Andy’s Plugins for Final Cut Pro

Andy’s Swish Pan 2

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 00:32:40 +0800

A quick Swish Pan transition that I knocked up for Ted Endres

Andy's Swish Pan 2.zip ... will put up a proper page for it just as soon as I get around to it

Andy’s Easy Ease Controls

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 18:48:18 +0800

Not an actual plugin but a quick tutorial (with working code) how to add Ease In and Ease Out controls to any of the existing plugins, or to your own code, I posted this for a user over at the COW and thought it was worth reposting here too...

As you know, if you’ve listened to my ramblings before, any of the built-in FxScript plugins can be opened up and modified in the built-in authoring environment that is supplied with FCP. That environment is called FxBuilder, and to launch it you just have to open up the plugin you want to modify. In this example we’ll open up the Cube Spin transition...

First up, open your Effects tab and navigate through the bins to Effects > Video Transitions > 3D Simulation
Now right click (control-click) the Cube Spin transition and choose Open in Editor... from the context menu

The FxBuilder environment will launch, adding an FxBuilder menu item and displaying the FxBuilder window (with the selected effects script open in the FxBuilder Text Entry tab).

Lets take a look at the script of the Cube Spin effect:
Right there at the top in the first few lines is the code which identifies the plugin ie give's it it's Id, defines it's type (what kind of effect it is), it's name (as appears in the effects bin) and it's group (where it appears in the effects bin folder structure)

We’ll want to start this hack by changing the name of the effect, or else we’ll end up with 2 identically named effects which will be difficult to tell apart. OK. So lets give it a new Id and a new name
eg scrtiptid “Cube Spin” becomes scriptid “Andy’s Easy Cube Spin”
and transition "Cube Spin" becomes transition “Andy’s Easy Cube Spin”

OK then. A few more lines down and you'll see the definition for the "input" commands. These create an effect's user controls, and you’re going to need to add two extra input commands, one each for your Ease In and Ease Out controls:

input easeIn, "Easy In", Slider, 0, -1, 1;
input easeOut, "Easy Out", Slider, 0, -1, 1;

Now scan through the text of the rest of the script and you'll see that some of the lines of code address a variable called Ratio. Ratio is predefined variable used in FxScripts that represents how far through an effect you are, where Ratio=0 at the beginning of the effect, and Ratio=1 at the end of the effect. This is the crux of the biscuit right here. Its the variable that dictates the progression of an effect and its what we’ll have to modify in order to vary that progression, to slow things down or speed things up.

First we’ll need to create a new variable to hold the modified Ratio value

float myRatio;

Nows the clever bit. We’ll need to use bit of maths magic to give it the new value that represents the original Ratio value as modified by our Ease controls ... I'm no maths guru and you don’t need to be either to mess with this kind of stuff. You’ve probably heard of bezier curves, know what they are and how and when to use them? Well thats exactly what we are modeling here. Our Ease In and Ease Out controls are the bezier handles for transforming our usual linear progression between the start and end of the effect, into an acceleration/deceleration curve. With that in mind, I just went to Google and searched for the equation that defines a bezier curve. Hey presto!

myRatio = 1.5*(1-easeIn)*power((1-Ratio),2)*Ratio + 1.5*(1+easeOut)*power(Ratio,2)*(1-Ratio) + power(Ratio,3);

OK. With that bit of magic in the mix, as Ratio proceeds regularly from 0 to 1, our modified value myRatio will also progress from 0 to 1 but will speed up or slow down depending on our Ease In and Ease Out control values. Give that man a cigar!

Finally, you need to actually use this new value instead of the old one ... go through the script and replace all the occurrences of the variable Ratio with our new variable myRatio
eg rotate3D(target3d1, centerofspin, angleofspin*Ratio, 0, 0);
becomes rotate3D(target3d1, centerofspin, angleofspin*myRatio, 0, 0);
etc

Thats it. We’re done. Now go to the FxBuilder plugin window and choose Create Plugin, save it with a suitable name to your user’s plugins folder (~/Library/Preferences/Final Cut Pro User Data/Pligins) ... quit and relaunch FCP. The new effect should be right there with the name we gave it at the start.. Try it out, play with the controls ... groovy huh?

You can use the exact same method (and those 3 lines of code in itatlics above) to hack Ease controls into any of the built-in FxScript plugins ... go crazy :-)

Good luck
Andy

Update: For those damn lazy buggers out there you an download the pre-compiled effect here: Andy's Easy Cube Spin.zip ... but thats just lazy!

