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Everybody is saying FinalCutPro to Motion5 is like PremierePro to AfterEffects. But its a fact that AfterEffects is more powerful than Motion5. So since I love the simplicity of FinalCutProX as my Cutter, for me the perfect solution would be using FinalCutProX together with AfterEffects.

Now does that make sense or would you better not do it like this? If yes, how is your workflow to not loosing any quality of the clip by exporting to AfterEffects, editing there and exporting back to FinalCutProX?

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  • To some extent it makes sense. Many effects programs aren't linked to the main NLEs. If you want to avoid as much loss of quality as possible, export at a higher bitrate than your footage was originally.
    – NoahL
    Apr 20, 2017 at 16:51
  • I jumped ship in the early days of the FCPX debacle, so I don't know if this is still a thing, but my FCP to AE workflow usually involved exporting timelines as XML to avoid intermediate renders.
    – stib
    Apr 17, 2018 at 12:44

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It is certainly possible to use FCPX and AfterEffects as part of the same workflow. To do this effectively, you will need to use an intermediate codec that preserves image quality across successive generations. ProRes HQ 422 is a good baseline as an intermediate codec. There are higher quality ProRes codecs (XQ 4444) and lower quality ones (ProRes LT 422). But ProRes HQ should be a good starting place.

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While Adobe and Apple each link their editing software with their own respective compositing software, saying 'AE is to Premiere as Motion is to FCPX' glosses over the strengths and differences of each package.

Sure, AE is a powerful compositing app, and it's dynamic link to Premiere is convenient, but Adobe is still playing catch up to Apple when it comes to application interoperability.

Say, for instance, you'd like to make a transition between two clips, and you'd like this transition to be a stylistic element of your production which you can re-use as often as you like. This is something at which Motion excels and at which AE struggles.

After Effects is more powerful when it comes to a lot of VFX work, and its scriptability is a powerful feature which is unmatched in Motion. However, I would argue that the "bond" between FCPX and Motion is stronger than the one between Premiere and AE. But when you're talking about using FCPX with AE, there is NO link and you have to render bi-directionally.

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