Effects - ability to 'fade-in / fade-out' an effect

MerlinB

Newbie Location: UK Joined: Mar 28, 2016 14:51 Messages: 2 Offline

Solved by

May 13, 2016 18:00

I notice that effects are applied to a clip or to the FX track (to apply it to several clips and anything else that is above it - like particles). And also, effects are either ON or OFF. You can use the Keyframe feature to alter aspects of the effect over time - but you cannot make the fx slowly 'take effect' in many cases.

This is nice and flexible. I did rather expect FX that apply to a clip to appear as tracks in the PIP (Clip Modify) so you could control / add / delete / layer them in a consistent way. Perhaps next year!

But what i wanted was a way to 'fade in' / 'fade out' an effect on a clip. I was using the "Color Painting" effect, but did not want this to suddenly jump into effect. The only solution was to copy the video clip, then sandwich the effect between the two copies. Now i trim the lower (no effect) copy and apply fade-out. like this:

Track 1: Full original video

FX Track: the effect!

Track 2: Trimmed copy of original, with fade out/in as needed

Now while Track 2 has video, you see the normal view. But as it fades, it reveal the same video but with the effect applied.

YAY - but would'nt it be really nice if Effects themselves had a 'fade-in' 'fade-out' feature - so their effect on the underlying tracks can be applied/removed slowly? Merlin

ynotfish

Senior Contributor Location: N.S.W. Australia Joined: May 08, 2009 02:06 Messages: 9977 Offline

May 13, 2016 19:00

Hi Merlin -

You're right. Even though there's the keyframing option to increase or decrease levels, very often "0" isn't nothing. i.e. the effect is present.

What I've done sounds a little like your workaround. I split the clip and apply the keyframed effect only to the second section... then drop a slow fade between the two.

It gets the desired result, but it would be nice if zero meant zero!

Cheers - Tony
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Neil.F.1955

Senior Contributor Joined: Mar 07, 2012 09:15 Messages: 1303 Offline

May 13, 2016 22:25

Hi, Merlin!

You've raised a good point there! I tend to severely limit my use off "effects(fx)" because of the "sudden on/sudden off" nature of some(most) of them when applied using the "fx" track. The only effects I've used to date have been the "TV Wall" and the "Delay". TV Wall gives an effect of multiplying the image(you nominate the intensity), starting at the single image, building into the "wall" then back out to the single image. It's a good one to use in conjunction with a "fade" transition. The "delay" gives a kind of "strobing" effect to the video, the effect could give a notion of "speed" of a moving object passing a camera, preferrably mounted on a tripod. These two "effects" do give a degree of control over their point of entry and exit, but others I've experimented with have this "sudden on/sudden off" nature which effectively eliminates them from any use I might otherwise have for them. *There is a workaround, but it involves applying the effect singularly to a portion of a clip where you want it to apply, then render that portion and drop the thus-rendered portion into your movie with a fade(or other type of) transition in front of and behind the so-affected portion. *Just an idea I thought of while writing this. Summing up, those effects do leave something to be desired in their application, and I suspect it goes back as far as when the effects track was first available in a much-earlier version of Power Director.

Cheers!

Neil.