UPDATED 26/08/09:
Revamped the Cube Spin plug ... hey, if its worth doing its worth doing well.

_

Andy’s Gradient Filter

Tue, 20 May 2008 19:10:44 +0800

So Harry asked me to write him a Neutral Density Gradient filter and whilst it certainly seemed doable I wasn’t especially inclined, so I attempted to post back that it was easy enough to do using the built-in Custom Gradient filter (in the Effects > Video Generators > Render bin) applying that to the layer above the problem clip and changing the Composite Mode ought to do the job. Trouble was that Apple’s FCP discussions forum was playing hard to get ... nothing on the telly, not tired enough for bed, finished my book already, and now the the forum down as well. Ok, what the heck, a challenge is a challenge right?

This is the result... Andy's Gradient Filter.zip. Anyway, Harry was pleased, and I’m hoping you’ll find it useful too.

By the way, what are you doing on Saturday week? Harry and I are getting hitched...

Andy’s Basic Text (FxPlug - Preview Release)

Sun, 11 May 2008 13:43:08 +0800

Well I’ve been commenting for a while about the lack of full font support in basic Text generators in FCP. It can be a real pain when the font you need is one that isn’t available to the plugin. I noticed that whilst plugs written in FxScript can’t be forced to see and manipulate the full font list, that restriction is not present in the FxPlug architecture ...

... and in version 1.2.2 of the FxPlug SDK they introduced a (very) basic Text parameter. It doesn’t allow you to type in multiple lines of text but for most on screen text a single line will do anyway, or you can use multiple instances for extra lines. What you can do though, is create a plain text or even better, a rich text document that you can use as the source for your text generator. Very cool ... and no, I didn’t figure out the cool bit, that basic principle came courtesy of the example code bundled with the SDK.

So anyway, here presented in all its glory, is a compiled hack of some of that FxPlug example code.

Caveat: I’m very much a beginner with this Objective -C FxPlug lark so this plugin is offered up very much as a preview release ... I have no idea if it will run on a PowerPC system, don’t know if it will run on anything less than FCP6.0.3, in fact, I have no idea if it will run on anyone’s system but my own. Still here you go. If it turns out it doesn't work then it will probably disappear without trace, and if it does work then “Preview Release” been damned, this will probably be gold master!

Install it into the /Library/Plug-ins/FxPlug/ folder, or ~ /Library/Plug-ins/FxPlug/

Andy’s Region Blur 3.5

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 14:16:12 +0800

Working in News production has its own set of challenges, not least of which is the speed with which you need to edit. There really isn’t any time for messing about with duplicating and masking layers in order to disguise someone's identity, or conversely, to pick out and highlight a single person or object in a scene. Cue Andy’s Region Blur ...

As a 24 hour global news broadcaster, we have a large global deployment of ENG crews, and all our cameramen and women have to cut as well as shoot. As a primary point of contact for any issues or questions relating to FCP, I was called one day by a bureau cameraman and asked how to a witness protection type of effect to blur out the face of an interviewee (who had decided after the fact that they didn’t want to be identified).
Now, great shooters are usually great storytellers too, with an inherent understanding of sequences and how to build them ... but thank goodness not everyone is ready, willing or able to add masking and layering techniques to their skill set as well, or all of us editors would be out of a job! No, for those guys and gals you need a plug-in that takes the edge off all the technicalities of what’s actually going on under the hood ...so next day after a bit of head scratching and a few false starts I sent the cameraman Andy’s Region Blur 24/01/07.

Tip: Use the eye dropper to sample the skin color of the face you are obscuring, then carefully push up the tint value. Combined with blur, a little added tint goes a long way to smoothing out the features;.
Tip: To pick out someone or something, enable the invert option and reduce the blur amount to zero, then increase the tint to around 50 or change the edge type to “Frame”.

Even for the non-beginner who knows perfectly well how to do all their own masking and layering, this plugin can be a real time saver ... and when time is a critical factor its a no-brainer.
For those users with a basic understanding of Motion, then I’d sincerely encourage you to take a look it’s fabulous Match Move and Track behaviors ... quick and intelligent obfuscation for the cognoscenti!

