How do I add a semi-translucent shape overlay? Cookie cutter?

gmr wrote on 3/17/2018, 3:27 PM

I just want to add a black semi-translucent box behind some text, to give it more contrast. Is there a simple way to just draw a box, somewhere? I tried adding a solid color from media generator, and I figured I'd use the cookie cutter effect to crop it down, but I don't see any way to customize the shape of the cookie cutter. Is there a way to change the shape/aspect ratio of the cookie cutter shapes? Is there an easier method?

Comments

Marco. wrote on 3/17/2018, 3:31 PM

You could set the text background to the desired color and opacity inside the title FX and then crop the title object with Pan/Crop.

3POINT wrote on 3/17/2018, 3:50 PM

To visualize what Marco means:

gmr wrote on 3/17/2018, 4:08 PM

That's fine for the text itself, but I'm looking for a rectangular shape that's not tied to the size of the text box. Something like this:

3POINT wrote on 3/17/2018, 4:37 PM

Same way:

gmr wrote on 3/17/2018, 5:53 PM

Ah, I hadn't noticed the lock aspect ratio button to make that work, thanks! Last question- some more experimenting seems to show that I can use "Track Motion" to position the "bar" and text at the bottom of the screen, but is there a way to adjust this position without it being track-wide? That's fine, but it might be nice to have that flexibility.

Marco. wrote on 3/17/2018, 9:10 PM

You don't need Track Motion to position the text, you can do same within the title tool.

If you use "Titles &Text" take a look at the "Location" area of it.

gmr wrote on 3/18/2018, 1:35 AM

Yeah, I saw that I can move the location of the text around, but then the cropped "background" stays at the same place, and just the text moves "behind" it. The same thing with moving the outline in the crop tool: the text moves, but the bar stays at the center. I did also just discover that using the Picture In Picture effect lets me move the whole thing, too: I can just set the scale at 1.0 and slide it up and down. Is this a dumb way to do it? :) I really appreciate all the help, by the way, my video editing skills are very primitive, and I'm still trying to get the internal logic of this program nailed down!

Here's some examples of what I mean: the first is cropped and using either the text position or shifting the crop box, the second is using the PiP effect (and yes, I'll use any excuse to keep posting this picture):

3POINT wrote on 3/18/2018, 1:57 AM

First make your text event like Marco explained and position text at desired location, than crop this text event as you like it.
(Make sure these buttons are disabled to freely crop the text event)

No need to use trackmotiontool or PIP/crop effect.

Another approach to achieve this, is to use an extra track for the background when you also would like to animate text and background separately.

gmr wrote on 3/18/2018, 10:13 AM

Well, now I've got this nailed down! I had everything set up exactly as your screenshots, but it wasn't getting the same result as your images. After a bit of swearing, I discovered that if I do anything to pan/crop before changing the settings, they don't all seem to apply retroactively, so it'd get stuck in the middle. If I changed everything and then started cropping, it's trivially easy! Oh well, I've learned a ton about how Movie Studio works during this little adventure.

Thanks for all the help, folks!