The transition of a cue sets how it appears on screen: with a cut, a fade or a dip to black. Two further settings control what happens at the out point and when you stop. Good transitions are a small detail, but they make a show look calm and professional.
The three kinds
| Kind | What it does |
|---|---|
| None | A hard cut. The new picture appears at once. |
| Fade | The new cue fades in over the old one. |
| Dip to black | The picture fades to black and then fades up into the new cue. Each half takes half of the time you set. |
The standard durations are 0.5, 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0 seconds. The Transition column shows a cross for a cut, and otherwise the length in seconds.
For one cue or for several
For one cue, click its cell in the Transition column. For a block of cues, select the block, right-click and choose Transition.
The second way is the usual one: you build the list first, and then give a whole section the same transition in one action.
The default for new cues
Settings → Cue list contains the transition that new cues get. If you always use a fade of one second, set it there once.
A duration of zero always means a cut, whatever kind is chosen. That is why a cue can be set to “fade” and still show a cross: its duration was never set.
The transition and the out point
Settings → Cue list also contains the setting Transition ends on the out point, which decides whether the fade runs before or after the out point:
- On. The fade ends exactly at the out point, so it uses the last second of the cue. Choose this when you trimmed the cue to an exact moment.
- Off. The cue plays to its out point, and the fade starts there.
Neither choice is better; it is a matter of house style. Choose one and keep it, so that a trim means the same thing in every list.
How the picture leaves
Stopping has its own setting, Fade out at stop, also under Settings → Cue list. The program uses this fade when you press STOP, and when a cue with the follow action Stop ends.
Keep this fade short. Half a second looks intentional, while two seconds looks like a fault.
What a transition costs
During a fade, the program draws both cues at the same time. On a computer that is close to its limit, a list with many two-second fades therefore needs clearly more processing power than the same list with cuts. If the status bar reports dropped frames during transitions, check this first.