THE HITFILM WISHLIST: What Features Do You Want?

Palacono · December 2017

Action Pro Helper and more
The ability to be able to cut'n'paste individual X,Y or Z Position Offsets, Rotations or Orientations from one field to another.

While it's possible to record X and Y with a mouse and then copy one of them to Z inside Action Pro, it would also be useful to be able to do it in Hitfilm. without having to make a round trip back to Action Pro. Also, X rotation to Y rotation etc. of the same, or a different layer.

This would also allow you do to the things that people have recently been asking about: how to make images scale in response to a musical beat - amongst other things.

Also being able to copy from one field type, such as percentage, to another, such as rotation (360/100) or vice versa would be handy too. It's sort of similar to what you can do with some Behaviours.

Triem23 · December 2017

+0.5 for @Palacono 's last post. A modified Icon for plug in effects (a green "+"?) would be helpful for tutorial makers, but disagree with disable. With near 200 filters I might not remember what was turned off, and it could cause compatibility issues. What if I Ioad a project that uses a disabled effect?

Palacono · December 2017

@Triem23 Serious question?

OK. I'm sure a couple of devs could discuss and come up with something simple and obvious in about 5 minutes.

Like: Load them anyway and auto reactivate the disabled ones. Or ask you about them individually in case one was causing a crash and you want it stripped out, or strip them out like Express does. Or load them, but turn them all off and prompt you to reactivate them if you tried to turn them on. Or something better.

whakan · December 2017

The ability to reduce the line spacing, right now I can't bring the line spacing under "auto" and numbers just passed auto does not do anything unless the number gets really high. We can't reduce the space between text lines as now

EDIT: I mean for text layers

NormanPCN · December 2017

+1 for line spacing less than default/auto.

PixlPants · December 2017

The new Text effect in Pro does have vertical line spacing adjustment.

However, it comes with some new issues as well.

No horizontal text spacing
Line spacing slider doesn't go under 100% but can type a number in
When you reduce line spacing so that lines overlaps, the text edges appears to mix with the layer color under it and bleeds through the overlapped edges
No outline/stroke color or width settings (useful for subtitles)

whakan · December 2017

@PixlPants

I know that the text effect has a better line spacing option but what I can't do in it is:

Use gemotry>extrude (to create a real 3d object)
Use multiple fonts in the same text area, as well as sizes and paragraph alignment

ElliotBrowne · December 2017

I would love there to be a 3D motion tracking option for 3D models and stuff. Also I would like to see 3D text.

Triem23 · December 2017

@ElliotBrowne

Since you said 3D models, I will assume you have Hitfilm Pro. Mocha is your 3D tracker, and 3D Extrusion (and, in v6, the new Geometry Extrusion) are your 3D text.

If you're in Express, Mocha and 3D Extrusion are both available in add-on packs.

Triem23 · December 2017

CTRL+Clicking on a position value in a layer's Transform properties inverts the position value. This is a great little hidden gem for all kinds of animation.

Any possibility of adding a similar modifier to other Transform fields, like Rotation and Scale? (For scale, 100% would be the nominal value, of course, which means inverting a 25% scale would go to 400%. This might not be what users expect?)

Alligator_Jack · December 2017

What about:

Audio / mp3 export

ctrl + leftclick to invert rotation aswell

make it possible to save media presets (with keyframed transform controlls, masks and effects)

whakan · December 2017

@ElliotBrowne for just a 3D tracking you can use Mocha included in Pro or as an express add-on, or you can download for free Autodesk MatchMover to track and export a .ma tracking data file than you'll can import it in both hitfilm (express or pro)

cnu · December 2017

Hi,

Not sure these were already asked earlier.

couple of missing basic requirements for using hitfilm as NLE:

- having multiple timelines

- 'Add marker' option in editor timelines, as lot of times, editors need to write something for videos edited.

Also, for export,

image options should include 'TIFF' and/or 'JPEG2000' formats.

whakan · December 2017

+1 multiple timelines

+1 markers

I would suggest also :

- import an .hfp project as video file

ToddGroves · December 2017

If you're like me and you just want to make movies for the experience, than Hitfilm is the best choice for VFX creation I've seen. However, on the editing side, there are so many ways to improve it.

