Those editors who are used to aligning transitions that start or finish on edits in Final Cut Pro Classic miss having the same feature in Final Cut Pro X.

Here’s a workaround – a couple of transitions that start a cross dissolve at the start or finish of an edit.

In Final Cut Pro Classic, transitions can be set to align at the start, centre or finish of an edit:

This sort of alignment can’t explicitly be set in Final Cut Pro X. So, as a workaround until this feature is added, I’ve made two more cross dissolve transitions that can be used to get the same effect:

As the opacity of the incoming clip changes for only half the length of the transition, you have to make the duration of these two transitions twice that of the standard cross dissolve transition to keep the duration of the effect the same:

Download the transitions archive from here.

Expand the ZIP archive and add the folder to the Motion Templates folder in the Movies folder of your home directory:

If you don’t have Motion installed, you won’t have a Motion Templates folder in your Movies folder. Download this set of empty folders and add them to the Movies folder of your home directory.

Although the folder is called Motion Templates, you don’t need to have Motion installed on your computer for this effect to work.

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

Find out more about Alex4D Animation Transitions.

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

Here’s my first Final Cut Pro X effect: an improved version of the built-in Mask effect.

I’ve added four more points, access to numerical values for the 8 points:

In Final Cut Pro X, you aren’t limited to the minimums and maximums defined by the sliders. The maximum value for Roundness controlled by the slider is 50, but you can enter larger values in the numeric field:

I’ve also added the option to control the density of the mask inside and outside of the shape:

March 2012 update: I’ve created a more advanced set of Mask effects for Final Cut Pro X, with options to have more points on the mask and keyframable transform and distort controls.

Download the effect archive from here.

Expand the ZIP archive and add the folder to the Motion Templates folder in the Movies folder of your home directory:

If you don’t have Motion installed, you won’t have a Motion Templates folder in your Movies folder. Download this set of empty folders and add them to the Movies folder of your home directory.

Although the folder is called Motion Templates, you don’t need to have Motion installed on your computer for this effect to work.

To use the effect, apply it to a connected clip to a the main storyline:

Note that although you can keyframe the parameters in Final Cut Pro X, the co-ordinates will not animate correctly. I’ve asked Apple about this and they know about the bug in Motion 5/FCP X.

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

Find out more about Alex4D Animation Transitions.

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