3D Compositing with Action > Action: Media > Adding Effects to Media >
Cropping a Clip

When you crop media, the front and matte clips are cropped together. You cannot crop the back clip. If you applied the media to more than one surface, all the surfaces are cropped.

You can animate a crop by changing the size and shape of the Crop box at different keyframes. You can also animate the softness of the Crop box.

NoteAnimating a crop in the Channel Editor does not enable the Crop field in the Media list.

To crop a clip with the Media list:

1. In Action, click Media.
2. Set values for cropping and softness in the Top, Bottom, Left, and Right fields. Once you set a value in one of the Crop or Softness fields, white checkmarks indicate that Crop and Softness are enabled.

   (a) Softness area of Crop field(b) Crop area of Crop field

   Tip Alt-drag over one of the fields to change all four values proportionally.

To crop gesturally in the image window:

1. Double-click the Crop field to enable Crop and Softness.
2. In the View box, select Media Front or Media Matte.

   The clip appears in the image window with a red outline, which indicates the Crop box, and a green outline, which indicates the Softness box.

   (a) Crop box(b) Softness box

   TipYou can use two viewports to view the crop interactively on both the front and the matte clips.
3. Set the corners of the Crop box and Softness box by dragging either the corners or edges of the red and green outlines.

   The crop and softness values in the Media list are updated as you drag.

4. Click Result.

   The cropped media appears in the image window, and the front and matte clip share the same crop.

5. To mute the Crop and Softness values, double-click the Crop field. To mute only the Softness, double-click the Softness area of the Crop field. When muted, a black checkmark appears in the Crop field.