Getting Improved Text Capabilities

brentnhunter wrote on 5/3/2008, 2:21 PM

I have Sony Vegas Pro 8 and for the most part, it does everything I need it to do. However, compared to a few other editors such as the ridiculously buggy Pinnacle series, the text capabilities seem to have lots of room for improvement. I'm not sure if it's because I don't know what I'm doing or if I need an extra text plugin or what. For example a few years ago I created a video where three lines of text appeared in the video, first the word "The" on the first line, then "United" faded in underneath "The" on the second line, and then after that "States" faded in on the third line. It was a very nice effect but for the life of me I can't figure out how to do this with Vegas Pro.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts or suggestions anyone might have.

Cheers

Brent

Comments

jrazz wrote on 5/3/2008, 2:25 PM

place three generated text media events on the timeline on three tracks. Stagger them (stair step) and pull out the fades on the left hand side to make them fade in.
Also, in the generated media properties, you can change placement to move the text to where you want.

You may want to look into purchasing the Vasst training DVD's for Vegas. They will help you immensely. Hope that helps.

By the way, check out the protype titler. (if you don't know where it is at, look at the help file).

j razz

Laurence wrote on 5/3/2008, 9:32 PM

Vegas 8 added the Pro Titler which is supposed to be a whole lot better than the old text animating tools. Unfortunately it totally confuses me.

I love and use Heroglyph from ProDad for my animated titles. It is easy to use and pretty much does what you want it to.

farss wrote on 5/3/2008, 10:45 PM

All of the above will work but it's a bit more work than it needs to be.
1) Put the full text on the first track.
2) Copy it down to the second and third tracks, all you need is ctl+ drag.
3) When Vegas pops up a dialogue box that asks if you want to create another instance or just create a reference, select the latter.
4) Use the Event Pan/Crop icon to create a bezier mask for each word, so only the first line appear on the track line etc.
5) Slide the events around and adjust fade in/out using the fade handles or track compositing envelopes.

This avoids having to fiddle around with positioning the words.
Also the selection we made at 3) means if you make a typo you can edit the text and all three copies will update because they're not copies! Check the Project Media. You'll find only one Sony Text n. If you tell Vegas to create another instance then you'll find Text 1, Text 2 and Text 3 sitting there. A minor point that can keep your project smaller and easier to manage. Same goes for all generated media.

Bob.

JohnnyRoy wrote on 5/4/2008, 8:29 AM

This is extremely simple to do using the new ProType Titler:

1) Insert Generated Media | Sony ProType Titler
2) Add your text (The [enter] United [enter] States [esc])
3) Highlight the Text Block and select the Layout tab
4) Press the Keyframe button to the left of the Selection parameter
5) Move the selection slider to the left to make the text disappear at the first keyframe
6) Move the timeline cursor to the end and set the selection slider to the right to make the text appear at the last keyframe

Press the Play button and your text will fade onto the screen. There are lots of other things you can keyframe. Once you understand how it works, the ProType Titler is a powerful tool.

~jr

brentnhunter wrote on 5/4/2008, 2:25 PM

Thank you!