I would HIGHLY recommend (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) that Hitfilm take a look at the editing tools in DaVinci Resolve. What? You say. Resolve? Why not Avid. I'll tell you why...

I've used both Avid and Resolve. And in a fraction of the time I've used Avid, I learned Resolve and have become quite comfortable with it. Avid still frustrates me, and I find it quite clunky. Funny, given that it's the industry standard.

Simply watch some of the editing tutorials for Resolve, and I think you will be quite impressed with their ease of use, their intuitiveness, etc. I paid $79 for the complete, certified training for Resolve from Ripple Training. For $79, I think the devs of Hitfilm could get a lot of ideas from the "Editing and Color Grading 101" series. If we had editing tools in Hitfilm like the ones in Resolve, I think you would see a surge in sales.

Just saying.

WhiteCranePhoto · December 2017

Agreed... in fact, Resolve is the first NLE to successfully entice studios working on big-budget serials to move from Avid.

I'm sure the collaboration tools have a lot to do with it; having the editor, sound designer AND colorist all able to work in the same project at the same time is pretty amazing.

ToddGroves · December 2017

@WhiteCranePhoto

Yep. And it's workflow overall is insanely intuitive. The free version is bad ass by itself.

WhiteCranePhoto · December 2017

Yes... it makes me wonder why anyone continues to waste their money on Adobe's mediocrity... especially since Adobe doesn't play well with others, so conforming Premiere projects in pretty much any color grading suite is a largely manual affair most of the time.

Speed wise, there's also no comparison; LightWorks is as fast as Mistika and plays well with almost everything. I'm hoping for OFX support in LightWorks soon so that I can start using Ignite and Sapphire in it. Or a multiple timeline option, timecode based syncing, Redcode support, and a proxy workflow in HitFilm, which is almost as fast as LightWorks, though I can't compare directly until it gets Redcode support.

ToddGroves · December 2017

+1 on Redcode support. Being able to import ".R3D" files into Hitfilm would be a huge plus.

I would also suggest adding the ability to render proxy files to speed up playback. With Hitfilm rendering from the original files upon export.

NormanPCN · December 2017

Merry Christmas. Here is my laundry list of Gift suggestions. I'm needy and greedy. Many items are repeats of previous posts. I am shamelessly surfing for +1s. I submit that most really don't read way back in such a long thread like the Wishlist.

A lot of NLE stuff. Every frame of every video goes through an NLE. Maybe an NLE is not sexy but it is the foundation. Smooth/efficient workflow is almost everything in the NLE.

Now that we can keyframe in the NLE we can now do slideshow type video stuff in Hitfilm and transitions are very common here.

