Need help achieving effect with Final Cut...

[Mojo67821]

Hi there, I'm looking to achieve an effect with a still image, and was wondering if anyone can help.

I want the still image to be shrouded in black, and have a 'spotlight' drag across it, quickly revealing part of the image as it moves across.

The only thing I've come up with is to make a large black image with a hole in the middle (with an alpha channel) and then using keyframes to move it back and forth. This will be kind of a pain in the ass though so I was wondering if anyone else knew of an easier way.

???

 

[Sdashiki]

Youll understand how this works and be able to trial and error it on your own.


In a new layer create a circular gradient, tweak as need be.

Set the blending mode of this layer to the correct one (without FCP in front of me I am drawing a blank), so that only where the brighest, or darkest depending, spots of the gradient allow the lower layers to be seen.

hence, you have a "spotlight".

if you had already thought of this, and didnt want to keyframe its movement around the canvas to mimic a moving lightsource, I dont have any other thoughts.

 

[Mojo67821]

I don't mind keyframing it, what exactly do you mean by "create a circular gradient" though?

 

[Sdashiki]

in the left window (the canvas) there should be a button in the lower right, somethine along the lines of "render gradient" should be there.

it will then create a gradient in the canvas. DO NOT EDIT IT YET!(the one youve created, is only temporary, and if you switched to something else in the canvas, all changes would be lost, unless it was on the timeline)[/I

drag this to the timeline where you need it, and on an appropriate layer.

double click the one in the TIMELINE ] so that the timeline version opens in the viewer, and what you edit here, shows up in your timeline, and is saved.

back in the canvas, click tabs at the top of the gradient's window, and edit it as need be.

BASIC MOTION is the one for keyframing and moving it around.

in the RIGHT window (the viewer) there should be a button along the top edge that pops up a menu and choose "Image+wireframe".

now whenever you click on something in the timeline, it will be highlited by a wireframe in the viewer.

with this you can click the gradient, keyframe its starting spot. move the playhead forward, and drag the gradient in the viewer. it will then create the inbetween animation which you can see with the wireframe.