@ALO

you know Photoshop ? then you might know how to Map video of "Water" ripples to the text to make the Text look like it is "Part Of the water ripples ( study photoshop for that and apply the technique to Vegas ) , Photoshop does that technique with a static single image , while Vegas can do that with Video ! Vegas is very much like photoshop . Also , you can use the Bezier mask drawing tool to make your text appear as if it were being "Hand Written" real-time . Similar to the "I Love Lucy" intro to the "I Love Lucy" TV show . circa early 1950's . For simple easier to do , effect , use FX Twirl , to introduce slight wavy effect .

in Vegas , find additional composite modes , in "Custom" , such as Height Map .

Another way to go about it would be to hand write some text in photoshop a bunch of different times, and play all the frames back to back, adjusting the length of each frame on the timeline to get the desired speed of the effect you are after. Depends on how "smooth" you need the wiggle to look... many cases where i've seen it, it's choppy due to using the method above.

Thanks for the help! This tutorial I found on using Vegas' displacement map looks like the best way to do this.

You might enjoy this one too.

I do like in the first video the guy says I don't know what this does, but I'm going to go ahead and click on it.

That's kind of the story of my life!

I did the opening titles of this video with Vegas' ProType Titler a few years ago. It's the only time I've ever used that program and I remember it taking me a long time to be happy with it. I've uploaded a VP12/13 project file here if you're interested. The font is probably missing but it should show the technique.

Nick not exactly the effect I was looking for but that sure looks nice! Thanks for the veg -- I definitely want to see how you did it.

The make something look like it's being handwritten you either need something like After Effects to do it easily. But since we are electing the way of pain, which still isnt so bad as long as you arent going to use to much is with complex masking. Didnt find a good tutorial but here is one for hitfilm that i've used before, however you can do the same thing in vegas. hitfilm free hand masking is the best i've ever used in terms of ease of use but since I got vegas pro 16 that legs you disable the magnet icon it's almost as good. just follow the same techinque and frame count.

Dimitrios, thanks for that link. His method is tedious and cumbersome but it works.

Now here's what I've been asking myself for quite some time..:why is there no software that can simply record something you write on a graphic pad in real time, to be then simply exported with alpha chanel?

Or is there?

There is a paint tool in AE that lets you jus draw on screen in whatever color you and you can determine how long each stroke takes to complete. I use it a few times in this video if you skip to the 40 second mark

@Mindmatter

Photoshop and Vegas both save with custom alpha channels , as we paint . Both programs do it in the same way .

The trick is : paint a shape\outline or solid shape . do NOT paint the entire project\canvas area . The un-painted areas will have Black in the alpha channel , while the painted areas are solid white . Gray scales too , appear in alpha channel when painting with Transparency . The only requirement is to save as 32 bit .png , or render video with 32 bit .avi Video for Windows , or possibly 32 bit .mov .

When an image covers the entire project settings size , the entire alpha channel is Solid White .

Photoshop Elements , CS , Vegas , Movie Studio , have all done this from their first versions .

the above is the Easiest way to make an alpha channel that is NOT Solid White .

There is a paint tool in AE that lets you jus draw on screen in whatever color you and you can determine how long each stroke takes to complete. I use it a few times in this video if you skip to the 40 second mark

Great, that's actually what I meant, although it would be even easier if you could simply hit record and write / paint away in real time and export it like a real time based video file. Still a really good way of doing it though, the speed parameter probably gives it even more flexibility.

@fan-boy

I know about the alpha chanel capabilities, it's not what I meant, it's about real time movement recording of painting or writing.

 

I know about the alpha chanel capabilities, it's not what I meant, it's about real time movement recording of painting or writing.

@Mindmatter - You wish to do this directly into VP?

 

I know about the alpha chanel capabilities, it's not what I meant, it's about real time movement recording of painting or writing.

@Mindmatter - You wish to do this directly into VP?

 

well that would of course be swell...but I thought more in the lines of a second party software like hitfilm or AE. It would be cool to be also able to draw arrows, lines, contours etc.. or the sort of animantions you see in geographical documentaries when they draw on maps and such.

Actually, I think this could work: open a graphic app like corel or PS, full screen, record your ( admittedly highly contrasted ) writing or painting with a screen recording software, import that file into VP and key it out with a luma key. A bit of a workaround but I reckon it could actually do the trick.

Using only Vegas' native tools, I'd like to create titles that look hand-written and "wiggle" a bit as the video plays. I can create my titles in photoshop as a static image, so that's not the issue. But I'm not sure how to get that wiggly look (hopefully you've seen this effect so you know what I'm talking about). Any ideas using what's in the box? Thanks!

Back to the OP - sorry for kinda hijacking your thread - I think how they could possibly do the wiggle is by hand writing, say, 3 or 4 times the same word ion a graphic pad, but with slight imperfections and variations, using layers to write on top of each other. You can then export the .pngs and alternate them in, say, 3 or 5 frames each per second. That would give you a kind of old school animation effect and make the letters wiggle. I happened to obseve one of these titles a while ago and noticed the wiggle followed a repetitive pattern, so that's how I concluded they might have done it.