Font Enhancements for Generated Media

2G wrote on 9/26/2003, 11:49 PM

Are there add-on packages that can enhance the font embellishment capabilities for generated screen titles? I'm not talking about adding more fonts to choose from. Rather ways to fancy up the ones I have. All I can do is outlines and shadows.

I moved from Pinnacle studio to V-V a while back. No comparison in 99% of the situations. But Studio has alot nicer font embellishment capabilites. (multicolor, textures, 3D, etc) I sure would like to get that same function (and more) in V-V.

Anything available?

Thanks.

2G

Comments

JohnnyRoy wrote on 9/27/2003, 12:27 AM

When I want fancy titles I use Real-DRAW PRO by MediaChance. It’s an outstanding drawing package in its own right. It allows you to quickly apply materials like brushed chrome, shiny gold, cloth, etc. with drop shadows, sun shadows, bevels, lights, etc. for a great 3D illusion. It is an excellent package for creating lower thirds as well as it has several preset transparency settings. Just export as a PNG file when you’re done and drop on the Vegas timeline. There is a free trial on the MediaChance site.

You could also buy a stand-alone copy of TitleDeko and have the same capabilities as Studio but you could only export static titles (i.e., no rolling credits) so it’s not worth spending all that money and only using half the function. You could also ask Pinnacle to make a TitleDeko plugin for Vegas. If enough people ask they just might do it (although Vegas competes directly with Edition and IHMO is better than Edition so why should they enhance a competitors product)

~jr

TorS wrote on 9/27/2003, 5:00 AM

If you want INSTANT fancy fonts I suppose you need to get a special program for it. But if you want specially designed fancy fonts - unlike anything anybody has in their videos - then use Vegas' filters, FXs, generated media, height maps, bump maps, more tracks, slowing down, speeding up, keyframes, pan/crop, track motion and colours.
But beware: most audiences do not care about fancy fonts, they want to know what you are saying, and judge your video by that.
Tor

Spot|DSE wrote on 9/27/2003, 9:32 AM

Don't forget that track motion provides shadows and glows in addition to what is available on the title, and you can always parent the text as a mask to another video or generated media underneath, keeping the text nice and clean, with video inside the text only

BillyBoy wrote on 9/27/2003, 9:53 AM

Generally, more specifically if over used so-called "fancy" fonts are a mistake. Its the same argument where you see people complaining about the look everytime the forum gets a facelift and change in color scheme. I'm not saying you should only use Times Roman or Arial, but overly fancy in your face fonts more often than not DETRACT from, not enhance your video.

In case you forget...

The purpose of text is SO IT CAN BE READ. If some people have trouble reading it or are totally put off by your choice all you've accomplish with those 'fancy fonts' is to annoy a certain segement of your audience.

mfranco wrote on 9/27/2003, 1:16 PM

If pinnacle studio was bundled with title deko or the deko pluggin you can still create titles in that and save them in TGA format for vegas.

That being said, you can get pretty much any text decoration out of vegas that pinnacle studio or title deko can generate. It's just not advertised or documented very well I guess.

Like TorS and SPOT recommend, If you view the text as a video event and treat it as such by using the built-in plugins, you can do anything with your titles. It's a lot more work but you benefit from learning how vegas works because the techniques work for video too.

There are a whole bunch of examples of how people use vegas for text at the Sundance Media Group and also the Vegas User Sharing Sites.

http://www.sundancemediagroup.com/
http://www.vegasusers.com/vidshare/

I have to respectfully disagree with BillyBoy on one point. Sometimes titles are used as a visual element within a film or video, For example "Seven" great opening titles, although I couldn't read a thing, they set up the movie perfectly. The same goes for the first Superman movie too. Anyway, Just my 2cents.

franco