Keyframes Question - Modifying Clip Length

Will Farquharson

Newbie Location: Scotland Joined: May 21, 2019 19:38 Messages: 6 Offline

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May 26, 2019 07:05

I am working on a video where a lot of images will be thrown down onto the screen, as if someone was throwing down real poloroid photographs.

To achieve this I do the following to each picture:

Initial position somewhere off the screen

A keyframe at 2secs to set the position + rotation into the desired position on screen

Set "ease in" to "1.0" on the position + rotation attributes to give it a more realistic look

This works fine. However, I frequently need to adjust the length of time a picture stays on screen, to match some voice narration. Whenever I change a picture's clip length (usually by chopping it at the end), or do certain time-based manipulations to a picture, it totally screws up the keyframes.

If I chop the picture's clip length in half, the keyframe animation will also be chopped to happening in 1s - effectively sped up.
Or, if I extend the picture's clip length, the keyframe animation will be dragged out.

It also seems to drop the "ease in" attribute all the time too and I need to keep setting it again.

Is there a way to set a static/absolute keyframe on a clip, so that it will always happen at 2s regardless of any manipulations done to the clip afterwards?

The way I'm working now, I have to spend 20 minutes fixing all the keyframes every time I make a time adjustment to something.

Thanks a lot!

BarryTheCrab

Senior Contributor Location: USA Joined: Nov 06, 2008 22:18 Messages: 6240 Offline

May 26, 2019 09:53

Key-frames are great, but yes, they behave badly when altering the image in the timeline.

Some of the transitions work very well without key-framing. As a quickie edit I will use a slide or shove to bring the image from off-screen, and I can pre-rotate the image a few degrees. Of course you do not get the ease-in-out, but it's quick and dirty. HP Envy Phoenix/4thGen i7-4770(4@3.4GHz~turbo>3.9)
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optodata

Senior Contributor Location: California, USA Joined: Sep 16, 2011 16:04 Messages: 8630 Offline

May 26, 2019 12:42

Maybe using a screenshot will work for you. Make your default/master clip the minimum length you'd ever expect to use, and whenever you need to extend the duration, take a snapshot of the screen and use that static image for the remainder of the duration.

See the note in italics in this post to set a hotkey to do that as quickly as possible. It's the Freeze Frame command in the Workspace.

If you have a moving background underlaying your thrown-down pics, disable that track when you're making the freeze frames and maybe put in a color board instead, so you can easily chroma key it out and keep your images on top of your background video.

The downside is that you'll have to add the chroma key to every clip, one at a time, but that's probably a lot quicker than messing around with the timing of every keyframed clip.

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Will Farquharson

Newbie Location: Scotland Joined: May 21, 2019 19:38 Messages: 6 Offline

May 27, 2019 16:29

@optodata
I see what you mean, that's a neat trick. One thing I failed to mention though.... some of the images that get thrown on onto the screen are actually videos (it's a pretty cool effect, to have polaroid-like pictures coming down, and some of them are actually videos). This causes me some headaches with the freeze-frame trick. I learnt something new anyway though, thanks for that!

@BarryTheCrab
The "Slide" transition effect is really close to the effect I had already with keyframes! 80% as good with 20% of the time taken. I'll go with that, thanks!

Will Farquharson

Newbie Location: Scotland Joined: May 21, 2019 19:38 Messages: 6 Offline

May 27, 2019 17:20

Since you guys are being so helpful, a bonus question...

If I set an image clip to have a "Slide" transition in, a "Fade" transition out, a border, etc.... is it possibly to quickly apply these same attributes to all other images? I can see only "Copy Keyframe Attributes", but maybe there's a trick I'm missing.

Thanks again!

BarryTheCrab

Senior Contributor Location: USA Joined: Nov 06, 2008 22:18 Messages: 6240 Offline

May 27, 2019 17:32

Quote @optodata
I see what you mean, that's a neat trick. One thing I failed to mention though.... some of the images that get thrown on onto the screen are actually videos (it's a pretty cool effect, to have polaroid-like pictures coming down, and some of them are actually videos). This causes me some headaches with the freeze-frame trick. I learnt something new anyway though, thanks for that!

@BarryTheCrab
The "Slide" transition effect is really close to the effect I had already with keyframes! 80% as good with 20% of the time taken. I'll go with that, thanks!

Happy to help, but it has drawbacks, lack of total control, but useful when it’s useful. Some transitions work very well, you’ll easily discover the ones that don’t work so well, often transitioning the entire visible scene.