Timeline Pins - how to set them??

Insights? Guesses:

1) when you design a transition with timeline pins, what kind of project is it going into? how long? any "obstacles in the way"? There's no way to know in advance where these pins would end up if they had preset timings.

2) In all the years I've been making templates, I *think* I might have used these once. Regular drop zones are better because you can run video. I think most people don't know that drop zones will accept a starting frame from ANYWHERE. That means any point of your storyline can fill a drop zone in any effect, title, generator or transition. Just click the drop zone well and point and click anywhere in FCPX (storyline, event browser). You can even INVENT media to place in a drop zone in the storyline, then delete it as soon as the drop zone is set. That means you can add any kind of media (video, title, generator) and modify it with anything that will apply (effects, color corrections, animations [for generators, titles, etc.]) — anything you like or want, apply it to the drop zone and then immediately delete the material from the storyline with no effect on the "loaded" drop zone. It's like creating a compound clip inside the drop zone and not having to save it as a real compound into any event. The only drawback is if you want to make a change to a clip like that, you have to start over and rebuild it (unless you do save it as a compound clip).

I tend not to use timeline pins.

The most annoying thing about timeline pins is that they will stack up on each other if one side or the other of the transition is "too short" (meaning "end of media" one way or the other). Recommendation in that instance: Add gaps to stretch out the "storyline" long enough to spread out the "unset" pins, position the pins, then delete the gaps.

…drop zones will accept a starting frame from ANYWHERE

uhm, well, those Pins are - imhu - are a GUI exactly for that, am I wrong?

The frames at the timeline pins do not animate, they're stills.

ok, … Timeline Pins = smart idea of an interface, but unexplained and you can not 'position' them to some preset values (although the mentioned Clone Transition does, someway somehow) … hmmm, odd.

THANKS for sharing, helped a lot!

I don't notice anything different about the Clone Spin transition than any others that use timeline pins. The pins spread out evenly over the length of the incoming and outgoing clips (depending on how many and the length of the clips).

I'd be more likely to use them *if* one could choose to use the still frame OR video at the pin location.

I couldn't find any documentation either. From experimentation, for a one pin transition, the pin appears approximately 1 second after the end of the transition. For a two pin transition, the first one is approximately 2 seconds before the transition and 1 second after. For a three pin transition, the first one is approximately 2 seconds before and the 2nd and 3rd pins are after, spaced about 2 second apart (with #2 approx 1 second after). Four pins would have two before and two after, etc. etc... That seems to be the algorithm. The spacing is dependent on the amount of storyline before and after the transition as well. If there isn't enough room for the spread out view, then the pins will stack.

PS - there seems to be some variability in the pin offsets from the ends of the transition depending on how long the transition is. However, from the third pin on, they seem to be accurately places exactly two seconds from each other (if they have the room.)