Hey Fam, one thing I discovered after making this tutorial. For whatever reason, sometimes once you have made a timer in Motion for Final Cut Pro, you need to place it in a compound clip for the timer to start working. I am really not sure why this happens (perhaps some Motion genius' can let me know!) Also, I am running a Black Friday sale on my store right now! Pick up ALL of my plugins for 50% off using code "BF50" until 11/30/22! 👉 thefinalcutbro.gumroad.com
this doesn't work for most fonts because the text moves in and our when you have two zeros as compared to a 1 and 2, so the cropped area needs to be keyframed constantly to adapt for the text showing up when you cropped it out
Damn it Dylan! Where were you a couple months ago! 🤣 This was a great tutorial, and I can't believe I didn't think of using the mask tool when I needed to do this! Your videos are always on point, and I think you have me talked into apple motion! (great, one more thing to learn!) 😂 thanks again man! 👍
Thanks for the help. I had already made one myself but used your video to improve my own. My only thing that I did differently that I kept was instead of masking out the numbers, I went to the layout section of the Timecode and changed the type on start/end numbers. I find that certain fonts format the numbers unevenly which is fine if you are typing it but when you're changing it like the timecode, it seems to jump around a lot. I found that I would have to keyframe the mask with almost every number using certain fonts, but using the type on settings and setting it to not fade in, I could essentially crop out the numbers I don't need. I'm wondering if you intentionally didn't use this setting or if its just something you didn't think about?
Thanks Caleb - this is exactly what we've been stuck with in FCPX - having to edit every number in a 30 minute timer is painful... We'll buy Motion now since FCPX doesn't have start/end numbers, so you're presumably talking 'value' in Motion - but when you say "crop out the numbers I don't need" - don't you need to do that multiple times with those non-monospaced fonts?
Caleb, where did you find the 'layout' section that you are on about to allow Final Cut to know what numbers not to show? I might just be missing it completely as this is only my first week with Final Cut.
Just found this. It's great - I've used it to create a 20minute timer. However, when I drop it into FCP it appears it has to be placed at the beginning of the project. If you don't place it at the beginning the countdown starts from the timecode of the project. Is there any way to flex this? Specifically, I have 9 seconds at the beginning of the project with "talking head" and I want the countdown timer to start after that. Currently, if I drop the Timer to start after the talking head finishes the countdown starts from 01:51, whereas I want it to start from 02:00
So when I set the mask around the numbers that I want, no matter what font I seem to use as the timer counts down to different sized numbers (like 1 for instance) the other bits that are masked out come into view. Any way to stop this from happening or is there something that I missed?
The colon in the timecode moves around, thus making the crop/draw mask trick not work for me. How did you get around this problem? Am I missing something?
I am experiencing an odd issue with this. I must have missed something in the motion tutorial but I now have a title for a one minute timer that is 60 seconds long but the timer starts at 2:30 seconds and reachers zero in 60 seconds...Any ideas?
Could I create a countdown timer in Final Cut Pro and Use a Green background. Save the video, then Chroma Key that video over whatever background I choose?
Yes you could! Though another way would be to render it out with a black background, and apply a Blend Mode instead of something like Screen or Add. This would give you cleaner edges than a chroma key would, though it would only work for white text. Another option is to export with no background, and set the export settings to ProRes4444. This should export it with an Alpha Channel. I would recommend doing this directly out of Motion.
Hey Dylan! I know this video is from November 2022, but here's hoping you see this question. I am STRUGGLING to figure this timer out. I am following your steps to the letter, but whenever I bring the timer title into my FCP project, the starting number is not correct, and the speed is too fast. I added the "build in - mandatory" marker to the end of the Motion project, but for some reason my 4-minute timer ends in 2 minutes, 48 seconds. And starts from 3:31 instead of 4:00. Do you have ANY IDEA what I could be doing wrong? I'm in dire need of some help! PS - Adding it to a compound clip as you've suggested in the pinned comment doesn't help. Sure, the timer finishes in 4 minutes, but it starts from 4:59 (which wasn't even entered numerically into Motion) instead of 4:00. I'm so confused...
Did you get this figured out? I'm having same issue. I made a 5 min timer, but it starts with 2:50 then goes to 7 and all over the place. But the timeline is 5 min. I can't figure it out.
I had the same problem but I figured it out!!! I had to start all over. The issue for me was in the project browser at the beginning in Motion. The frame rate was set to 59.95 NTSC. When I started over I set it to 23.98 NTSC (The same as the project in Final Cut) and voila, it works! I'm guessing the frame rates have to be the same so that it syncs properly.