Add a blur cross dissolve transition. Like a cross dissolve but adds a blur to the dissolve. No blur..blur..no blur. Something of a dreamy like transition.
Allow the (new) motion blur in the movement transitions to go a little stronger in blur.
Allow the Iris transiton to have a center position. This allows the transition to "focus" on something. It also allows for a curved edge wipe transition when the Iris is a circle shape and the center is at the edge/corner. Two for the price of one.
Iris on steroids. Have a repeat X, Y parameter for Iris. This allows interesting transitions like shown in this example. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCcm2sd23nw
The ability to symmetrically resize transitions that are over a cut. Probably using a keyboard modifier. Without that feature, at least let us easily re-center a resized transition without the need to pick it up and drop it elsewhere and pick it up again to drop it on center on it's original cut. Just let us re-drop it centered. Better yet, both features.
The ability to duplicate transitions just like a Ctrl+drag duplicates a timeline clip.
Have a default transition length preference.
The playback performance of NLE transitions needs to be addressed. AVC media is a/the trigger point here. If a quite speedy flat 4Ghz i7 4770k, GTX 1080, and system cached 1080p30 NormanAVC media on a 1080p30 timeline, cannot smoothly play a cross dissolve transition... Houston/Hitfilm you have a problem. Really, lesser machines should be capable.
Have a timeline framerate indicator when the playback does not make speed (1 or more frames will be (have been) skipped). Maybe a red dot next to the a playhead position time printout. Maybe print the playhead time position text in red when skipping frames. Maybe just a playback fps speed printout. Bad stutters are obvious. Not so for the small ones. Sometimes you wonder if preview jerkiness is playback issues or something else. An indicator of some form eliminates all guesswork.
NLE ram preview. Allows us to work through performance issues.
Allow adding keywords to media in the media bin. Allow searches or bins based on keywords to find media. All about organization. This could also be just be a simple multi-line text 'notes' entry associated with media. In the media properties dialog. Media notes and keywords. Two for the price of one.
Have an indicator showing NLE clips that have effects applied. Like a little "fx" where the link infinity symbol currently exists in the NLE clip header. I'll just submit that in comps one can assume most layers are going to have effects. This is not so with the NLE. An indicator that says, hey I have Fx, is useful. It lets us know, at a glance, that something is going on without opening each clip (controls) just to find out.
Have a way to constrain keyframe movement in the NLE volume/opacity keyframe bar Up/down (time hold). We just got left/right (value hold) in HF 6.
Locking of NLE timeline clips and composite layers. A right click context option seems reasonable. Who has not accidentally moved a clip, edge or volume/opacity keyframe without realizing it until much later. Lock should disallow basically everything except unlock. A locked clip should indicate it is locked. A different color, or something. Also, locked layers can be excluded from layer selection in the view window. An operation that can be a little sketchy in Hitfilm.
Allow heterogenous track heights in the NLE timeline. Keeping the limited four track heights as now is fine. Most times I only want one/two audio/video tracks to be large to see waveforms or use the keyframing bar. Having all tracks go big just makes me have to mouse around and use the scrollbars frequently. Such mousing around is a waste as it does not directly contribute to an edit task. I could envision this as the current track height control resets all to a homogenous height. Right clicks in the track header could allow a different height selection for that specific track.
NLE timeline grade clips. Basiclly an empty clip (no media) we can apply effects to. The diff here is that the effects are applied to the composite result from below and not clip media and then composited. A change in composite order. Since it is a clip, that is trimmed, it allows us to have it operate on a specific timeline region and only that time region.
It would be convenient if the new plane dialog had a quick "color" button (like current white/gray/black) to create a transparent plane layer. Or let the color selection dialog currently offered have/allow an alpha channel setting. An obvious use example is the new text effect for dropping text into the NLE. Yes, we can easily create a black layer and drop demult on the plane. Video editing is compute heavy enough. Why create extra needless work on every frame played when you do not have to. It is also less clicks and mousing around on creation of said clip as well which is always a good thing.
Rounded rectangle masks. Why? The neon path effect. When I edit a rect mask to round the corners, I find it difficult and/or tedious to get the four corners symmetric. Even when using a grid to help. The eye easily picks up those imperfections. Hitfilm can do stuff like this in it's sleep as it is simple math.
Hitfilm proxies should have the option of an intermediate format. i.e. Cineform RGBA. I can see us having two proxy options when we right click to create a proxy. Lossless and lossy. This gives us flexibility. Lossless proxies are heavy on disk space and I/O bandwidth resources. Lossy specifics (compression level) would be setup in the Preferences proxy tab.
Audio layers in the composite timeline should be mutable just like audio tracks on the NLE timeline. Right now they have an "eye" icon which is disabled. It should be a speaker icon like audio tracks in the NLE timeline and the function seems obvious. The button controlling the mute layer property. At times we have to snip music from the NLE timeline and copy into a comp for timing sync purposes and then we don't want that audio in the final result of the comp. It it is useful to mute video the it is also useful to mute audio.
Markers in the timeline. Droppable with a key shortcut during playback. Markers should be snap points. Marker regions/range also.
We can drag the in/out points in the timeline header with the mouse. Have that drag operation snap to edges.
The End key should go to the end of the last clip on the NLE timeline and not the end of the NLE timeline as a whole. The NLE timeline end/length is kinda arbitrary and most times is not something we the user set.
Speaking of NLE timeline end. Let us change the timeline end. If we do clip trimming on the timeline, Hitfilm will have likely changed the timeline length to something long. Probably way more then we need in the real project. Since this length affects the zoom scale then let us change the NLE timeline length. If Hitfilm forces some dead space at the end this is probably okay. e.g. 15-30 seconds.
Allow us to rename NLE timleine clips. Basically everything else in Hitfilm can be renamed so why not NLE clips as well.
Have a special search term that would match properties that have keyframing enabled for the comp timeline search/filter feature. Maybe something like @KFO (key frame only)
New text effect. Add a character spacing property. Curious this is missing. Especially as this is a super frequent item that gets keyframed.
Liking the new text effect and 3D text features. Therefore while really wanting to ditch Boris, this leads me to...
Applying a gradient to text is a royal pain when you have more than one line. Same grad each line. You have to mask each line separatly and gradient fill each of those. A lot of work for something so simple. Have a simple gradient option for the text effect and text layers.
Add the ability to apply a texture to the new geometry 3D text feature.
New Bevel geometry effect. More bevel types. Convex and concave. I have often used a concave bevel.
An animation category/group for text layers. Maybe this is a just a "behavior". Think NewBlue Titler Pro transition animations and/or Boris "Type on" animations. Character, word, line cascade options for an animation. A Boris Type on like animation would be a good start. It's a simple two point transform animation with one point assumed. Also a character spacing animation since text properties are lacking keyframe options.
On Windows, support installed fonts that are not copied to the Windows fonts folder. Install as shortcut, as MS calls it. Font managers normally default to this mode of install. Hitfilm is the only software I know of that does not work with such fonts. This includes other GL apps.
New playback pause quality modes. I absolutely love the ability to get a beautiful paused view quality (everything on). But then Hitfilm stabs me in the eye with restrictions that always use paused quality. RAM preview should have a preference for play/paused mode use. RAM preview is a complete and total waste of a users time. It is a workaround for the fact that we have too much fun with Hitfilm and tend do things that cannot play in real time. It would be excellent to have ram preview build as fast as possible and still have the lovely paused quality. I get why people would want paused/full quality ram previews. Thus have a preference.
Scrubbing should use playback quality and not paused quality. How is scrubbing not live playback. Who does not want scrubbing to be as fast as possible. A preference here is an option. But really, scrubbing is live playback just like "play".
Now that you have quality options for playback. You might have something that turns the AVC loop deblocking filter off. Maybe call it something like Media file shortcuts. Given all the performance issues with AVC media, it is worth considering and trivial now that you have the playback modes and check options. AVC is not going away. It is probably not a big gain but every little bit can help when dealing with AVC media. Vegas has done this since forever (Preview, Draft modes).
NLE sequences. Allow a sequence to be proxied just like comp timelines are proxied. Hitfilm style. It kinda covers the timeline pre-render caching other NLEs offer, but in a Hitfilm consistent manner.
Timeline zoom control.
Here is the crazy zoom curve Hitfilm uses. 5 minute default timeline. 1920x1200 monitor, NLE timeline using the whole width.

