OK.. what is the "trick" to using Graffiti? - SOLUTION

Liam_Vegas wrote on 8/8/2004, 11:03 PM
[BREAKING NEWS!!!!!! - I actually got a call from a support guy at Boris... and we sepnt about 30 minutes going through a whole load of tests. It turns out that he could duplicate the timing issue but not the white "border"... and he had a work-around to the duration issue as well. Problem was that his work-arounds would not work... UNTIL he got me to delete the Graffiti INI files in the \Windows directory. As soon as I did that everything works... no stupid white borders where there should be none and no issues with duration] More details in my post below

I have the full version of Graffiti (not the free bundled version)

My problem is related to an unwanted white border that appears around the text effect that I am creating... that obviously I don't want to be there!

[EDIT: This white "border" effect is ONLY visible if you have a bit of light colored background beneath the graffiti event. If you simply have a black background you will not see what I am experiencing]

What I am trying to do is just overlay some Graffiti text on top of some video I have in Vegas. I do this by inserting an empty event and applying the Graffiti plug-in as an effect onto this event. The default "project" in Graffiti creates a black background which I simply delete in the hope that my text will then be simply overlayed over the top of my underlying video track. This sort of works as my text does display overlayed over the video... BUT.

Problem is the text has an unwanted small "white" colored border around the blue colored text. I cannot find any setting that is creating this white border (no edge style has been selected).

I have a feeliing that I am doing something wrong here... but I cannot figure out what.

And by the way... apart from this little "issue" I am actually finding Graffiti to be pretty easy to use... and it has some very powerful features. Hopefully I can get this problem licked and then I can start using it!

Thanks

Comments

kentwolf wrote on 8/8/2004, 11:58 PM
>>...the text has an unwanted small "white" colored border around the blue colored text...

Highlight the text you want to change, presumably all, then click on the Style Pallette.

There you can change the style.

On the tabs are also all of the manual settings, but the style pallette makes it a little easier.

(For your border issue: Open the text dialog (where you entrer the text. On the lower half of the text dialog, see the fourth tab down from the top.. Look at the little checks/"X's" where edge colors are set. Adjust as necessary.)
Liam_Vegas wrote on 8/9/2004, 12:02 AM
There IS NO setting selected for the border.... that is why I am puzzled,

In my case I can get this "problem" when I do the following

Create an empty event.
Add the Graffiti FX
Type some text (into the default text track)
Delete the default background.
Apply

If you follow those steps exactly (at least for me it does this).. there is NO border/shadow or any other effect other than the color of the text set (although of course I still get that odd white border around the text)

Are you doing something different than me to make this work?

Thanks for the help.
kentwolf wrote on 8/9/2004, 12:04 AM
In the text dialog, what does the fourth tab from the top say/show?

Graffitti positively does have the outline settings where I stated.

What do you see?
Liam_Vegas wrote on 8/9/2004, 12:11 AM
nothing is checked on that "panel"... so I would presume it is not in effect,. I checked this before to see what impact it would have. If I check it and set the color to be something (like black or red or anything) then I get a border around the text just like you would expect. The silly thing is that when this is unchecked - that is when I then get that white border around the text.

My text is colored blue (the default it seems) and with the background there (before I delete it) there is no sign of this funny white border that I end up with (you would think that it would be visible against the black background as well right?).

There is no setting for the shadow either (and when I force the shadow on... I get one just like you would expect).

kentwolf wrote on 8/9/2004, 12:13 AM
Could it possibly be the result of a low resolution preview?

>>Are you doing something different than me to make this work?

No.
Liam_Vegas wrote on 8/9/2004, 12:21 AM
I rendered.. and get the same effect in preview (in all modes).

Darn it... I really did hope it was something odd I was doing.

Maybe I have to alter the OpenGL settings in Graffiti (as I think it uses that engine to render). Graffiti reported that my video card is unsupported for OpenGL use (it is an ATI Radeon 7500).

I enabled OPENGL anyway.. and everything <seemed> to work... but perhaps it does not quite work right!
kentwolf wrote on 8/9/2004, 12:24 AM
Open GL will not affect your render.

I used to use Graffitti with an ATI Radeon 7200.

While it had no Open GL support, all worked just fine. The preview was just a little slower.