UPDATED 19/03/08:
The new version adds the option to Mosaic or Smudge the target region, a new edge control adds the option to Frame the region, and reworked controls allow for easier manipulation of the regions size and shape.

UPDATED 17/05/09:
A new version (the Tim McLaughlin edition) adds the option to Desaturate the target region, plus increases the range of the edge width control .... good for using the filter as a Vignette generator.

UPDATED 08/09/09:
A new version for Gene and anyone else who need a rotate control. Adds a sort of halo edge option too although its kinda only half cooked so far.

Andy’s Flipper 2

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 09:52:16 +0800

Mike Barber, over on dvinfo was wrestling with a bit of code he needed to hack into Apple’s Spinback 3D transition. I totally misunderstood the effect he was trying for but as it turned out, I did at least help him in the right direction.

Mike posted his modded “Flipper” script and I’ve added in some extra controls to make it more flexible.

scriptid "Andy’s Flipper" //DO NOT LOCALIZE
transition "Andy’s Flipper"; // A remixed remix of Spinback3D
group "3D Simulation";
wipeCode(20, 100);
producesAlpha;

input angleofaxis, "Angle of Axis", angle, 0, -360, 360 detent 0;
input spinfactor, "Spin Factor", slider, 1, 1, 10 snap 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10;
input perspective, "Perspective", slider, 0.3, 0.01, 1.000 detent 0.3;
input borderWidth, "Border", slider, 0, 0, 10 snap 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10;
input borderColor, "Color", color, 255, 0, 0, 0;
input dontflip, "Spinback", checkbox, 0;

code

on fabs (value _n)
return (_n<0 ? -_n : _n);
end;

float w, h, hprime, alpha, offsetangle, angleofview, xprime, yprime;
point source[4], target[4], poly[4], centerofview;
point3d target3d[4], center3d, eye3d;

dimensionsof(dest, w, h);

borderColor.a = 255;
angleofview = perspective*100;

boundsOf(Dest, target);
centerOf(target, centerofview);

source = target;
poly = target;

hprime = h * aspectof(dest);

xprime = w*fabs(cos(angleofaxis)) + hprime*fabs(sin(angleofaxis));
yprime = w*fabs(sin(angleofaxis)) + hprime*fabs(cos(angleofaxis));

scale(poly, centerofview, xprime/w, yprime/h);
rotate(poly, centerofview, angleofaxis, aspectof(dest));

convert2dto3d(centerofview, center3d, 0);
convert2dto3d(centerofview, eye3d, w/(2*tan(angleofview/2)));

scale(target, centerofview, 1, aspectof(dest));
convert2DTo3D(target, target3d, 0);
rotate3D(target3d, center3d, 0, 0, -angleofaxis);

if ratio < 0.5
rotate3D(target3d, center3d, 0, spinfactor*180*ratio, 0);
else
if dontflip
rotate3D(target3d, center3d, 0, spinfactor*180*(1-ratio), 0);
else
rotate3D(target3d, center3d, 0, spinfactor*180*(1+ratio), 0);
end if;
end if;

rotate3D(target3d, center3d, 0, 0, angleofaxis);
convert3DTo2D(target3d, target, eye3d);
scale(target, centerofview, 1, 1/aspectof(dest));

if srctype1 == knone
exposedbackground=1;
end if
if srctype2 == knone
exposedbackground=1
end if;

channelfill(dest, 0, 0, 0, 0);
if ratio < 0.5
blitrect(Src1, source, Dest, target);
else
blitrect(src2, source, dest, target);
end if;

if borderwidth > 0
framepoly(target, dest, bordercolor, borderwidth/renderRes);
end if;

UPDATED 26/08/09:
Added a few more controls like perspective, distance offset (like an interim scale control), plus my own Easy Ease controls.
_

Andy’s Elastic Aspect

Mon, 3 Mar 2008 16:16:57 +0800

Your big ass widescreen TV at home has a progressive stretch mode that you can switch on when your watching normal 4:3 broadcasts ... it makes the picture fill that gloriously wide screen without everything seeming too obviously stretched. So how does that work? It uses a proprietary pixel stretching algorithm to leave the center of the screen relatively undistorted whilst stretching the pixels more and more the nearer they approach the edge of the screen. OK, so how does this plug-in work? Errrm ... pretty much the same way only with a bit less of the old “proprietary algorithm” business in there (I just use one of Apple’s built in distortion function calls).

