How do you put video inside of shapes on Final Cut Pro X.

This might help:

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

It's an "effect" — apply it to a clip. Combine your shape generators in a stack and create a compound clip (make sure the length of the shape generators is as long as your cut needs to be!)

Click on the Drop Zone for this effect and choose a first frame (an "early enough" frame) of your shapes compound.

The default blend mode is set to Stencil Alpha (similar to luma - but guaranteed "opaque" cutouts with shapes). Try the other blend modes - you get some interesting effects and you can "double exposure" clips with it (overlay, hard light, color burn, etc.)

Stacked shapes generator:

the compound clip:

All your collected shapes in "one throw":

The drop zone also gives you scale and pan controls to help you resize and align the parts.

If you need help installing:

https://fcpxtemplates.com/installing-plugins-for-fcpx/

Below is a file in Pixelmator with two white circles, one transparent circle and a black background. If put above a video in FCP X, only the part of the video under the transparent circle will show.

Note: I had to research a bit how to do this, particularly how to cut a "whole" in the black background. As I expected, it is not hard.

Summarily:

1) Make three copies of the white circle and position then on the frame.

2) Add a black background by creating a new layer and using the paint-bucket tool to fill it completely. Move it below in the layer order so you see the white circles again.

3) Command-click the middle circle thumbnail in the layers list (this is the part I had to look up and it is SO useful... Thank you for setting me up to find this!). This creates a SELECTION matching the circle.

4) Select the black layer in the list and press DELETE. This creates the "hole" in the black layer

5) Select the middle circle and make it transparent by changing the fill and stroke to None, or disable its layer altogether.

Create this in Pixelmator (color doesn't matter, since we are going to use only transparency in this example):

(Edit: export out of Pixelmator as PNG to keep the alpha channel (transparency).)

Connect the image over your video:

Now change the blend mode of the still image to "Stencil Alpha":

You already got several great options but let me suggest another one which might in some cases be easier-I’m thinking of several shapes in different colors and video playing in some parts of the screen.

You can prepare your image in Pixelmator using shapes, text, etc, and make the desired areas transparent.

Then all you have to do is connect the still image above the video.

Do you want the two circle shapes to matte the single video below? Switch off the blend modes applied to the shapes. Combine the two shapes into a compound clip and apply the blend mode to the compound clip. Or, better yet, create a single matte layer with the complex shapes you want in a graphics application like Pixelmatior or Affinity Photo.

It looks like this.

The shape is on top, black on white in this case. Video is underneatn. Blend mode Stencil Luma is applied to the shape.

You combine a matte shape with the video below into a compound clip. Each of the compound clips, with the shape and the video, is a separate element. You can stack the compounds on top of each other and, using the transform function, position them where you want. Use a custom or color generator of make the color background and put that on the layer on the bottom.

Yes. The shape is used as a matte. You saw the tutorials about using text. Replace the text layer with a shape. It can be a generator or a graphic or anything with an alpha channel or a luminance value that can be used as the matte, like white on black.

I’m not sure what you’re trying to show in the video. Didn’t know arch the whole thing, but you can use any shape or generator and use it as a matte layer fir the video just as you would a text layer.

PS - you can get a lot of similar shapes used in the video you linked by using a Title and using text characters (and there's a wealth of material in Unicode). To add a Unicode character to a title, at the cursor prompt type Control-Command-Spacebar to call up the "Emoji & Symbols" window. Find a character that has the shape you need and double click on it. It will be inserted into text in FCPX. Examples: ◼︎►♗ ♫ ✔︎ ✘, etc. [The browser seems to favor the emoji (image) versions... You can control the font in FCPX Text Inspector.]

dbraggins15 wrote:

If you wanted to have the video showing the the white area and outside the black outline as it already is, but you wanted to keep the black outline, how would you do that?

That is even easier :-)

Just create an image with the black circular crown and connect it above the video. Leave the blend mode at normal.

I still can't work out how to do this on Pixelmator.

If I understand correctly, there is a video playing inside the black square, right?

One layer - white (or a slight gradient, or whatnot):

Another layer - a black square. Keep the fill at color or gradient for now.

Command-click the square layer in the layers list. This makes a selection equal to the square.

Change the shape's Fill to None.

Switch to the bottom layer and press delete. This will delete the area under the square.

Done.