In Media Composer adding multiple transitions is a question of ticking the right action’s box; action that works both for video and audio transitions.
Default Effects
- In your timeline, add an IN and OUT points surrounding the edits you want with a transition effect;
- press the Quick Transition button (at the top of the timeline window);
- in the new dialog box that appears select the type of transition you want, precise its duration, setup its start and end point based on the edit position and (most importantly) tick the Apply To All Transitions (IN → OUT) action. Ticking this option allows you to Skip Existing Transition Effects found between your IN and OUT points;
- in case you want to apply the transition effect on other video and/or audio tracks, you can select those from this same dialog box, even if the tracks are not selected in your timeline;1
- press Add or Add and Render.
If for some of the transitions there is not enough footage, the Insufficient source dialog box pops up and ask you if you want to Size to fit or Cancel the transition effect. From there it will try its best to put the effect in good place with the right duration. So depending of the footage shortage, if you setup your effect to be centred on cut, it might be placed at its start or end instead.
Remark: the first step, which consists in adding an IN and OUT points, is compulsory otherwise the Apply to All Transitions option will not appear in the Quick Transition dialog box.
Custom Effects
The Quick Transition dialog box offers you a fair choice of transition effects in its pulldown menu; there are, let us say, the standards: dissolve, film dissolve, fade to color etc. But how do you do if you want to use one of your custom effect?
Follow the link to see how we can create custom effect with Media Composer: http://jeremyrichard.com/article/effect-icon/.
Once you got your custom effect you need the Quick Transition tool to recognize it and putting it in its pulldown menu:
- create a new bin and name it exactly Quick Transitions (do not forget to add an s at the end of Transition);
- grad and drop your custom effect in the newly created Quick Transitions bin;
- access the Quick Transition dialog box and in the effect pulldown menu you will find, at the bottom of it, your custom effect being listed.
From there you can apply multiple custom effects from the Quick Transition tool between your IN and OUT points previously setup.
The End