Another solution would be to create the entire animation as an animated gif with ImageReady. (I think you can place a gif in VideoFactory. Can someone confirm that?)

Place this gif as a video clip on top of your background video.

You can create this gif with a transparent background. Or, if you created this gif with a solid color background, you can use the chromakey feature to make that background color transparent.

To be honest, I haven't actually attempted this in its entirety in VideoFactory (or Screenblast MovieStudio, which is my version), but it should work.

Kelly - "If you use the main video track for your underlying video and the overlay track for the line, then you don't have any way to add the text. Probably about the only way around this is to have the text be part of the graphic image too. " . . . . well, maybe not . . . PiPs, remember? . . . . Oh yes! Make the line a floating PiP and run the text on the Top Track. I did do this with VF. I ran a lower thirds banner - then placed the Text to roll over it.

I can't remember details, but it is doable . . . .

Grazie

Grazie: didn't that require rendering the combined PiPs out as a new .avi file and then bringing this back in to the overlay track?

Well, it must have been . . . the other thing is to make a loooooong dash line - y'know the one it's the "underscore" key - yeah? - Just done it in VF. Keep tapping the underscore key - you get a nice long line.

Kelly - I'm sure you are correct - just wanna satisfy my own thoughts first.

. . . . a pondering,

Grazie

Kelly - Done it! Mostly!

I added the Fx Cookie Cutter to the Text generator. Now, in Cookie cutter, get to mess about with the border control AND pan/crop. I've been able to create lines and move them into frame - yeah?

I'll keep revisiting this . . .

Grazie

Reeeeally done it this time!

Forget about previous stuff - well don't forget it, just put it to one side for the moment - yeah?

RIGHT: We're gonna do everything in Credit Roll PLUS Fx Cookie Cutter [ CC gets you the positioning options we need ] - Here we got:

1 - Text/Backdrop; Pan/Crop & Video Fx

2 - In "Text/Backdrop"

------- a) stick some text in Line 1 - this will give a reference to view iin Preview

------- b) click on the "Styles" tab > Background colour > Select anything from transparent to any colour - I've gone with a tranni grey

3 - In "Pan/Crop", we're gonna deform the "F"rame by :

------- a) Size: 787 x 360

------- b) Centre:393 x 207

NB: This should give you the "lower thirds" band with your text on top of it - that's neat in its self!

4 - "Video Fx" - This is the trciky bit! We're gonna give "A LINE" but it is only part of the Cookie Cutters border - yeah? It's only the "bottom" part of the Rectangle shape - ie the lower horizontal line of a rectangle - we're not interested in the remaining 2 verticals OR the top most horizontal line.

------- a) Shape: Rectangle

------- b) Method:Cut away all but shape

------- c) Border: 1.00

------- d) Repeat X: 1

------- e) Repeat Y: 1

------- f) Centre Y: 0

Now, you should be able to play the video with:

1 - A lower thirds band

2 - Rolling text

3 - Below the Rolling text a line

I think the best way to comunicate this would be to give Kelly an upload VF file for you all to view - yeah?

I knew it was in my brain! But, now having V4 with multiple tracks etc, makes a lot of this stuff a sinch. BUT! It was here that I learnt how to do stuff that - my brain-memory notwithstanding - has given me a decent grounding.

Hope this helps and doesn't confuse people more - that's not my aim, I promise you.

Best regards,

Grazie

Here's a Tip - If you want the lower 1/3 band to fade in/out apply an opacity IN and OUT.

You could also have the BAND appear prior to the text by inserting some extra EMPTY text lines in TEXT/BACKDROP. You'll need to time this for the rolling text. Not too difficult.

OH yes! Make sure you have the "Timed Sequence" selected - Credit Roll > Properties Tab > Effect: Timed Sequence.

You may wanna play around with the "Effect Parameters". This gives you options as to how the Text appears with regard to IN OUT and DISPLAY.

There is much to experiment here...... all this comes with a Government Health Warning! I've even less hair now!

Again - regards,

Grazie

Wow. A huge thank you to everybody for your responses to my original post - and special recognition to Graham Bernard (Grazie) for his late-night dedication to finding ways to make this work. (Man loves a challenge eh?) You have all given me lots of ideas to play with.

