Syncing FCP Resources

Besides Libraries and media, Final Cut Pro has three additional types of resources – Motion Content, Effects Presets, and LUTs. Use Sync to share resources among your FCP team. You can sync them all at once or configure specific Sync jobs for each type based on your Production's workflow.

Sync per Team or per Production

When syncing FCP resources, you must first decide if you want to sync all resources used by each Team, or just those for each Production. We suggest creating a Resource Sync folder in the root of your Drive, then adding subfolders if you want to sync per Production. You can name these folders on Drive whatever you like as long as they fit your workflow.

Sync all Resources

To sync all available FCP resources on a Mac, sync from the folder you created on your Drive to and from these folders on each team member's Mac. You'll need to create two Sync jobs, one for each folder:

  • ~/Movies/Motion Templates.localized - Motion Content

  • ~/Library/Application Support/ProApps - Effects Presets and LUTs

Creating the Sync jobs

Let's start by syncing a single Mac's resources needed for your Production, then sync those to your Team’s Drive. We'll call this Mac the Source Mac.

On the Source Mac

  1. In PostLab, go to Preferences > Sync, toggle Drive Sync to OFF, then add a Sync job.

  2. The first time you sync these resources to Drive, perform a One-Way sync to a folder on Drive.

    1. SOURCE: the folder with the resources on the Source Mac.

    2. TARGET: the folder on Drive where you’ll store the resources available to your Team.

  3. When that One-Way sync is complete, change the job to Bi-Directional.

Done syncing resources for a while? You can either disable each Sync job, or toggle Drive Sync to OFF.

On each Team Member's Mac

After the initial sync to Drive is complete, here's how to sync those resources to each Team Member’s Mac:

  1. In PostLab, go to Preferences > Sync, then add a Sync job.

  2. Add a Bi-Directional job for the desired resources.

    1. SOURCE: the folder with the resources on your Team’s Drive.

    2. TARGET: the folder on your Team Member’s Mac that matches the selected resources to sync.

  3. Once the Sync job completes, a Team Member can Start Editing in PostLab.

Done syncing resources for a while? You can either disable each Sync job or toggle Drive Sync to OFF.

Granular Resource Syncing

Instead of syncing all resources, you can granularly sync specific kinds of resources by creating Sync recipes for each type of resource based on their Finder location.

The tilde (~) is shorthand for “your macOS account’s home folder”. In Finder, you can access these folders by copy/pasting them into Go > Go to Folder… (Shift-Command-G).

Effects Presets

~/Library/Application Support/ProApps/Effects Presets

Effects Presets let you save a combination of Effects applied to a Clip to create a reusable Effect. Once you name your Preset and add it to a category, it becomes available from the Effects Browser in FCP.

LUTs

Using FCP’s native toolset, you can add LUTs to FCP either as a Camera LUT or as a Custom LUT.

  • ~/Library/Application Support/ProApps/Camera LUTs

  • ~/Library/Application Support/ProApps/Custom LUTs

It’s also possible to organize LUTs in each location using subfolders. In FCP, these subfolders will appear as nested menu options in the Inspector.

You apply Camera LUTs to a Clip in an Event using the Inspector. The applied LUT is visible on a Clip within an Event or when that Clip is used in a Project.

However, you apply Custom LUTs to a Clip with FCP’s Custom LUT Effect. The applied LUT is only visible on a Clip used in a Project.

Motion Content

Motion Content folders look ordinary in Finder, but each folder has .localized appended to its name:

  • ~/Movies/Motion Templates.localized - Motion Content

    • ~/Movies/Motion Templates.localized/Effects.localized - Effects

    • ~/Movies/Motion Templates.localized/Generators.localized - Generators

    • ~/Movies/Motion Templates.localized/Titles.localized - Titles

    • ~/Movies/Motion Templates.localized/Transitions.localized - Transitions

To sync Motion Content with your Team in PostLab, set Library > Storage Location > Motion Content to In Motion Templates folder. Then FCP will look for Motion Content in those folders under your local macOS account.

FCP creates these folders for you upon the first launch, so make sure to launch FCP at least once on each Mac. If you must create these folders manually, name these folders with the .localized suffix in Finder. After committing the folder's name, the .localized will disappear in Finder, but you can verify your new folder was named properly by doing a Get Info, then looking under Name & Extension.

Sidenote: commercial vs. free Motion Content

You can distribute free (or in-house developed) Motion Content with Sync. As long as you sync the right kind of Motion Content to the correct local folder and Library > Storage Location > Motion Content is set to In Motion Templates folder, it will be available in FCP.

You can also distribute Commercial (i.e. paid) Motion Content with Sync. However, you’ll need to purchase licenses for each Team Member who will be using it, and each Team Member will need to sign into that vendor’s licensing system to authorize the use of that content on their Mac. Failure to do so will result in unpredictable results in FCP.

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