Oh well you beat me to the other message I left you - sorry!

But yes, I can think of ways to do it - and I agree if you say they are painstaking then.... thought I'd ask the pros!

Grazie

Grazie, check out Cool 3D by Ulead---(not Cool 3d Studio---they just released it and render times are horrible). For under 50 dollars it will do exactly what you want.

Grazie, I'm not a pro; actually I'm rather new to Vegas. But I've done some moving letters or other symbols around and uploaded some examples. This was done before the 3DLE came along, so most of it should be even easier to do now. However, you'll find a zip with pre-3DLE examples here (1.3 MB):

Dancing fonts

If what you see looks like clipart it's only symbols from some font or other (mostly dingbats).

Tor

Thanks Guys! - I've got Paint Shop Pro 7.0 with Animation Shop 3. Do you or others have any views on using the animation part?

Grazie

Grazie-

You can make text move individually in VV3. Check out bounceNboom on SPOTS contest site: http://www.sundancemediagroup.com/help/download.html there may be other samples there as well.

TIP: When doing this sort of animation it is usually best to start at the end.

TRICK: For the animation bounceNboom I only keyframed one letter. The problem is when you go to copy/paste the keyframes from Event FX it won't work. You are able to copy, but as soon as you close the Event FX dialog box the clipboard is cleared, ergo no paste.

There is a workaround. The whole trick is you need to leave the Event FX dialog box you are copying from - open. So, open another instance of VV using the veg file you are working on, then copy your keyframes and paste to any Event FX in the original.

Thanks Swarrine - now THAT'S what I call a workaround! Very clever. Yes, I've downloaded SPOT's B 'n B - I'll trial it too. Some other good veggies there as well.

In UK we have U-Leads "Professional 3D Text and Graphics for Video" as well. Any comments? It comes out at £74gbp. Of course, U-Lead Cool 3d is cheaper - £45gbp.

As I have it already - any "take" on the Photo Shop's Animation Shop?

Grazie

Hi Grazie-

Animation is not really my bag. One thing I REALLY like about VV3 is that it does give the basic tools for animating and therefore I can avoid After Effects, Boris, Ulead, etc.

If I get a job that requires more, I would sub it out.

Good point! I've been given a simple little task to bring together to letters of a company's first two words - and slip them into a type of monograph -yes? It is just to simple to sub it out. If I can think I can achieve this through my spanking new VV all the better.

Basically I'm taking "ACME VIDEO" [fictitious of course!], and sliding the "A" and "V" into a monograph away from the original "ACME VIDEO" openning clip - yes?

Grazie

Should be easy enough to do. The hard part is deciding what you want to happen... There is also a morph plugin that may be useful in this situation.

Please telll me more.... if you have the time.

Thanks in advance

Grazie

Hi Grazie-

It may be easier to think of this project in reverse. Logo/intitials>company name. You can play the animation in reverse to get the desired effect.

Either way, decide a starting point and an ending point. Usually easier to work from the end to the start.

To line your letters correctly, type the whole Co. name in one text box, then use that to line up individual letters. You can then mute the whole Co. name and now you have individual letters to play with. At this point, you should save as, so you can start over if a new idea pops in to your head.

Now you can experiment with motion & effects.