If you want to list your e-mail address, I can send you a project file that I positively know doesn't have a border. It would be a Red file, but Graffitti suports Red text files too.

Would be interesting to see if you get the same effect/result.

It's up to you.
Liam_Vegas wrote on 8/9/2004, 12:28 AM
I would like to check that out... please send to

Liam dot Kennedy at ImageBEAM dot com

Thanks.

and by the way.. yep.. chaging OpenGL off made no difference.
kentwolf wrote on 8/9/2004, 12:41 AM
I just sent them.

As I said in my e-mail, I need to run to the mail box.

I will be back in about 15 mninutes.

Post your results.
kentwolf wrote on 8/9/2004, 12:58 AM
Liam:

Anything yet?
Liam_Vegas wrote on 8/9/2004, 1:04 AM
Just checking now.
Liam_Vegas wrote on 8/9/2004, 1:07 AM
I get an error in Graffiti telling me I need to have Red in order to open those files.
kentwolf wrote on 8/9/2004, 1:11 AM
Hold on...
kentwolf wrote on 8/9/2004, 1:13 AM
I just sent the same files, *.grf format...
Grazie wrote on 8/9/2004, 1:21 AM
Yeah, I had that prob when PAW sent me some RED stuff . . funny how when you think it should and then it don't?

Grazie


.. . oooo I'm listening really hard to know what happens here .. .
Liam_Vegas wrote on 8/9/2004, 1:33 AM
The grf files have the same error.,,,,

I am now testing using some of the more "exotic" styles (ones with bevels/shadows that are pre-set) and so far I am not seeing the white border. This makes me think it is something that happens purely when there is no border active, I guess I'll be experimenting a bit more here before I can figure out what is going on.

<Grazie> Are you seeing any of this in your copy of Graffiti now?
Grazie wrote on 8/9/2004, 1:37 AM
Hold on .. . just booting up the MONSTA! . .. Another thing is that I'm up for a reinstall this moring [ UK London 9:35am, yeah ] so I may need to fall away from "beta" testing with you . .. yah wanna go
Vegas Cafe?

http://www.gooddogproductions.com/chat/vegas_cafe.htm

I'll keep a weather eye out - yeah?

Grazie
Liam_Vegas wrote on 8/9/2004, 2:19 AM
And I just noticed another odd "feature" of my installation. When I set the length of a graffiti effect (within the graffiti keyframer) to say 4 seconds.. the lenght within Vegas is halved. Only just noticed that... although I wonder how I missed that before.

I did some further tests and rendered a TGA sequence from the keyframer (did an export) and then loaded that back into the project above the event with the graffiti FX of the (sopposedly) same effect. The TGA sequence comes out perfect.

Maybe I need to go for a full re-boot... or perhaps I just need to sleep on it!

Mighty strange!!!
Grazie wrote on 8/9/2004, 2:27 AM
Ho yes . . here we go again . .. Grazie
Liam_Vegas wrote on 8/9/2004, 2:36 AM
Here is some more junk on this.

With the preview mode set to "draft" the graffiti stuff appears to be the correct length as I set in the keyframer. When I change preview to best (or if I render the segment tyo a new track) then it cuts it down by 1/2. No wonder I have not always been noticing this. What IS going on?

I guess it is time to call the developers of this product and get some direct support.
Grazie wrote on 8/9/2004, 3:08 AM
Good - isn't it? . .. . Grazie
InterceptPoint wrote on 8/9/2004, 6:13 AM
Liam Vegas wrote: "the length within Vegas is halved ..."

Well I have certainly seen this problem before. See the following link for my report on the halving of the duration of a 50 second Grafitti Credit Roll when it was imported into Vegas.

Graffiti-Vegas Problem
Liam_Vegas wrote on 8/9/2004, 10:37 AM
In that report I notice you said it was fixed by adjusting the playback rate of the graffiti event to 0.5. That does not seem to work for me. Also - did you notice my finding that in preview mode the event plays correctly - it is only in preview/best or when you actually render that you get this issue?

I have sent a sampel Veg of these issues to Boris support. I'll report back anything they find.
Liam_Vegas wrote on 8/9/2004, 10:39 AM
Oh...

This white "border" effect is ONLY visible if you have a bit of light colored background beneath the graffiti event. If you simply have a black background you will not see what I am experiencing.