The thing with the mask doesn't work though as the position of each digit is not absolute but moves around according to the width of the other digits and the masked out areas will move into the mask and become visible. You'd have to keyframe the size of the mask to make this work.
You do make a good point! But I have found it’s mostly the numbers at the end of the sequence that actually move around much. I actually didn’t have any issues in testing several different fonts out when I created this tutorial. That said, you can drag up the “tracking” parameter to add more space between numbers, and then you definitely won’t have any issues with masks not working. All this to say, Apple really should have just added a countdown timer to FCP in the first place 🤦♂️
This is the same issue I'm running into with all the fonts I was trying, so I did some reading and found that what we're looking for would be a monospaced font. And I'm not seeing a "tracking" parameter with this generator, so if that's hiding somewhere, do share! :) Cheers!
Yup! Just apply the saber plugin to your text once you’ve made the timer! Then scroll to the bottom of the plugin and drag the opacity to zero on the source.
I don't want to start my count down from the beginning of the video, because i'm not starting from the begining it is not giving me the "3,2,1" that I desire, rather, the number is starting from the time stamp on the video, do you know how to change the countdown to the duration of the clip and not the duration of the video?
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Hey Fam, one thing I discovered after making this tutorial. For whatever reason, sometimes once you have made a timer in Motion for Final Cut Pro, you need to place it in a compound clip for the timer to start working. I am really not sure why this happens (perhaps some Motion genius' can let me know!)
Also, I am running a Black Friday sale on my store right now! Pick up ALL of my plugins for 50% off using code "BF50" until 11/30/22!
👉 thefinalcutbro.gumroad.com
this doesn't work for most fonts because the text moves in and our when you have two zeros as compared to a 1 and 2, so the cropped area needs to be keyframed constantly to adapt for the text showing up when you cropped it out
I may have fixed this. I've converted it to a Compound Clip and now I can drop it after the talking head and it starts from 02:00. Is that right?
Excellent. It amazes me that you can produce so many first class tutorials so often. Please keep them coming.
You save my life! I started to believe in yourself that I can do something like you. Thanks it is very usefull video.
A great video for those seeking to create a timer for both FCP and Motion. Thanks for sharing! 😊
Awesome! I had it figured out 45 seconds into the video. Smashing!
This is great. I make countdowns and this is helpful.
Thank you! I'm gonna have fun with this!
Have been looking for decent walkthrough for timers for ages! Perfect. You're the best Dylan!
Flippin awesome! Clear, simple, and effective!
You're the man! Thank you for the idea and walkthrough!
I’ve been trying to do this for YEARS! I love your tutorial, and thanks for the link to @kevin kolbe too 🎉
Hey Dylan, thanks for being a great resource
Very useful, thanks!
Thank you. that was super smooth!
Thank you SO MUCH !
Cannot wait either. 😃
Thank you! but It doesn't work if you put it in the middle of your project!
*** update: It does work if you change the Project to Source!
Thank you for this I'm now a subscriber!
Good job! Keep it up!
You're the goat thank you so much!
Really useful, thank you so much!!!
Thank you!!!
As always you’re a rockstar! Thank you so much! ❤
The Draw Mask tip is great! Thanks, Dylan!
Damn it Dylan! Where were you a couple months ago! 🤣 This was a great tutorial, and I can't believe I didn't think of using the mask tool when I needed to do this! Your videos are always on point, and I think you have me talked into apple motion! (great, one more thing to learn!) 😂 thanks again man! 👍
Thanks for the help. I had already made one myself but used your video to improve my own. My only thing that I did differently that I kept was instead of masking out the numbers, I went to the layout section of the Timecode and changed the type on start/end numbers. I find that certain fonts format the numbers unevenly which is fine if you are typing it but when you're changing it like the timecode, it seems to jump around a lot. I found that I would have to keyframe the mask with almost every number using certain fonts, but using the type on settings and setting it to not fade in, I could essentially crop out the numbers I don't need.
I'm wondering if you intentionally didn't use this setting or if its just something you didn't think about?
Thanks Caleb - this is exactly what we've been stuck with in FCPX - having to edit every number in a 30 minute timer is painful... We'll buy Motion now since FCPX doesn't have start/end numbers, so you're presumably talking 'value' in Motion - but when you say "crop out the numbers I don't need" - don't you need to do that multiple times with those non-monospaced fonts?
Caleb, where did you find the 'layout' section that you are on about to allow Final Cut to know what numbers not to show?
I might just be missing it completely as this is only my first week with Final Cut.
Just found this. It's great - I've used it to create a 20minute timer. However, when I drop it into FCP it appears it has to be placed at the beginning of the project. If you don't place it at the beginning the countdown starts from the timecode of the project. Is there any way to flex this?
