How to create outline for rolling credits?

Sebaz wrote on 2/9/2008, 8:41 AM

I'm editing a high school play and I'm using the credit roll generator for the end credits. My problem is that I want the credits to roll overimposed with the play is over and the kids are waving at the audience, and at times they're hard to read, so I'm trying to find a solution. I tried applying a glow filter, but that doesn't make it a lot better, plus it looks awful when compressed to DVD, and Bump Map "kind of" creates an outline but it looks crappy. Any suggestions?

Comments

gpsmikey wrote on 2/9/2008, 8:55 AM

What works fairly well if I understand what you are asking is to
desaturate the kids in the background - maybe to 50% - you can
still see them, but they no longer dominate the display. Also,
a black outline on the font helps and a drop shadow - you'll have
to play with that. I do the same thing but with different software
for my slideshows.... the result will be the same though - you
can't make the text more obvious beyond a certain point, so you
make the background less obvious. Almost forgot - something
else that often helps is to make the background darker (turn down
the brightness on the background clip).

mikey

Sebaz wrote on 2/9/2008, 9:15 AM

Desaturating wouldn't work because there would still be white areas that blend with the white text. As for making the background darker, I would prefer not to do that. The problem is that while the text generator in Vegas has the possibility of adding outline and drop shadow, the credit roll one doesn't. I guess it's meant only for typical movie end credits that are white on black background. Right now I'm testing a combination of bump map with certain settings that kind of create an outline and the Min and Max filter which makes the text look bolder. But I would like something simpler, kind of like the drop shadow and outline in regular text.

TGS wrote on 2/9/2008, 10:58 AM

If you know how to use Event pan/crop, you can then Right click on timeline, choose "Insert Text Media"
Then write all the credits, from top to bottom, and then you can add 'Shadows' and/or 'Outline' from the 'Effects' tab. Colors too.
The using pan/crop, you make the lettering move at the pace you want.
If you've never used Event pan/crop, it's the white square Icon in the timeline at the end of a video or Text media. It's fairly easy to use. But too long for me to write out.

Kennymusicman wrote on 2/9/2008, 11:09 AM

Go to track motion, and select 2d shadow/2d glow. Adjust parameters as desired.

Cheno wrote on 2/9/2008, 11:45 AM

Something that's the trend with television and film is to roll credits on one side of the frame and video on the other. Easy to do with pan / crop or track motion

cheno

bStro wrote on 2/9/2008, 11:49 AM

Sebaz, could you post a screencap or few of the background video that will be beneath the credits? That'll give us an idea of what you're dealing with.

Rob

Sebaz wrote on 2/9/2008, 5:38 PM

Yes, I could've done that, but I started typing the long list of names under the Credit Roll generator and it would've been time consuming to transfer all that to the regular text generator.

But I managed to achieve what I wanted anyway. I don't know why it didn't occurred to me before, but I created another video track, duplicated the credit roll to it starting at the same exact frame, and to the one on the bottom I changed the font color to black, then applied the Min and Max filter to make the text bolder thus creating a black outline for the white text, and finally I applied a tiny blur to it to make it look better.

Former user wrote on 2/9/2008, 6:49 PM

You could have also used the Shadow or Glow on Track Motion.

Dave T2

Sebaz wrote on 2/9/2008, 8:15 PM

Thanks for the tip. I'm new to Vegas so I hadn't learned to use that yet, but I tried it on your advice and yes, I can accomplish that with less render time, so that's what I'm using now.