5:0;0, 2:09;0, 47;19, 23;12, 15;18, 9;04, 7;28, 6;13, 5;18, 3;06, 2;21, 2;10, 2;02, 1;26, 1;21, 1;17, 1;15, 1;13, 1;11, 1;10

Way too fast initially and then super slow at the end (zoomed in). What useful/functional difference is there between a 1 second 26 frame scale and a 1 second 10 frame scale. I say nothing. That occupies 35% of the available zoom scale range. The last 25% of the scale range is 1;17 to 1;10. Ridiculous.

Resolve has a very similar zoom function to Hitfilm. I find it much easier to find a useful zoom view in quick tests in Resolve. Vegas may be the best at zooming but let's not go there since it functions quite a bit differently.

I understand that when dragging the zoom slider I get more than 20 levels on the Hitfilm zoom curve. The curve is still so fast at one end. Steep slope. Therefore it is typically hard to land on a good zoom level.

Suggestions.
Change the curve to something linear. At least much more linear.

Don't waste so many zoom levels from 5 seconds down. I think we users understand that when zoomed in a lot we are going to be doing to side to side scrolling due to being zoomed in so much. When editing "normal" video regions I don't think most want to be scrolling the timeline much if at all. I know I don't want to scroll. We need more available and easily accessible zoom levels at the long end of the scale.

