Main  © 2002-2009 by Eiperle CGM

Timewarp


With the CGM Timewarp filter (located in Video Filters / CGM DVE FX) you can modify the speed of a clip. Since FCP6 you can use Motion for speed changes.

There are 9 keyframes you can set. Each keyframes can be given a frame number and a corresponding speed factor. The frame numbers have to be incremental. For example:

Keyframe 1 is set to 150
Keyframe 2 is set to 450
Keyframe 3 is set to 500

The keyframes 1, 2 and 3 are used. If marker 1 is set to a frame number greater than zero (like the example above), an additional keyframe will be created (keyframe 0) at frame number 0 with a speed factor of 1.

Keyframe 1 is set to 0
Keyframe 2 is set to 200
Keyframe 3 is set to 100
Keyframe 4 is set to 500

Only the markers 1 and 2 will be used because marker 3 has a lower frame number than marker 2.

All speed factors will be interpolated between the markers.

Please notice: Do not animate the values of the keyframes and speed factors.

The Display-Mode: Both - Destination Timeline shows the most important information in the canvas. If you cannot see them, simply change the view mode of the canvas to "Image".

To the left you can see the Source-Frame (the original position of the timeline). To the right you can see the calculated frame after rendering. Destination Frame: The frame number of the rendered clip on the timeline. Destination Speed: This is the current speed of the rendered frame.

At the bottom you can see how speed changes over time. With the Mode-Setting Both - Source Timeline the timebase will be linear corresponding to the timeline. With the Mode-Setting Both - Destination Timeline the timebase will depend on the speed changes of the rendered clip. Neither setting affects the rendering process.

The numbers at the bottom of the window refer to the markers used.

The red line represents the position of the frame of the source-clip. The blue line shows the frame at the current timeline-position after rendering. The red and blue lines represent the position of the source-clip and the destination-clip (rendered clip).

If the calculated destination frame is beyond the clip length, the information END OF CLIP appears. This happens if you speed up a clip; you need more frames than have been dropped into the timeline. You can ignore the END OF CLIP message if the end of your clip has been trimmed back and has enough frames left. If there are not enough frames left, the filter will display a still frame which you should cut off.

Hints: If you want to slow down interlaced video (like in our example), you`ll get normally a unwanted flickering. Therefore you should use the full-frame version: The TimeWarp (FF) and enable the Flicker-Filter with setting to max. Animate the visibility slider. If the speed is decreased, the visibility should be higher and if speed increases, the visibility should be lower.

Sometimes it`s useful to turn off the Frame Blending while the speed is lower than 1.