My cup runneth over! Thanks for all of this help, Fox! I’ll spend today attempting to follow your instructions for modifying the Theolait arrow generator’s template, so that the timing of the arrow’s animation can be regulated by just stretching out the generator in the Timeline. And I'm sure I will also learn much from your explanation of Motion's controls.
But first I wanted to see the new Flexi-Arrow Lite, so I downloaded it and dropped it into the FCPX’s Titles folder. But it wouldn’t appear in FCPX’s Titles at first, so I compared it with the other Titles in the folder to see if there were any differences, and I noticed that the names of all the other Motion files ended with .moti., whereas Flexi-Arrow Lite’s ended with .motn. So I changed the .motn to .moti, and as soon as I did, the Flexi-Arrow Lite appeared in FCPX’s Titles browser. So I’m guessing that you made a little typo there, typing .motn instead of .moti, that you’ll want to fix.
And wow, is this new Flexi-Arrow Lite ever flexible! With eight control points on it compared to the original Flexi-Arrow’s four, this new arrow can be bent all over the map (pun intended!) and zigged and zagged every which-a-way. Terrific! For zigging and zagging, the Linear line setting looks best, making sharp corners, or for smooth curves I'll use the B-spline setting. This is quite a wonderful arrow tool for use on maps in documentaries like the one I’m working on.
Since I’m still not very savvy at animating things with keyframes, it took me some fiddling around at first before I could make the arrow appear on the map and grow out to a desired length. I found that it only takes three keyframes, and it strikes me that anyone reading this thread in the future who is similarly keyframe-challenged might appreciate instructions on how to do it. A YouTube video would be the best way to show it, but there may be people who would benefit from written instructions as well. I don’t know if my method is the best way or not (and feel free to point out if it’s not, or if I left something out), but it works for me, so here it is:
To create a moving arrow on a map with the Sight Creations Flexi-Arrow or Flexi-Arrow Lite, which requires the insertion of only three keyframes, do the following:
In FCPX, hit the Titles button to bring up the Titles Browser, and locate the Flexi-Arrow or Flexi-Arrow Lite (I created an Arrows folder and put them both in it, to make them easy to find).
Drag the Flexi-Arrow Title of your choice from the Titles Browser to the Timeline and drop it on top of the map clip, and drag its edge out to approximately the desired length (I suggest you make it extra wide so that you can more easily see the keyframes you'll be making; you can always shorten it later).
Click on the Title if necessary to highlight it in the Timeline and to bring up its controls in the Inspector, and also hit Control-V to open the title’s Video Animation box above it on the Timeline, so that you can see the keyframes appear there when you make them.
If it’s the original Flexi-Arrow, with text on the arrow, and you don’t want any text, just delete the sample text (under the Inspector’s Text button) so that you have only the arrow (this isn’t necessary with the Flexi-Arrow Lite because it has no text).
Click on the Title button in the Inspector Panel to bring up the arrow’s controls. In the Viewer, drag the arrow’s positioning circles around until it’s positioned the way you want it to be on the map, and use the Line Width slider to adjust its thickness. You can use the other sliders to adjust other attributes now, or you can make such adjustments later if you prefer. Choose a color for the arrow if you don’t want the default color.
In the Timeline, put the playhead about where you want the arrow’s movement to end (i.e. where you want the arrowhead to stop), and then, in the Inspector, put in two keyframes: one beside the the First Point Offset slider, and another one beside the Last Point Offset slider. To do this, move your mouse cursor just to the right of the sliders, and you’ll see a keyframe symbol (a diamond) with a + inside of it appear. Click on that little diamond to create a keyframe beside each slider, and you’ll also see them appear (on top of each other) down on the Timeline, in the Title’s Video Animation box.
Now move the playhead a ways earlier (to the left) in the Timeline, to about where you want the arrow movement to begin (you can adjust it later). Up in the arrow’s controls again, move the Last Point Offset slider all the way to the left, so that the arrow retracts all the way back out of sight. When you do this, a keyframe will automatically appear beside the Last Point Offset slider, and you'll also see this second keyframe appear in the Title’s Video Animation box.
Now the animation is complete, and you're finished, unless you care to make any further adjustments to the arrow or to the keyframe positions (usually you will). As the timeline moves across the keyframes, the arrow will appear on the map at the first keyframe, extend outward between the keyframes, and stop at the second pair of keyframes. To speed the arrow animation up, just slide the keyframes closer together, and to slow it down, move them farther apart.
Adjustments can also be made to the arrow’s positioning on the map, or to any other attributes, at any time, just by clicking on the Title in the Timeline to bring up the arrow’s controls in the Inspector.
Tom B.
