Free Effect Friday – Final Cut Pro X: Alex4D Inset Transition

My contribution to this week’s Free Effect Friday is a new kind of plugin – a transition that can be applied to more than two clips at once.

Alex4D Inset Transition is a special kind of title that has no text. Titles with no text are adjustment layers – when connected to a storyline, they effect all the layers below.

In this case the plugin animates a pair of shutters closing to hid the storyline below and then reopening. Here it is connected to the primary storyline so that it covers three clips:

When using the Close then Open option, you must make sure the Alex4D Inset Transition layer is centred over the edit between the two clips you want to transition between.

Here is a video showing most of its features:

As this plugin is implemented as a title effect, if you make changes to the clips it is applied to, you might have to adjust the duration and timing of the title to make the transition work. This extra work is the price for extra timing flexibility and flexibility in the number of clips the transition can be applied to.

Here are the controls:

For Kind you can choose between three different transitions: Close then Open, Close and Open.

For Angle you can choose between insetting vertically, horizontally and with a left-hand or right-hand slant.

If you want the inset to start and finish moving slowly before quickly moving through the centre of the transition, check the Ease checkbox.

You can also reveal a solid colour behind the clips.

You can use the Kind options to make asymmetrical transitions. A transition can start slowly and then finish quickly:

The KInd of the first instance of the Alex4D Inset Transition is set to Close – the clips below it are inset more and more until they vanish. The inset takes as long as the duration of the plugin on the timeline. The second instance’s Kind is Open: the clip below it in the timeline has its inset animated until it is fully visible.

As well as having different durations, the opening and closing instances can have different Angle and Ease settings.

You can also connect it above a single clip to get a blink effect.

This way of making a transition also has no effect on the audio of any clips. No automatic crossfading between clips.

Once installed, you’ll find it the Alex4D section of the Titles browser:

Drag it from the browser so that it connects with the timeline above the clips you want to effect.

Download the installer

If you find this free plugin useful, you might like my Alex4D Animation Transitions plugin pack:

There are many more free plugins on my Final Cut Pro X page