ProTypeTitle ( oh yes!) Alpha Background? Why?

Grazie wrote on 12/30/2009, 12:54 AM
Even if I DO select it, in the Preview Properties, it doesn't change anything?

Preview Properties | Preview | Background | Custom Colour | Alpha to 0.00

Amazingly the little window shows the transparent CHEQUER maquee, but NOTHING changes within the workspace?

Added to which the Event IS transparent on the timeline anyway - eh?

Somebody please illuminate me on the function of this "feature"?

TIA

Grazie

Comments

farss wrote on 12/30/2009, 2:27 AM
"Somebody please illuminate me on the function of this "feature"?"

You cannot illuminate anything with Alpha = 0.00, light just goes clean through it :)

That is only for the background of the preview workspace, nothing at all to do with the output. I agree, it does seem utterly redundant. Most likely though PTT just calls its standard color picker dialog code module. A generic one (which is good coding) would need to be able to return an alpha value when it's used to select the color of the text.

Bob.
Grazie wrote on 12/30/2009, 2:42 AM
> "A generic one (which is good coding) would need to be able to return an alpha value when it's used to select the color of the text."

Ah! I see, the coding version of a transparent "Red Herring"! - So programmers pull this off-the-shelf bit of code in the likelihood it will do what they want, oh, and BTW, you also get an ALPHA channel. But of course here it is without value. Bit like the greyed out Sync-Cursor in all Generated Media too?

Grazie
farss wrote on 12/30/2009, 3:09 AM
"Bit like the greyed out Sync-Cursor in all Generated Media too?"

Yes.
The more hand crafted code module you have the more debugging you have to do. Plus if someone finds a bug in the generic color picker you only have to fix it in one place.
Now if it was me, well as you know I'm a very bad coder, I think, "What will a human make of this?" and "How many support calls will this create?". It also helps job security, only Bob will ever figure out how it works :)


Bob.
fausseplanete wrote on 1/16/2010, 6:41 AM
Looks like I just spotted I was victim to this one.

Checking levels were in Studio range, discovered my ProType text wasn't. Tried just adding a Studio-black track underneath [16 16 16 255] but it had no effect. It's like ProType wasn't even generating alpha, it was generating superblack, overriding any track underneath. Next I tried adding Levels to the ProType as its Event FX but it didn't affect the "super-black" background, just the non-superblacks. Finally tried going into ProType and setting its background color. As stated in this thread, it had no effect. If I closed it and opened it again, my custom background color was there still in ProType's properties pane, it just didn't show up in the actual project.

Awful basic bug affecting the ability to deliver broadcast levels. Fix these sorts of things Sony, never mind the frills.

My (eventual) workaround (flipping heck!):

1) Create a track above the track containing the offending ProType.
2) In that track:
a) Change that track's Composite mode to Add
b) Add a solid color (from Media Generators).
c) Set the solid color value to [16 16 16 255]

It's not simply that ProType has a transparent (alpha 0) background, otherwise the black under-track trick would have worked. I found a similar effect once before when using feathered masks (in pan/crop tool) - the feathered bit goes superblack and isn't fixable by black under-track etc. either.
fausseplanete wrote on 1/16/2010, 6:46 AM
Doh!

...forgot to set the black under-track to [16 16 16 255]. It was at [0 0 0 255]. So it is about alpha after all. Still, the ProType background ought to be fixed.