Motion 5: Publishing Effects to FCP X

Posted on February 26, 2012 by Larry

The open secret of Final Cut Pro X is that all its effects are Motion 5 projects. This means that you can use Motion to create custom effects for use in Final Cut.

Motion can create a Final Cut generator, title, transition, or effect — and allow FCP to adjust the settings of the effect without returning to Motion. This can be a huge timesaver!

Part of that process we’ve used for a long time: create the Motion project and import it into Final Cut. What’s new with the latest versions of FCP and Motion is that now you can save a Motion project directly into FCP’s Browsers and you can share the controls of the Motion effect with Final Cut.

This nine-minute video describes:

How to create a Final Cut generator (or any effect) in Motion
How to publish settings that can be accessed in FCP
How, and where, to save the file so FCP can see it

NOTE: This is an excerpt from a recent webinar on Rigging, Widgets, and Wonders in Motion 5. You can buy the complete webinar now and download it from our store or, for only $5.00 more, get all my training via my new subscription membership.

TRT: 9:01 — QuickTime movie

Bookmark the permalink.

15 Responses to Motion 5: Publishing Effects to FCP X

← Older Comments

Larry Jordan says:

November 5, 2013 at 10:32 pm

Peter:

You are exactly correct – and thanks for pointing this out.

When you FIRST create the project, you need to select where you want the finished effect to be stored.

Thanks,

Larry
Andreas says:

June 6, 2014 at 5:06 am

Hi Larry

Thanks for this it’s great! Can you please help? I want to publish just part of a motion template (from MotionVFX) to FCP i.e. in the middle of a template there is a piece with a cool lower third i would like to publish as a title strap. Is this possible and if so can you help me with it?

Thanks for all the wisdom you make available.
LarryJ says:

June 6, 2014 at 7:57 am

Andreas:

This question requires a much more complicated answer than can be provided in a simple forum. Here’s a webinar I did that covers this in detail:

http://www.larryjordan.biz/app_bin/Store/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=29_42&products_id=277

Larry
Path says:

July 26, 2014 at 12:24 pm

Anyone got a solution to this problem (Red screen in FCPX)

Whichever type of Motion template I try to create, and even some i bought, has this problem. The template looks ok in the effects thumbnail, but when mouse-overed it turns red. Same goes if one is placed in the timeline.

All the templates that I’ve encountered this problem with have the “Published Parameters” missing.

I’d appreciate any tips to why this is happening.
LarryJ says:

July 26, 2014 at 8:27 pm

Path:

The red screen indicates that media is missing – either because it wasn’t installed properly, or has been moved or delete since installation.

If you are having this problem with templates that you purchased, it is probably an installation issue. I suggest contacting the publisher for tech support.

Larry