How do I get the effect that light is pouring THROUGH words in FCP? In other words, let's say that the word is TEST, and it's white lettering on a black background. How do I get it to look like light is pouring through the letters T,E,S, and T with what looks like rays of light? Please help.

I believe livetype has such an font. dont know how it's called though.

I've never used LiveType before, so I just opened it. I saw some of the examples, and I can work with that, but I can't even figure out how to see the text I typed. What gives?

You may have to hit play to preview the fonts... some of them animate in and therefore wouldnt be visible if you're just previewing a still frame at the beginning.

I've never used LiveType before, so I just opened it. I saw some of the examples, and I can work with that, but I can't even figure out how to see the text I typed. What gives?
I sound like a broken record about this, but you might want to check out Lynda.cpm, they have a ton of great tutorials for Livetype, FCP and Motion.

That seems good. Know any that are free?

You may have to hit play to preview the fonts... some of them animate in and therefore wouldnt be visible if you're just previewing a still frame at the beginning.

It's a no go. I tried. I see the boxes animation in the upper right.

How about here?

http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/livetype_fundamentals.html

That seems good. Know any that are free?
There aren't free, I think the least expensive plan they have is about $20 a month but its a month to month and you can use it as much as you want.

You can spend a lot of time searching the web, Lynda.com really is a great deal.

What version of FCP do you have? If you have 5.1.2 there's a light-streak filter in Motion that works well.

I've yet to even open motion. I'm trying not to overwhelm myself with everything right now. It's the newest version of FCS, but I'm learning everything through trial and error. I also have Shake and AE7.0 if that helps, but AE is on the smae planet as Photoshop, whish is like trying to untie 25000 Christmas lights on December 24th.

I've yet to even open motion. I'm trying not to overwhelm myself with everything right now. It's the newest version of FCS, but I'm learning everything through trial and error. I also have Shake and AE7.0 if that helps, but AE is on the smae planet as Photoshop, whish is like trying to untie 25000 Christmas lights on December 24th.
I can relate... I'm making the transition from the PC and everything is just different enough to drive you nuts.

Which is why I recommend Lynda.com so highly. I already know how to edit but I don't know where all the features are located in FCP so I ended up listening to hours of remedial training to get to the information I need. I can really move through the tutorials on Lynda.com at my own pace and really get up to speed quickly. If your trying to learn mutliple application you can't beat it. Just so you know I have no affiliation with them.

Regarding the order on which you take this learning thing on. I started down the same trial and error path and thought Livetype would be easier to learn than Motion. After spending several hours on Livetype, I sort of liked what you could do with but thought it was a bit klunky. Then I started on Motion and what a difference, the workflow is remarkably similar but the performance is so much better and I could create title sequences and lower thirds etc soooo much faster in Motion than in Livetype.

However Motion works on the idea of behaviors, not keyframes [although you are ablle to keyframe] coming from the world of After Effects this took a bit of getting used to. As a result of this subtle difference I can see where Livetype might be better suited for some text animations but I haven't really come across that yet.

The effect you are looking for can be done in Motion or FCP prior to 5.1 with a plugin called Shine from Trapcode.

The Livetype font being referred to is very basic. You can not adust the type face of a Live Font as they are individual movies of each letter, not can you adjust anything other than color. The Live Font you are referring to is called Spot Light.