
One downside with separate left and right video files is that in order to keep the timing of the footage locked you have to “nest” the sequence. The filter mixes them together and creates the 3D footage. Then input what kind of format the footage is, either by adding the second track or setting the filter to work with side-by-side footage. When you have suitable 3D footage, place it in the editing timeline, go to your “effects” tab and apply the Dashwood Stereo 3D Toolbox LE filter. It uses some big words, but still explains details in a user-friendly way. However, there’s a big “click here for help” button in the settings panel that opens a webpage, which details what the buttons and sliders do. Initially, some of the plug-in terminology is confusing to those not acquainted with 3D jargon.

You must start with separate ingredients. Just as you can’t remix the ingredients of a baked cake, it doesn’t remix video already in one flattened 3D signal. It doesn’t handle footage acquired “natively” or “baked” formats. Footage has to either be separate clips from separate viewpoints or side-by-side, which is a common 3D format. The Stereo 3D Toolbox LE mixes two separate footage tracks into a single 3D video. If you’d rather not see particular filters, you can unselect them in FxFactory to tidy things up. Once installed, the plug-ins will appear in the “effects” tab in Final Cut Pro. FxFactory is a plug-in manager that is free to download and install and includes plenty of demo plug-ins. It’s compatible with Final Cut Pro, Adobe After Effects, Motion and even Final Cut Express.