I actually ended up (this time anyhow) simply using text underscore characters and then panning on that to create the slide. I took Kelly's (Chienworks') mention of VV's limitation of two video tracks as a challenge to get something that looked halfway decent.

The advantage to using a text underline is that it can easily carry over all of the parameters of the text itself (if that is desired) - such as color, outline, and even any applied effects. (I use cut and paste an awful lot while editing in order to get multiple copies of titles. Then I just remove what isn't needed for that interval.)

Steve Grisetti's idea of using a GIF with a solid background and then employing Chroma Key to remove the background also worked perfectly. That most closely matches the effect I was looking for and will probably be the technique I will usually employ. Thanks Steve!

And thanks to Kelly and Grazie for all the help you gave as well. (It will take me a while to work through the ideas Grazie provided!)

By the way - I posted the results on http://vegasusers.com/vidshare/. Not sure when it will show up though.

It's there now.
http://www.vegasusers.com/vidshare/textdisp?sdgates-legalbar_7_final

Looks way spiffy :)

Steve - Thanks for the nice words. Listen, you mustn't think I stayed up through the night on this - I reside in the UK! Different timezones - yeah?

Yup! Upgrades. - I'm using the Canon XM-2 [US GL-2] AND VV4.0c - what a winning combination!

I love this INTERNET stuff. Makes for a type of global village working environment.

Grazie

I sure miss Britain. I was stationed for 9 years at RAF Upper Heyford (near Banbury) and loved every minute. I met my wife there, in fact. She is from Scotland. Here in Oklahoma there are surprisingly quite a few people from the UK. We even have two large Scottish festivals - one for the Oklahoma City metro area (Edmond, actually) and one for Tulsa. Unfortunately I had not yet purchased my video camera and missed out taping the OKC-area festival. Hopefully I'll be able to make the Tulsa festival in September.

My camera is but a lowly, tiny Sharp VL-MC500. I was swayed by its 1.3 megapixel CCD. It has everything but an external microphone input - which is a terrible hindrance. Especially bad is that the microphone is completely internal and has numerous holes drilled into the top surface of the camera to let the sound in. Those holes make for a ton of wind noise from even the slightest breeze. My only solution at this point is to cut a small square of foam and glue it onto the top of the camera in order to create a wind sock of sorts over the microphone.

I have thought about purchasing a TASCAM Pocket Studio to get better audio. It is a four input mixing console/digital sound recorder the size of a small cassette player. But I am not sure that it will be at all easy to then keep the sound in sync with the video since this is all low-end stuff without the benefit of SMPTE time codes. What I really need to do is get a more decent camera - like the GL-2. I can't believe how low it is priced for being a 3-CCD camera! But I would still need a good "shotgun" microphone and even some wireless microphones... and a Glidecam camera stabilizer... and a light kit... and set up my van with a generator and laptops for editing....... Sorry. Lost control of myself there for a moment!!!

(The previous was in response to Grazie's mention of residing in the UK. Not sure why it didn't fit in under his last posting!)

I appreciate (and enjoyed) Grazie looking for an all VideoFactory solution but lets not forget that it might be just as easy to do your lower thirds in another graphics program. I use Real-DRAW Pro by MediaChance. Unlike other graphics applications, which force you to make layers, Real-DRAW simply keeps everything you do as an object that can be moved an edited later. So making lower thirds is easy. The text is always editable and you just save them as different PNG files while changing the text. It has a 30-day free trial and can make great looking 3D text in an instant. Worth a look.

~jr

JR - Thanks for the recognition! - Yup, always up for doing something easier. But we/I were asked how this could be done in VF. There is a way. Now that I'm full flood within V4, I'd now suggest people would upgrade to this fab NLE!

* Scripts
* Unlimited Video/Audio Tracks
* Keyframes
* . . . .. too much to mention here!!!

Look, I cut my NLE teeth on VF. If I had to now advise a newbie to NLE work? - VF everytime.

Hey, such is the value of exploration and improvement . . ..

Cheers, JR,

Grazie