During presets

A During preset is a movement that runs for a clip’s whole length: a gentle pulse, a shake, a spin, a hop or a slow push-in. It’s one of a clip’s three motion presets, beside In and Out, and it works on any clip that draws a picture: video, stills, text, shapes, graphics and nests.

Menu: Clip ▸ Motion ▸ During
Where: Clip tab ▸ Clip sub-tab ▸ Motion presets
Agent tools: set_video

Add a During movement

Select one or more clips.
On the Clip tab’s Clip sub-tab, open the Motion presets section.
Choose a kind from During: Pulse, Shake, Spin, Bounce or Drift. It starts at half strength with a one-second cycle.
Set Amount and Period.
Choose Preview to watch it. Preview sets the in/out range to the clip, turns Loop on and plays, and both stay until you clear them.

Clip ▸ Motion ▸ During sets the kind too. A checkmark shows the kind every selected clip shares, and there’s no checkmark when they differ. The menu is dimmed with nothing selected, or when every selected clip comes from a sound-only file.

To take the movement off, choose None in the row or in the menu. Switching straight from one kind to another keeps the Amount and Period you set, but going through None clears them, so the next kind starts at 50% and 1 s.

A clip with a During movement shows a small wave symbol at the right end of its name strip, when the strip has room.

With several clips selected, a new kind goes to every clip that draws a picture, and each clip keeps its own In and Out. Amount and Period change only the selected clips that already have a During movement. Each change is one undo step, however many clips it touches.

The movements

Every kind is described at 100% and at the default 50%. Amount scales between them, and 0% is no movement.

Pulse

The clip gently grows and shrinks, once per Period. It starts at its own size, is largest halfway through the cycle, and is back at its own size at the end. At 100% it grows to 20% larger, and at 50% to 10% larger.

Shake

The clip jitters in every direction, in a pattern that never visibly repeats. At 100% it moves up to 4% of the canvas’s shorter edge on each axis, and at 50% up to 2%. A shorter Period shakes faster.

Spin

The clip turns clockwise without stopping. At 50% it makes one full turn per Period, at 100% two turns, and at 25% half a turn.

Bounce

The clip hops upward once per Period and lands back where it started. At 100% each hop is up to 8% of the canvas height, and at 50% up to 4%.

Drift

A slow push-in across the whole clip. The clip grows steadily from its own size and ends 24% larger at 100%, or 12% larger at 50%.

Drift ignores Period. Its speed comes from the clip’s length, so a longer clip reaches the same size more slowly.

Amount

How strong the movement is, from 0 to 100%, with quick picks at 25, 50, 75 and 100. The default is 50%. A number outside the range is brought back to the nearest end.

At 0% the clip stays still but keeps its During kind. Amount is greyed while During is None.

Period

How long one cycle takes, from 0.1 to 10 s, with quick picks at 0.25, 0.5, 1 and 2. The default is 1 s, and what you type lands on the nearest frame.

Period is greyed while During is None, and for Drift. Drift keeps the value, so it’s still there if you switch to another kind.

How During starts

Every During movement starts from the clip’s own placement on its first frame. The clip begins exactly where you put it, whatever it goes on to do.

The movement sits on top of that placement and of any actions. Its size multiplies the clip’s own scale, and its turn and offset add to the clip’s own rotation and position. Pulse, Spin and Drift work around the clip’s visible centre, after any crop.

The inspector still shows the clip’s own values, not the moved ones, even though the preview and the export show it moving.

During with In and Out

A During movement runs under the In and Out, so a clip can slide in while it pulses. Their sizes multiply, and their turns and offsets add, so a Spin entrance and a During Spin turn together.

A During movement never changes a clip’s opacity. Only In and Out fade a clip.

During restarts at a cut

A During movement counts from each clip’s own first frame, so cutting a clip restarts it. After a split, both halves keep the movement and the second half starts over.

That can show as a jump at the cut. A Pulse goes back to the start of its cycle, and a Drift drops back to the clip’s own size and drifts again across the shorter piece. Remove Silences on a clip with Pulse or Drift can make it jump at every cut.

To keep one movement going across cuts, nest the pieces and give the nest clip the During movement.

Good to know

A preset is not part of any action. With an action selected, the Motion presets rows are marked ⊘ and still edit the clip, so Amount can’t ramp.
Changing a clip’s speed doesn’t change its During movement. Period stays the same length on the timeline, and a Drift spreads over the clip’s new length.
Inside a nest, Shake and Bounce measure against the nest’s canvas, not the project’s.
A Pulse or Drift can’t draw a clip past 1,000%, the largest scale a clip can have.
Freeze Frame and Add Blurred Background leave the movement behind. Duplicate, Detach Audio and Paste keep it.
A drag on the canvas that starts while the clip is moving starts from the clip’s own position, not the moved one.
Follow Subject won’t frame a clip with a Spin, whether it’s the In, the Out or the During, because it needs an upright picture.
Motion blur counts a During movement as motion.

With an agent

An agent sets During through set_video, with a kind of pulse, shake, spin, bounce or drift, an amount from 0 to 1, and a period.

An agent isn’t held to the row’s range for Period. A period shorter than one frame becomes one frame. See Tools: picture and grade.