Specifically, I have 9 seconds at the beginning of the project with "talking head" and I want the countdown timer to start after that.
Currently, if I drop the Timer to start after the talking head finishes the countdown starts from 01:51, whereas I want it to start from 02:00
Super Thank you
Dude this was so damn helpful man! I'm using it this morning for my stream!
So when I set the mask around the numbers that I want, no matter what font I seem to use as the timer counts down to different sized numbers (like 1 for instance) the other bits that are masked out come into view. Any way to stop this from happening or is there something that I missed?
The colon in the timecode moves around, thus making the crop/draw mask trick not work for me. How did you get around this problem? Am I missing something?
Same.
Thank you
cool good job
Thanks for this - how do I make a timer so it counts to a certain amount and then freezes the timer on that number?
Good Job! 🌴🌴Aloha
I am experiencing an odd issue with this. I must have missed something in the motion tutorial but I now have a title for a one minute timer that is 60 seconds long but the timer starts at 2:30 seconds and reachers zero in 60 seconds...Any ideas?
Could I create a countdown timer in Final Cut Pro and Use a Green background. Save the video, then Chroma Key that video over whatever background I choose?
Yes you could! Though another way would be to render it out with a black background, and apply a Blend Mode instead of something like Screen or Add. This would give you cleaner edges than a chroma key would, though it would only work for white text.
Another option is to export with no background, and set the export settings to ProRes4444. This should export it with an Alpha Channel. I would recommend doing this directly out of Motion.
Hey Dylan! I know this video is from November 2022, but here's hoping you see this question. I am STRUGGLING to figure this timer out. I am following your steps to the letter, but whenever I bring the timer title into my FCP project, the starting number is not correct, and the speed is too fast. I added the "build in - mandatory" marker to the end of the Motion project, but for some reason my 4-minute timer ends in 2 minutes, 48 seconds. And starts from 3:31 instead of 4:00. Do you have ANY IDEA what I could be doing wrong? I'm in dire need of some help!
PS - Adding it to a compound clip as you've suggested in the pinned comment doesn't help. Sure, the timer finishes in 4 minutes, but it starts from 4:59 (which wasn't even entered numerically into Motion) instead of 4:00. I'm so confused...
Did you get this figured out? I'm having same issue. I made a 5 min timer, but it starts with 2:50 then goes to 7 and all over the place. But the timeline is 5 min. I can't figure it out.
@@TheGonzalesLife unfortunately no, I was never able to get an answer to this or figure out what was causing the issue.
I had the same problem but I figured it out!!! I had to start all over. The issue for me was in the project browser at the beginning in Motion. The frame rate was set to 59.95 NTSC. When I started over I set it to 23.98 NTSC (The same as the project in Final Cut) and voila, it works! I'm guessing the frame rates have to be the same so that it syncs properly.
@@StorytellerFilmsbda this is genius and makes perfect sense! Thanks so much for replying to this!!
The thing with the mask doesn't work though as the position of each digit is not absolute but moves around according to the width of the other digits and the masked out areas will move into the mask and become visible. You'd have to keyframe the size of the mask to make this work.
You do make a good point! But I have found it’s mostly the numbers at the end of the sequence that actually move around much. I actually didn’t have any issues in testing several different fonts out when I created this tutorial.
That said, you can drag up the “tracking” parameter to add more space between numbers, and then you definitely won’t have any issues with masks not working.
All this to say, Apple really should have just added a countdown timer to FCP in the first place 🤦♂️
This is the same issue I'm running into with all the fonts I was trying, so I did some reading and found that what we're looking for would be a monospaced font. And I'm not seeing a "tracking" parameter with this generator, so if that's hiding somewhere, do share! :) Cheers!
Hey Dylan! My Timer stays at 00:00 in FCPX in motion it works perfectly fine, do you know whats the issue?
my FCP does not have a draw mask?
Do you know how to make saber the outline of the text, like the timer in the intro?
Yup! Just apply the saber plugin to your text once you’ve made the timer! Then scroll to the bottom of the plugin and drag the opacity to zero on the source.
I don't want to start my count down from the beginning of the video, because i'm not starting from the begining it is not giving me the "3,2,1" that I desire, rather, the number is starting from the time stamp on the video, do you know how to change the countdown to the duration of the clip and not the duration of the video?
This video might be helpful to you! th-cam.com/video/iWVI5frkS-Y/w-d-xo.html
How were you able to add that timer behind you in the beginning of the video?
I used a plugin called Keyper! It uses machine learning to cut people out. th-cam.com/video/xgdxZSQ-WU0/w-d-xo.html
Seems mind-boggling that you need to go through this masking hassle in order to adjust the formatting of your timecode.