Originally called Andy’s Fake Anamorphic Fixer, its now completely rewritten and reborn under this new name. Although still far from perfect I like to think it’s a lot better in this new incarnation, with much more control over where and how much stretch to apply.

I’ve added in as much user definable control as possible so that you can make the most of the image that you have... but obviously the more “extremely” you use it the less pleasant the result is going to be. Much, of course, depends on the source composition and the action thats happening within the frame, but i’ve had great results using this on interview footage where I’ve been able to keep the interviewee in near perfect aspect whilst stretching an otherwise abstract background.

The basic prerequisite for using this effect properly is first to tell FCP to stretch your otherwise 4:3 clip to fill your 16:9 sequence. You can either add the Anamorphic flag to clip in the clip’s properties before you use it in your sequence, or you can edit it as is into your 16:9 timeline then setting the instances Motion tab > Distort > Aspect Ratio property to zero.

Tip: Enable the “Show Protected Area” option so you can more easily define the region to protect ... but don’t forget to disable it again before you render your final output!
Tip: Go real easy on the Elasticity control. The slider is unrestricted to allow you more creative control, but values above 10 are really not recommended ... they will overcompensate, causing a compression of the image at the edges of the protected area.
Tip: Use the Protection Override slider to put a bit of stretch back into the otherwise protected area of the image... a little bit of stretch will likely go unnoticed and will help greatly in reducing apparent disparity of distortion.

Andy’s Split Slide

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 01:25:32 +0800

Another custom built plug-in resulting from a thread on the Apple Discussions FCP forum.

So here’s the skinny. Turns out one of Apple’s slide transitions doesn’t work ... or at least, it doesn’t work as well as it should. A slide transition (as opposed to a wipe) doesn’t reveal the incoming clip by cropping away the outgoing clip, rather it “moves” the first clip out of the way so as to reveal the second, and this should work regardless of the contents of the clip to which it is applied. All of Apple’s other slide transitions work correctly and consistently, but for some reason the Split Slide fails to properly handle clips with embedded alpha channels. Whilst the effect may preview correctly, the rendered output renders any alpha as matte black thereby hiding any underlying video.

So I took a gander at the script and any genius can see the problem with Apple’s code staring them straight in the face. Unfortunately I’m no genius and I hadn’t got a clue why it didn’t just work as it is.

OK. So it doesn’t work properly but the other ones work perfectly, including the Center Split Slide, which splits the clip into four corners. That’ll do nicely ... a simple mod of the Center Split Slide later and I’ve two pairs of adjacent corners moving as separate halves.

This is it. Works a treat too ... still don’t know why Apple’s code doesn’t work properly though. Anyone?

Andy’s Guides 3.1

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 22:20:03 +0800

Just about as simple as it can get. A generator item that displays safe area overlay guides for users working in 16:9 formats but who are creating for 4:3 or 14:9 broadcast.

All the obvious controls are there ...not especially pretty or perfect by any means, but what do you want for free!

Not a priority, but obvious improvements waiting in the wings are to add freely adjustable guides, so that users can define and mark their own areas within the frame; add controls to turn on and off guides individually as well as by group; and also simple color picker controls so you can choose your own guide colors.

For now it works great as is, and is currently the cheapest option available.

UPDATED 21/03/08:
The new version (v2) shown adds in all modifications noted above : the freely adjustable user guides, the option to toggle on or off guides individually, choose your own guide colors, and fully mask cropped regions ...

UPDATED 14/10/09:
New version (3.1) adds some nice new options, including 16:9 guides, an EBU/BBC compliance override, full custom guide controls (so that you can set the guides to display according to your own specific numbers ... or those of a delivery spec), plus a “Conform to 16:9” option which you can use to force the guides to display within a center cut 16:9 frame if and when your sequence settings are not 16:9.

Andy’s Letterbox 2

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 00:38:15 +0800

One of my earlier creations from 2005, with a very simple premise. Andy’s Letterbox is a cinema style widescreen matte generator that users can place over their 4:3 videos to give them that widescreen look.

