Comments

rmack350 wrote on 5/12/2004, 12:20 PM
I could swear I tried this and failed over the weekend. But to answer my own question:

Create your object in Photoshop and then turn off all other layers. Save as PSD or PNG with transparent background (alpha channel)

Put it on the timeline and then open up the track motion tool and select the shadow option down at the bottom of the dialog. Adjust to suit.

Everything on the track will have the same shadow so you may as well dedicate the track to these sorts of shapes.

Rob Mack
TorS wrote on 5/12/2004, 1:57 PM
Do them in the text generator instead. You'll have drop shadows, outline and transparency at your fingertips. Just get a font with the shapes you need. Tons of free stuff out there. I can't believe why so many people want to waste their time using Photoshop for stuff like that.
Tor
rmack350 wrote on 5/12/2004, 2:33 PM
Partly because it's more immediate than hunting for a font, partly because I use photoshop all day every day anyway, and partly because I'll also create boxes, circles, etc.

But, yes, a font would probably do the arrows just as well.

For me, photoshop is a piece of cake.

Rob Mack
TorS wrote on 5/12/2004, 2:53 PM
I do not doubt your abilities in Photoshop. But for squares, rectangles, circles, pentagrams - all regular and a lot of irregular shapes to be used in Vegas, you'll find free fonts easily. It is dead easy and quick to use the text generator for this. And once you have a font you have it, so the search is a one time thing.
A font is not only the alphabet plus some. Look for dingbat fonts. You probably have Microsoft Wingdings 1, 2 and 3? And Webdings (also Microsoft) which is a very good all-purpose font for video. These fonts are great for masks too. And when you make everything transparent (background and foreground), just use a very thin outline (it'll show even when you set it to 0.000) - you'll get a very subtle effect.
You're right about your drop shadow method, of course. I'm just saying there's an easier way.
Tor
rmack350 wrote on 5/13/2004, 9:10 AM
I'll have to dig into it. I currently have a workflow that makes photoshop an easy choice. I do all of these things to stills for the web anyway (vegas moving out through photoshop to web stills) so it's a small step to reverse the process and then everything (web and video) will have the same look.

Using fonts for this in photoshop for the web output would be a lot harder, IMO than using the photoshop shape tools.

Do you have some favorite fonts of arrows, boxes, circles, thought bubbles, speech bubbles, caption bubbles, etc?

Rob Mack
rmack350 wrote on 5/13/2004, 10:15 AM
Wingdings3, which looks like it must have come with the system, has lots of arrows. This is definitely a good option for arrows because the text tool is quite flexible.

However, It seems a little fussy and not quite as fast as going to photoshop. also, the font edges look softer than shapes from photoshop.

So on the plus side you get drop shadows, color control, deformations, placement, stroke, and key frames all in one tool.

On the down side, you have to open something like character map to find the font, you can't use the text tool to rotate the font (small thing, just adds a step), font edges look soft(probably fixable), and the process is a little slower than going to photoshop-mainly because I don't use that many of the options and I have a lot of actions programmed in PS to do this stuff.

Anyway, the text tool is a great choice for arrows but you could find faster ways to do the job. Hard to believe but true.

Rob Mack
TorS wrote on 5/13/2004, 10:17 AM
I've mentioned 4 in the post above. I think between them they cover all the examples you listed. Then there's Carta-Normal, Animals, Animals 2 and Iconic Symbols Ext. To mention a few.
They are all TrueType freeware or came with Windows. The text generator will of course use all fonts installed on your PC.
Tor