Hello,
I have a Equirectangular (360) still image in Final Cut Pro. I am interested in using the Ken Burns effect to pan around the 360 image and ultimately output “normal” 2d video. Is this possible with either Final Cut Pro or Motion?
it doesn’t look like there are any tutorials on how to do this, even on Lynda, which I found surprising.
Before answering you, I wanted to try out my answer in FCP X to make sure it worked. I did this procedure for a spherical (360) still image captured by my GoPro Fusion. You need to first set up an HD project in FCP X. You then need to take your stitched 360 image into Photoshop, select under the 3D menu Output as A Panorama and you will get a panorama in PS. Then under the layers menu you will find as a subheading below the one layer that you have called 'spherical map". Double click on this to open the image again in Photoshop. Now select File>Save As, name the file, select the image format from the available options (I found this procedure works for both jpg and tif files, and save the image to your desired directory on you hard drive, and close Photoshop. You will now have a 360 image in the equirectangular format that you can import into FCP in order to execute your desired pan and zoom procedure. (The reason for this round about procedure is that, for me, I could not directly import the Fusion still images that I had stitched in the GoPro Fusion app into FCP and have them recognized as 360 images, but if I prepared them first in PS as just described, FCP X does see them as the desired equirectangular still image.
Now with your still image on the FCP timeline of your HD project, select the image, open the inspector, and turn on the reorientation effect. Drag your image out to whatever length you want, place the cursor at the beginning of the image clip, right click in the inspector and turn on key frames (which will all go yellow) and then click and drag in the viewer to get the composition that you want the viewer to initially see. Note that you have full freedom to pan, tilt, and change the POV angle (which zoom the image. Now advance the cursor to the next framing that you wish the viewer to see, and repeat until you have completed the entire set of image moves. When you play back the image, FCP nicely interpolates between the keyframes to give you very smooth pans and zooms just as you would get using Ken Burns on a conventional 2D image. The net effects as though you shot the still image from multiple angles with multiple cameras and smoothly moved from one camera to the next. Very cool!
I realize that the above may not be necessary if FCP X recognizes your equirectangular image as a 360 image. You will know this is the case if you get a little circle type icon in the user left of the image in FCP X. If you drag your image into FCP X and FCP X recognizes it as a 360 image, then you can ignore all the Photoshop work that I described, and just proceed to click the reorient icon in the inspector and set keyframes for your positional moves.
Tom
Before answering you, I wanted to try out my answer in FCP X to make sure it worked. I did this procedure for a spherical (360) still image captured by my GoPro Fusion. You need to first set up an HD project in FCP X. You then need to take your stitched 360 image into Photoshop, select under the 3D menu Output as A Panorama and you will get a panorama in PS. Then under the layers menu you will find as a subheading below the one layer that you have called 'spherical map". Double click on this to open the image again in Photoshop. Now select File>Save As, name the file, select the image format from the available options (I found this procedure works for both jpg and tif files, and save the image to your desired directory on you hard drive, and close Photoshop. You will now have a 360 image in the equirectangular format that you can import into FCP in order to execute your desired pan and zoom procedure. (The reason for this round about procedure is that, for me, I could not directly import the Fusion still images that I had stitched in the GoPro Fusion app into FCP and have them recognized as 360 images, but if I prepared them first in PS as just described, FCP X does see them as the desired equirectangular still image.
Now with your still image on the FCP timeline of your HD project, select the image, open the inspector, and turn on the reorientation effect. Drag your image out to whatever length you want, place the cursor at the beginning of the image clip, right click in the inspector and turn on key frames (which will all go yellow) and then click and drag in the viewer to get the composition that you want the viewer to initially see. Note that you have full freedom to pan, tilt, and change the POV angle (which zoom the image. Now advance the cursor to the next framing that you wish the viewer to see, and repeat until you have completed the entire set of image moves. When you play back the image, FCP nicely interpolates between the keyframes to give you very smooth pans and zooms just as you would get using Ken Burns on a conventional 2D image. The net effects as though you shot the still image from multiple angles with multiple cameras and smoothly moved from one camera to the next. Very cool!
I realize that the above may not be necessary if FCP X recognizes your equirectangular image as a 360 image. You will know this is the case if you get a little circle type icon in the user left of the image in FCP X. If you drag your image into FCP X and FCP X recognizes it as a 360 image, then you can ignore all the Photoshop work that I described, and just proceed to click the reorient icon in the inspector and set keyframes for your positional moves.
Tom
Tom,
Thank you for you fast reply. I understand now that there are ways to transform 360 video to standard video. Right now it looks like the best way to do what I want would be to open the 360 still in my viewer program and screen record using QuickTime.
I would have thought that Motion would have the ability to do this, albeit with a few more steps.
I don’t think you can use Ken Burns for this, but you might be able to use the transform functions.
Other Tom,
You are a gentleman and a scholar. I just had to figure out to use the keyframes with the ORIENT tool instead of with the transform tool.
Ken burns pan in 360 still picture