I wrote this one to simplify my own life. Cutting promo’s in Asia, where so much of the source material available comes from dirty masters, we often needed to blow out those subtitles, graphic elements etc to create cleaner sharper looking spots. Blow things up past 120% and they start to look really really nasty. So one way around the problem is to overlay a letterbox element over the whole piece. It reduces the viewable area, and gives more scope for reframing the underlying video track (to best hide what we don’t want to be seen) without having to blow up the picture to hopelessly pixelated proportions.
So we agree that the concept of placing a widescreen matte on 4:3 broadcast footage has its place? Good. But Apple’s Widescreen filter is such a dog. Bad. Needing to be applied to every clip, and even then having only limited flexibility for reframing, its not even close to what we need. The simple solution is to create your own mask by adding a couple of cropped slug tracks to the timeline, or maybe a single slug track with an appropriate Mask Shape filter applied to it ...

... actually the even simpler solution was to create a single generator plugin that did that whole masked slug thing all in one go, and this is it!

Here for your delight and delectation are a few size settings to get you going:

In a 4:3 timeline
19 = 1.66:1 (35 mm European widescreen standard, also Super 16 mm)
21 = 1.70:1 (VistaVision)
25 = 1.78:1 (video widescreen standard 16:9)
27 = 1.85:1 (35 mm US and UK widescreen standard / HDTV Standard)
43 = 2.35:1 (35 mm anamorphic)
47 = 2.55:1 (CinemaScope)
55 = 3.00:1 (Cinerama)

What? There’s more? No not really ... but prompted by a hack of my first version by Apple Discussions forum buddy Patrick Sheffield, I did later update the plugin so that it would also produce a variable “pillarbox” matte for those ever increasing number of users working natively in 16:9 and maybe needing to format their projects for 4:3 or 14:9 center cut output.

In a 16:9 timeline
-12 = 1.55:1 (video standard 14:9)
-25 = 1.33:1 (video standard 4:3)

The future: Well, perhaps a further update is required to allow you to adjust opacity? But you can easily use the letterbox’s opacity level directly in the timeline to do that. I guess I could add in an image well, where you could drop in a still to use as the letterbox fill ...but then you could just stick that still (or clip) on the track above, change it’s composite mode to Track Matte - Alpha and so achieve the same thing. Still, the whole point is to simplify so perhaps I will update it again one of these days.

Andy's Fixed Crawl (Status: RETIRED)

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 16:14:17 +0800

UPDATE 18/08/09:
Don’t be a plonker Rodney, there’s a MUCH better free Fixed Crawl/Text Crawl generator available now that been written by Alex Gollner (aka alex4d) ... download it from Ales’s website here:
http://alex4d.wordpress.com/2009/08/17/fcp-plugin-text-crawl/

Whilst you’re there take a good look through all his great (and free!) plugins.

This plug-in was written in response to a thread that developed over on my hang out at the Apple Discussions fora, where a user by the name of Besco was looking for a means to add a ticker to his edit ... I was having a quiet day so I created this Fixed Crawl generator.

Crawl speed in Apple’s Text Crawl generator is dictated by the relationship between the length of the text to display and the generator item’s duration in the timeline. A longer string of text will obviously need to crawl much faster than a shorter string, in order to complete the crawl within the same given duration of the clip instance.

When you want or need to create multiple text crawl items that crawl with a fixed speed regardless of other factors, the this one will work a treat for you. You’ll have to check that the generator’s timeline instance is long enough to display all the text though!

Andy's Simple Crop 2

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 22:55:34 +0800

Updated to add individual border width controls. 8/9/09
Updated to fix some glitchy results in the border drawing. 29/10/08

This is another reincarnation of some code that I used for a DVE plugin that I pulled together a few years ago for Star TV, the Hong Kong based pan-asian satellite TV network where I worked as a staff editor for a time. Long buried and probably better left that way I hauled the code kicking and screaming out of the darkness when a few folks seemed to be clamoring for an easy way to add a border that followed their crops. I think the salient point here is “easy”. Rather than fleshing it out into a picture in picture generator or similar, it seems much better suited to one trick pony status. Far from the most polished of my freebie plug-in offerings, it fills the gap when needed.

Andy’s Wind Blur Extreme

Mon, 23 Oct 2006 01:27:09 +0800

So how hard can all this FxScript plug-in building be? Not hard at all actually. The few lines of text below can be compiled into a plugin that allows you to do some nice extreme stretch blur transitions. The first 3 lines just define and name the plugin, the second three define and name the controls, the next “code” just tells FCP that the actual calculations it needs to perform are what follows ...

And how exactly is this code any different from Apple’s own Wind Blur filter? What did you do to pimp this bad boy? Let us in to your secrets oh you masterful coding God (?) ...

