Most of these effects run in all versions of FCP, Motion and After Effects, although you have control over that in the FxFactory application, which functions as a common platform for control and installation. The collection of partners under the FxFactory umbrella represents a truly eclectic set of tools, effects and transitions, ranging for basic filters to stereo 3D. Noise Industries was the first developer to leverage the power of Apple’s Quartz Composer technology. It’s not a huge collection, but for a small investment, you get a nice set of transitions to bail you out of that spot when the client wants something other than a dissolve. These effects have a nice, organic quality and play well in real-time (unrendered) as well as are easily skimmable on the timeline. There, a limited number parameters can be altered, such as angle, direction or whether a lens flare has a warm or cool color temperature. To make adjustments, highlight the transition and open the Inspector pane. To apply an effect, simply drag-and-drop it on a cut. These include Flare, FrameRoll, LightFlash, LightRays, StretchPan and Shutter. For FCP X they’ve created the Transitions Pack (FCP X only) – a set of six filters covering commonly used transitions.
Think of their effects and software as affordable, handy items to have in your toolkit. Instead, they design individual effects to meet the common needs that editors face every day. With that in mind, their effects packages aren’t the all-encompassing set of effects offered by the bigger developers. Not just effects, but a range of productivity applications designed to improve the editing experience. Of course, I haven’t and won’t cover them all, as this is just meant to give you a sampling of the growing FCP X ecosystem.ĭigital Heaven has long been known as a developer of Final Cut-related tools. So, you’ll see a company mentioned in more than one post, depending on whether I’m talking about transitions (as in this post), effects, grading, etc. I’ve decided to write these next few FCP X posts based on types of tools, rather than individual products. As these are built upon the underpinnings of the software, most are reasonably lightweight and will play in real-time or render quickly. These aren’t new filters, but rather modified versions and combinations of existing Motion 5 filters that come with the software. Motion 5 effects can be tweaked and exported as an FCP X effect, so a number of developers have taken to creating and offering custom effects that fill in some of the gaps.
This is a similar situation to many of the free FxScript filters created in the early days of Final Cut. Although I am writing these posts with FCP X in mind, remember that for many of these products, the same pointers apply to using them inside After Effects, unless otherwise stated.ĭue to the nature of how effects in Motion 5 and FCP X work, there’s also a burgeoning crop of free effects designed by curious editors.
The good news is that many that do, have been designed to install and work in a range of hosts, including FCP 7, FCP X, Motion 5, After Effects and even Premiere Pro. Make sure if you purchase third-party plug-ins for FCP X that they do, in fact, actually work with FCP X. This means developers have to create updated versions to have them work in FCP X. In other cases, they may work in Motion 5, but not FCP X. In some cases, installed FxPlug filters will show up in the FCP X and Motion 5 browsers, but not work. Because FCP X optimization is required, not all FxPlug filters work in either application. Any effects inside FCP X are actually Motion 5 templates. The effects in FCP X and Motion 5 are based on FxPlug. Although Apple threw a monkey wrench into the business model of most FCP developers last year, many have stepped up to the plate with innovative new offerings.
For the next few blog posts, I’m going to discuss some of the options you have to pimp out Final Cut Pro X on your system.