Gradient text over video track using movie studio

scrubus wrote on 3/21/2011, 6:45 PM
I posted a similar question earlier, but now I have a more detailed version of the question.
I have a person filmed with a green screen behind them, I have a picture behind them on a seperate track and this part work out great. I have text in a lower corner of the same video that is just 1 color. Up to this point everything works out fine. What I would like to do is change each line of the text to have a color gradient that is yellow on the top and changes to orange on the bottom. I can create a gradient with the text but I can't figure out how to introduce the text over the video without losing everything behind the text, such as the person and the image I layed over the green screen?
Can this be done in Movie studio HD or do I have to upgrade to Vegas?
I hope this makes sense.
Thanks for your help,
Scrubus

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 3/21/2011, 8:19 PM
I think it can be done in Vegas Studio versions 6 and newer. You need to use masking.

track 1 - text event
track 2 - color gradient
track 3 - video of person
track 4 - background image

Make sure the text event is white text on a transparent or black background. Add the Sony Mask effect, and set the compositing mode to multiply/mask. Wherever the text is white it will show the color from the gradient on track 2. Wherever it's transparent/black you'll see whatever is below track 2, namely tracks 3 & 4.
TOG62 wrote on 3/22/2011, 1:09 AM
... and track 2 needs to be a compositing child.
scrubus wrote on 3/22/2011, 5:06 AM
So if I use 2 seperate lines of text that each need identical gradients, do I need to create 2 seperate instances using compositing and overlay them or would I composite all 4 tracks?

Thanks for helping the newby.
Chienworks wrote on 3/22/2011, 6:50 AM
You could stretch the gradient event on track 2 across the entire project so that you only need one of them. It will only show up where there is text masking it. Of course, that's assuming you want the same gradient for all the text events. It could certainly be different for each one if you wanted it to be.

Tracks 1 & 2 are independent of tracks 3 & 4. I'm not sure what you mean by composite all 4 tracks.
scrubus wrote on 3/22/2011, 7:06 AM
Thanks for the reply.
If I have 2 lines of Text and each line gradients from yellow on the top
to orange on the bottom, would I need to create 2 seperate text events to accomplish this?
Thanks.
TOG62 wrote on 3/22/2011, 7:56 AM
Unless someone comes up with a better method I think you may have to create two text events and two background layers. The positions of the gradients would then have to be matched by eye to correspond with the lines of text.
Chienworks wrote on 3/22/2011, 11:03 AM
The gradient generator lets you create multiple sets of gradients within the same event so you can do this with a single text event and single gradient event. However, alignment can get dicey. Personally i'd create the gradient background in an image/photo editor and save it as a still image rather than using Vegas' gradient generator.

For that matter, i'd probably do the whole text event in a photo editor and import them into Vegas with a keyable background.