up or down (changing value)
- move the playhead to the next or previous keyframe by clicking the right or the left triangle (around the keyframe diamond button)
- delete a keyframe by clicking on the keyframe button when green (ie when the playhead is over a keyframe
- add more keyframes for the same or for other parameters over, before or after any existing keyframe,
- etc.
Well, I just saw your answer to Tom...
3.0 is a bit less flexible and only for the Motion Tab.
And all instructions I gave you are useless...
In 3.0 You don't have the rightmost part of the Viewer window (with local timeline etc.) so you can use only the wireframe in the canvas (or viewer).
To add a keyframe first make sure you have "Image+Wireframe" selected in the small menu on top of the canvas window; then:
1. you must use the diamond button at the buttom of the canvas window to set a keyframe (with the parameters values set in the viewer Motion Tab) and
2. you must right click on the small green square in the canvas window to select "Delete Point", to delete a keyframe.
Thanks very much for the help Piero. I found the wireframe method. It is very difficult to deal with if you have titles off the screen, I found, especially in my case where the title flies in from the side.
Is upgrading to 3.5 an expensive investment? A worthy investment?
If you are flying in titles from off screen, reduce the size of the Canvas (this option is at the top) to 25% or something so you can see the motion path
Don't forget to reset the Canvas to full screen when you're done
If you do keyframing quite a bit, I suggest you to upgrade. Once you use the "real" keyframing in 3.5 you cannot do without it - the 3.0 keyframing is just a "badly" stripped down version of it.
With the upgrade you get more than that, if you need it: Universal version for Intel CPU, better versions of LiveType and the other bundled applications, Dynamic RT, etc. - for my use the upgrade was paid back by the single keyframing feature.