Jeez! Ok then. See that line where it says:
Steps = 100*integer(Steps);
... well I added the 100* bit.

If you’re interested in playing with FxScript then just dive in. Really. Right click an effect in the Effects bin, choose Open in Editor and have at it. Tweak some numbers and see what happens, unlock your own coding genius within ... worse that can happen is it’ll say “Effect failed to Render” or “Error, Divide by Zero” or similar, not that I’ve ever seen those messages ;-)

scriptid "Andy’s Wind Blur Extreme" //DO NOT LOCALIZE
filter "Andy’s Wind Blur Extreme"
group "Blur"

input Theta, "Direction", angle, 0, -360, 360 detent 0;
input Radius, "Radius", slider, 10, 0, 100 detent 10;
input Steps, "Steps", slider, 2, 1, 10 snap 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10;

code
float r;
Steps = 100*integer(Steps);

r = 100*radius / renderRes;
motionBlur(Src1, Dest, integer(r*cos(Theta-90)), integer(r*sin(Theta-90)/aspectof(dest)), steps);

Andy’s Stretch Blur Dissolve

Sat, 28 Jan 2006 23:09:13 +0800

Created for Focus Asia after production of the show at Star TV was halted. This recreates the signature transition that was used throughout the show to segway between stories and credits. At Star TV we cut the main story segments on a Media Composer, the transitions were added later courtesy of an A57 when the show was onlined in the linear suites ... but when the show moved to independent production the whole thing was cut start to finish on FCP. I was one of the editors who cut the stories (Media Composer), and onlined the show in the linear suites ... and I used to moonlight for them cutting it after it moved on from Star TV too (but thats just between you and me and the gatepost)

Now unless you’re one of the 300 million Star TV viewers and you watched the show when it aired (and lets face it, most of you were watching the Bollywood movie on the other channel), or maybe you saw the show on PBS or Nat Geo, well then you’ll have no idea what it does so I’ll tell you ... It horizontally stretches and blurs the outgoing clip dissolving through to the incoming clip as it snaps in from a vertical stretch blur. Ok, so its not exactly mind blowing after all that build up, but it was pretty snazzy and young and foolish as I was, I rather liked it, especially with a bit of a whoosh if you know what I mean.

For the time being this transition is hardcoded to the specific parameters that matched the shows move and offers no user control other than duration ... but its a sweet move. When I get my act together I’ll update it to add in all the missing controls like user definable direction for In and Out blur, and dissolve/duration ratio. For the time being feel free to enjoy it as it is.

Big props to Matt Sandstrom of Too Much Too Soon fame, FxScript genius that he is. Without his Stretch Blur plugin as a spring board this one would have probably never seen the light of day ... at least not so easily.

UPDATED 26/08/09:
Added a few more controls to make the transition a bit more customizable ... plus added my Easy Ease controls.

Andy’s Text Filter

Fri, 30 Sep 2005 01:28:01 +0800

Ever wished you could neaten up your timeline by adding text as a filter instead of a clip?
No, me neither, but one guy did, seriously! Ha ha ha. What a loser eh? So why bother re-posting it here?

Err... you mean other than fleshing out entries for my FCP plug-ins style blog? Damn you’re hard to please. Ah well then, here’s one reason, you ... nah, no. Well you could ... nah, forget that too. Ermm...

Oh no wait, hang on a minute, I think I’ve got a good one ... what if you have to add a disclaimer like “Amateur Video” everywhere that a certain clip source is used, or an attribution tag, like “Courtesy Joe Blogg’s Productions” or similar. This would be an easy way of adding that tag as a filter to the source clip so that it would automatically appear anywhere and everywhere that the clip was used. Hey, you know that isn’t such a bad idea. Sorry Steve, I take it all back.

