Visual QuickStart Guide [Electronic resources] : Final Cut Express HD for Mac OS X نسخه متنی

Figure 10.1. An overview of the Canvas window. Use the Canvas to play sequences, perform edits, and set keyframes.

Chapter 14, "Compositing and Effects Overview."

Tips

You can use tooltips to identify most of the control buttons in the window. Place your pointer over a button and then wait a moment, and a name label will appear. (Enable tooltips in the User Preferences window if they're not showing up.) Two playback options don't have interface controls: Play Every Frame (Option-P) and Loop Playback (Control-L).

Onscreen controls and displays

The Canvas controls include transport controls, Canvas display options, and editing controls.

Note that all the Canvas controls listed here (except the overlay) appear in the Viewer window as well and operate in the same way.

Transport controls

The Canvas's transport controls are shown in

Figure 10.2 .

• Previous Edit: Click to jump the playhead back to the previous edit, the In point, or the Out point.

• Play In to Out: Click to play the clip from the In point to the Out point.

• Play: Click to play the clip from the current position of the playhead. Click again to stop playback.

• Play Around Current: Click to play the part of the clip immediately before and after the current position of the playhead. The pre-roll and post-roll settings (in the User Preferences window) determine the duration of the playback.

• Next Edit: Click to move the playhead to the next edit, the In point, or the Out point.

• Shuttle control: Drag the control tab away from the center to fast forward or rewind. Speeds vary depending on the tab's distance from the center. A green control tab indicates normal playback speed (Figure 10.3 ).

  
  

  Figure 10.3. The Shuttle control.

  
  

  
  

• Jog control: Drag the control to the left or right to step through a sequence one frame at a time (Figure 10.4 ).

  
  

  Figure 10.4. The Jog control.

  
  

  
  

• Scrubber and playhead: The Scrubber is the strip immediately below the image window. Move through the sequence by dragging the playhead, or click the Scrubber to jump the playhead to a new location (Figure 10.5 ).

  
  

  Figure 10.5. The Scrubber and playhead.

  
  

  
  

Clip-marking controls

All the onscreen controls you use to mark clips are grouped in the lower-right corner of the Canvas (Figure 10.6 ):

• Mark In (left) and Mark Out (right): Click to set the In point or the Out point for a sequence at the current playhead position.

  
  

  Figure 10.6. The Canvas's clip-marking controls.

  
  

  
  

• Add Marker: Click to add a marker to the sequence at the current playhead position.

• Add Keyframe: Click to add a keyframe to the sequence clip at the current playhead position.

• Mark Clip: Click to set the sequence In and Out points at the outer boundaries of the clip at the position of the playhead in the target track.

• Match Frame: Click to display in the Viewer the frame currently showing in the Canvas. This control is useful for synchronizing action.

View selectors

• Zoom: Adjust the Canvas's image display size (Figure 10.7 ). (This pop-up selector does not affect the actual frame size of the image.)

  
  

  Figure 10.7. The Zoom pop-up selector.

  
  

  
  

• View: Select a viewing format. You can access Title Safe and Wireframe modes from this pop-up menu (Figure 10.8 ).

  
  

  Figure 10.8. The View pop-up selector.

  
  

  
  

Timecode navigation and display

Two timecode displays, located in the upper corners of the Canvas window, are useful for precisely navigating to specific timecode locations.

• Timecode Duration: This display shows the elapsed time between the In and Out points of a clip. If no edit points are set, the beginning and the end of the sequence serve as the In and the Out points (Figure 10.9 ).

  
  

  Figure 10.9. The Timecode Duration display.

  
  

  
  

• Current Timecode: This display shows the timecode at the current position of the playhead. You can enter a timecode in this display to jump the playhead to that point in the sequence (Figure 10.10 ).

  
  

  Figure 10.10. The Current Timecode display.

  
  

  
  

Tips

Control-click the Current Timecode field to see a pop-up menu of sequence markers in the current sequence (Figure 10.11 ). Select one to jump the playhead to that marker's location. The same list of sequence markers is available from the Timeline ruler's shortcut menu. Figure 10.11. The Current Timecode pop-up menu. Select a sequence marker from the list to jump to that marker's location. You can use keyboard shortcuts to step through both sequence and clip markers in the Timeline, but you must open a clip in the Viewer to make changes to that clip's markers. For details, see "Using Markers in the Timeline and the Canvas" later in this chapter.

Anatomy of the Canvas edit overlay

Chapter 9, "Basic Editing." You can perform the following types of edits:

• Insert edit: This type of edit inserts a source clip into a sequence by pushing back the part of the sequence that's past the sequence In point, making room for the new source clip.

  
  

  Figure 10.12. The Canvas edit overlay allows drag-and-drop editing for seven types of edits.

  
  

  [View full size image]

  

• Overwrite edit: The source clip overwrites sequence clips past the sequence In point. Overwrite uses the source In and Out points to calculate the edit duration. The incoming source material replaces the sequence material; there is no time shift in the existing sequence.

• Replace edit: This edit type replaces the contents of a sequence clip with the source clip material. It allows you to specifically align single frames in the source clip and sequence. The material between the sequence In and Out points is replaced by corresponding material from the source clip on either side of the frame that was matched.

• Fit to Fill edit: The speed of the source clip will be modified to fill the duration specified by the sequence In and Out points; the clip must be rendered before the edit can be played back.

• Superimpose edit: The source clip is placed on a new track above the target track, starting at the sequence In point. The target track is not changed. If the clip has audio, the source audio is added to new tracks below the target audio track.

• Transition edits: The source clip is inserted into the sequence with the default transition at the source clip's head.