Since the zoom slider control has more zoom levels on the zoom curve, then the 20 levels the mouse wheel gets is kinda limiting with the current zoom curve. I don't know about you but I can spin that wheel pretty fast in a second or two. 7 zoom "clicks" in one finger movement with my mouse. Logitech M705. With more levels, even with the current steep HF curve we will have more useful, easily accessible, zoom levels to select from. The real problem is the curve.

Lastly, have a zoom to fit. Timeline scaled and scrolled such that the in/out points fill the available timeline view as best as possible. If/when HF has timeline marker regions, then we can select a region and do a zoom to fit on the region.

PixlPants · December 2017

+1 on Norman's list

A Plugin API would take care of so many requested features.

whakan · December 2017

+1 on Norman's list

I would suggest also:

better rendering of text:
1. with low AA borders are stairways
2. medium does not affect text
3. with high AA every graphic including text, in the project appear too blurry
Support for OpenType .otf fonts, It's a huge waste of time when you have to covert entire families of TrueType .ttf fonts

CedricBonnier · December 2017

@whakan OpenType fonts (.otf) have been supported since HitFilm 4. Fonts outside of C:\Windows\Fonts do not get picked up. We are aware of this.

@PixlPants I'm not sure what you mean by plugin API. HitFilm already supports OFX plugins so it does have a plugin API.

@NormanPCN Great list, thanks for compiling this up.

whakan · December 2017

@CedricBonnier I have otf fonts right inside the C:\Windows\Fonts folder but they don't show up in the font dropdown list menu

Triem23 · December 2017

@whakan it depends on where you got the fonts from. I have some OTF fonts that are problematic with Hitfilm and a couple other programs I use. I open the offending font in a font editor and it inevitably turns out the font itself was incorrectly built to begin with. Hitfilm seems pretty strict in file implementation, and, since Josh said in the recent Hitfilm livestream everything in Hitfilm is either pure custom or licensed from the original vendors, my GUESS (it's a good guess, but I doubt @CedricBonnier will confirm) is Hitfilm doesn't use third-party open-source libraries that might be more lax.

It's similar to something I point out about certain 3D models that don't import correctly into Hitfilm because the creator did something outside the official model format spec their particular modeling software supports.

NormanPCN · December 2017

The Hitfilm text layer supports OpenType fonts with Postscript glyphs (CFF) and TrueType glyphs.

The new text effect does not work with, or list, OpenType fonts with Postscript glyphs (CFF). It seems to work with OpenType fonts with TrueType glyphs. I've already reported this and some other issues with the new text effect.

The bottom line is, does a font set work with the operating system font engine. If yes, and your native or third party font engine does not work then it's your problem. Yes, there are flaky fonts out there. The operating system font engine is realistically as good as it gets. Maybe it handles flakiness better. Maybe the GL font library Hitfilm uses is flakey. Boris Titler and NewBlue Titler seem to have ironed out this GL font thing better. We the end user don't care who or what is at fault. What we know, and care about, is the font works everywhere else but here.

CedricBonnier · December 2017

I was thinking about the text layer, not the text effect, sorry.

We have compiled a list of improvements and bug fixes to do related to text handling in HitFilm. We will talk about it internally and decide what to do for each of them. I know that it is frustrating for you guys but hopefully we will be able to sort all of this out in the new year.

BobDiMarzio · December 2017

If we cannot lock all layers, at least provide the ability to lock text layers. Unless I'm doing something wrong. It's impossible to edit text layers that are below other text layers without moving the upper layer's text box out of the way.

For an example I will use Inscape Digital's great "Fiery Text" Tutorial from May, 2017. It has three stacked text layers. Layers 4,6,8 If I desire to edit the text on layer 8, I must first move layers 4 and 6 out of the way. If I forget to first write down the coordinates...... I will say bad words as I try to realign the layer.

Andersen01498 · December 2017

If we had locked layers we wouldn't have to worry about wasting time doing things twice(I know I'm beating a dead horse but please). THIS HAS TO BE #1 PRIORITY. Locked layers are not a new thing, I still don't know why that we haven't included it in yet.

SNRSE · December 2017

please add that we can move multiple media or comps from the timeline to a new comp

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