60+ Free Downloadable Effects, Transitions and Titles for Final Cut Pro X

All the free plugins I made up until August 2013.

All the effects I’ve made since August 2013 can be found at Alex4D.com

My top two old plugins:

Grow-Shrink – Effect that animates a change in scale for a clip. Will scale a clip up or down over the duration of a clip (including transitions if need be)

Sound Only – Cut only transition that crossfades audio between two clips choosing whether the video cuts before, during or after the crossfade

Tip for older versions of Final Cut Pro: Why does my viewer turn blue when I use your new plugin? – Tip for those using to use newer plugins on versions of Final Cut Pro X older than 10.0.6

If you find my content useful, please consider donating as a sign of your appreciation. Thank you. I’d love to hear how you are using my plugins – links to your work would be great.

Check out my Alex4D Animation Transitions plugin pack – instant animation using transitions:

I also have a pack of essential effects for 360° video editing in Final Cut Pro X: Alex4D 360° Effects:

Effects – Stylize Plugins

Aged Film – More controls and ‘Bad TV’-style rolling

Bad TV – More controls than the Final Cut Pro X version

Blurs – Six blurs and one sharpen effect:
   Channel Blur – Blur combinations of red, blue, green and alpha channels
   Circle Blur – Blur a circular area
   Compound Blur – This blurs the clip based on values from another clip
   Defocus – Simulates the way clips go out of focus when using a physical camera
   Gradient Blur – Applies a blur gradually between two points
   Soft Focus – Overlays the clip on top of a blurred copy: a ‘fogged lens’ effect
   Unsharp Mask – More controls than standard sharpen effect

CMYK Halftone – simulate close up of magazine or newspaper print

Colour effects – 11 colour control effects
   Brightness – Change overall brightness
   Channel Mixer – Combines colour values from red, gree, blue and alpha channels
   Color Balance – Colour wheels for shadows, midtones and highlights
   Color Reduce – Choose two, three or four colours to keep – with option to chang them
   Contrast – Advanced contrast control
   Gamma – Precise brightness and brightness range control
   Gradient Colorize – Choose a channel to map a range of colours onto
   Levels – Map the darkest and brightest channel values to black and white
   OpenEXR Tone Map – Apply tone maps to OpenEXR encoded content
   YIQ Adjust – Adjust values in the YIQ colour space
   YUV Adjust – Adjust values in the YUV colour space

Distorts – Four distort effects
   Black Hole – Sucks clip into a single point
   Bulge – Pushes a clip out from or into a single point
   Circular Zigzag – A ripple distortion
   Twirl – Twists clips

Extrude – Simulated 3D thickness

Light Rays – shine light from behind the clip

Opacity Gradient – Add areas of colour that fade over clips

Random Tile – replace clip with multiple copies of a selected part of the source

Scale Mosaic – Pixellate with control over scale of elements used in each pixel  

Sparks – Adds animated stars and spark particles

Tile – Offset clips, scale, rotate, distort and skew tiles

Effects – Animation Plugins

Curves – Adds Final Cut Pro 7-style animation curve controls
   Curve X – Controls X position
   Curve Y – Controls Y position
   Curve Rotation – Rotate around a point of your choice
   Curve Scale – Scale aroud a point of your choice
   Curve Trim H – Crop the left or right edge of a clip
   Curve Trim V – Crop the top or bottom edge of a clip

Grow-Shrink – Animates a change in scale for a clip

Rotate XYZ – Rotates clips in three dimensions

Rotate + Extrude – Rotates clips in three dimensions and adds simulated 3D thickness

Smooth Move – Defines a start and finish position, scale and rotation for clip content with controls for how the clip moves from start to finish

Effects – Compositing Plugins

4 Up – Display four clips on the same screen, or switch between them

Adjustment Layer – Any effects or transformations you apply to this title will be applied to all timeline clips below

Fade In Out – Fades a clip in and out

Letterbox – Add black bars to show many aspect ratios, portrait was well as landscape – Oct 2012 

Luma Include – Choose which parts of clips are transparent based on brightness values

Magic Lantern HDR – Composition controls for resolving HDR clips generated by Magic Lantern on Canon SLRs – Dec 2012 – New effect for 10.0.6 and newer

Mask+ – Define 4, 8 or 16 points of a mask with animation control over scale, rotate and perspective distortion

Time Remap – More control over clip retiming with Final Cut Pro 7-style editable retiming graph  – New version for 10.0.6 and newer – March 2013

Shadow – Adds external or internal shadows

Trim – With differing values for feathering for each edge

Widescreen Matte – Add black bars to show many aspect ratios, portrait was well as landscape

Generator Plugins

Shape Grid – draw a grid of circles or squares with animating colours

Title Plugins

Basic – Keyframable – A title with many parameters you can animate using keyframes 

Interface 2037 – A title effect that simulates computer interface from ‘Alien’ movie

Leaves  – letters blow onto and off screen 

Text Box – Choose two points to define corners of a text box, fill and blur the box

Ticker+ – Title for horizontally scrolling news feeds 

Zoom Four – Zooms between a series of four texts 

Transition Plugins

Concentric – Draws the incoming clip as a series of concentric shapes

Cross Dissolve start and end on edit – For those missing the Final Cut Pro 7 option of transitions that start or finish at the edit point

Dip to Background – A transition that shows a colour, another clip or transparency between two clips

Freeze – Freezes the outgoing or incoming clip

Inset  – shutters close in on outgoing clips and open showing incoming clips

Premonition – A transition that intercuts frames from the incoming clip with frames from the outgoing clip

Ribbon – Splits the outgoing clip into two parts and stretches the pixels in between into a horizontal ribbon – new in February 2013

Sound Only – Crossfade audio transition between two clips choosing whether the video cuts before, during or after the crossfade

Final Cut Pro X Tips and Tutorials

Motion 5 & Final Cut Pro X: 53 built-in fonts

If you want to make sure a font used in a Final Cut Pro X or Motion project is available on other people’s system.

Making edit points ‘non-crossfadable’
How to modify an edit point so that when a video transition is applied, there is no audio crossfade.

Apple support documents and links for Final Cut Pro X and Motion 5

Final Cut Pro X Articles

Tip: Create timelines at any resolution and frame rate

Tip: Modify all instances of clip everywhere at once

Tip: Modifying the default title and lower-third templates in v10.0.3

Secret Final Cut Pro X 1: Media and subtypes

Secret Final Cut Pro X 2: Some of Motion inside

Secret Final Cut Pro X 3: XML & multi-user editing

Secret Final Cut Pro X 4: Windows, Tools & Audio

Secret Final Cut Pro X 5: Debug mode text

Notes from Apple’s July 6th 2011 London Pro briefing 

10.0.6 Title editing improvements
10.0.6 – new commands
10.0.6 update – 42 New effects, transitions, generators and titles

Motion 5 Articles

Tip: Using any Motion 4 project preset in Motion 5

Tip: Access to FCP X built-in templates

Tip: Description of undos in Final Cut Pro X effect templates

Tip: Rigging Motion 5 Effects: Accurate Slider Snapshot Positions

Tip: Using negative offsets for Ramp curve control

5.0.5 update – new and removed features