scriptid "Andy's Text" //DO NOT LOCALIZE
filter "Andy's Text"
group "Text"
fullFrame

input str, "Text", text, "SAMPLE TEXT" textheight 10;
input fontname, "Font", FontList, "", "str";
input fontsize, "Size", slider, 36, 0, 1000 ramp 80 detent 36;
input fontstyle, "Style", popup, 1, "Plain", "Bold", "Italic", "Bold/Italic";
input center, "Center", point, 0, 0.3;
input fontcolor, "Font Color", color, 255, 255, 255, 255;
input ignoreOpacity, "Ignore Opacity (Faster)", checkbox, 1
input opacityTC, "Opacity", slider, 100, 0, 100 detent 100;
input backcolor, "Back Color", color, 255, 0, 0, 0;

code

float a, d, w, h;
point centeroftxt, framesize, poly[4], txtbox[4];

resetText;
fontcolor.a = 255;
backcolor.a = 255;

dimensionsof(dest, framesize.x, framesize.y);

fontsize *= (framesize.x / 640)

setTextFont(fontname);
setTextSize(fontsize);

if fontstyle == 4 // bold & italic
setTextstyle(kbolditalic);
else if fontstyle == 3 // italic
setTextstyle(kitalic);
else if fontstyle == 2 // bold
setTextstyle(kbold);
else // plain
setTextstyle(kplain);
end if;

centeroftxt = framesize;
centeroftxt *= center;
measurestringplain(str, w, h, a, d, aspectof(dest));
makerect(txtbox, centeroftxt.x-w/2, centeroftxt.y-a/2, w, a);
poly = txtbox;
scale(poly, centeroftxt, 1.1, 1.5);

if ignoreOpacity
// This performs faster, because it avoids a bunch of extra processing
dest = src1
backcolor.a = 255
fillpoly( poly, dest, backcolor )
else
channelfill(dest, 0, 0, 0, 0);
fillpoly(poly, dest, kwhite);
channelcopy(dest, dest, kred, knone, knone, knone);
channelfill(dest, -1, backcolor.r, backcolor.g, backcolor.b);
Matte(dest, src1, dest, opacityTC/100, kalpha);
end if

drawstringplain(str, txtbox, dest, fontcolor, aspectof(dest));

Andy’s Timecode Generator

Mon, 5 Sep 2005 22:46:31 +0800

A timecode generator, eh? Damn you’re good, Andy, but doesn’t Apple already have a built-in timecode generator? Yes, but this one is a timecode “generator”.

Nope, you’re going to have to run that by me again. Apple already have their “Timecode Generator” , this one is a “Timecode Generator”, heck even the controls all look to be identical. Yes thats right, it is completely identical ... except Apple’s Timecode Generator is a “filter”. My Timecode Generator is a “generator”.

You know how if you want to create a BITC master of your edit you have to nest the sequence and then add a timecode reader or timecode generator filter to your nest.? Well this one offers an alternative workflow, allowing you to add a timecode generator directly to your existing sequence as an overlay on an upper video track. Adjust the offset to match your sequence timecode, or simply use it as its own free running reference. Easy.

Andy’s Better 3D

Sat, 3 Sep 2005 00:01:32 +0800

This was pretty much the first of my home-made (home-hacked) plugins that I thought other FCP users may want to have! Based on Apple’s own Basic 3D filter, it adds an extra gnat’s whisker of control over Apples original version, that being Anchor and Perspective controls.

At the time when I did this I was working as an editor for Star TV in Hong Kong, and they were transitioning to FCP as their primary NLE, replacing the older Lightworks suites and augmenting the offline Avid suites. Online editing was still being handled for the most part in the multi-machine linear edit suites, but FCP looked set to bring a bit of that online goodness to the NLE suites. Many of the editors that worked in the linear tape suites were of course complete dinosaurs, used to far more complex but yet comfortingly familiar equipment. To help ease the transition I started writing plugins that would emulate some of the controls of the equipment that they (we) were more used to, such as the Abekas A57. It was certainly a worthwhile exercise in coding for me as I hadn’t done any for some time, and my A57 Emulator plug-in actually worked quite well even though it never really saw the light of day ... Why? Well because much of the functionality is/was already available, either through FCP’s motion controls and/or through the built-in plugins already provided. Big behemoth DVE plugins are unnecessarily cumbersome, forcing your effect to follow a predefined pipeline which goes directly against the much more flexible modular approach, where effects can be combined as needed and in whatever order. So, as the primary functionality was already available I consigned the A57 plugin to the scrap heap ... but I still dip back in every now and again to repurpose some of the code. (See Andy’s Simple Crop)

So what about Andy’s Better 3D ... is it actually any good? Well it’s pretty useful for a quick and easy 3D effect, but of course, these days, who wouldn’t prefer bouncing their clip out to Motion 3, or using Peter Wiggins’ excellent MultiSpace? Very cool.