titling question

dogwalker wrote on 8/25/2010, 8:00 PM
I saw a tutorial on using parent/child tracks to create a title on one track and have the background footage show only through the letters. Pretty neat so far, but now I'd like to extend it. I imagine someone here has already done this, and I'd appreciate help.

Basically, my title will be "PHILMONT" and I'm going to have some footage moving on the child track, which will appear in the PHILMONT letters (the rest of the screen will be black, I guess).

What I'd like to do is then slowly bring the rest of the child track up so that it eventually fills the screen (in essence the title is taken over by the rest and merges / vanishes).

Does that make sense? I know what I'm thinking, not sure I'm saying it too well, though.

Thanks.

Comments

dogwalker wrote on 8/25/2010, 8:03 PM
Ok, as I was typing that, an idea came to me, and it works. However, I wonder if it's the "best" way, as I'm tying up three tracks now.

I copied the child event to another track above the title and inserted a "composite level" envelope (I wonder why it's not called "opacity") and set it to zero, then brought it to 100%.

It works, but is there a better way?
Chienworks wrote on 8/26/2010, 3:40 AM
You can accomplish it more easily with your first method. In the text event use keyframes to gradually change the background from black/transparent to white.
Rory Cooper wrote on 8/26/2010, 4:33 AM
I presume you are using white text as a mask.

So track one parent composite multiply mask, as it has an alpha channel you don’t need to apply mask gen fx

Fade the mask track would be one way

here is a added drop shadow and added linier blur to bottom track and lessened the fx to match fade of mask


freeLANCEr wrote on 8/26/2010, 6:44 AM
Yoh Rory! that looks great. Thanks for the tip!
dogwalker wrote on 8/26/2010, 7:33 AM
That's very nice work!

Thanks for the tips, guys, I'll try both methods. Always good to have more than one way to do something!
TeetimeNC wrote on 8/26/2010, 12:40 PM
And yet another idea... I like the technique the old "Alias" show used when the scene changed to a new city. Say the upcoming scene was in Athens. A shot of Athens would show through an Athens text mask. Then the mask would exit rapidly through the foreground accompanied by a swoosh to fully expose the underlying Athens shot.

/jerry
Earl_J wrote on 8/26/2010, 6:12 PM
Well,
now that I know of what you're attempting ...
Here is a short tutorial I created with the help of Title Genius...

Tutorial

A bit long (6 minutes) ... feel free to skip to the end to see the fruits of my labor. . .

Until that time... Earl J.
dogwalker wrote on 8/26/2010, 9:05 PM
Ok, I had trouble at first, but I think I have the "transition from black to white" option working, and now I'm dabbling with the linear blur approach.

Once I get what I want, is there a way to render it out and then use it in my master video? The reason I ask is that, by making one track a child of the other and using multiply, it seems those two tracks are useful only for the titling?

BTW, Earl, how do you like Title Genius? I've just received my VASST dvd on Protype Titler training, but I'm interested in all sorts of titling options. I have some Digital Juice Editor Toolkits and Fonts, too, have messed with them some.
Rory Cooper wrote on 8/26/2010, 11:24 PM
Dogwalker once you have a mask track parent Multiply mask then it can only be used as a mask track so one way to use the track after the text is faded is to place a solid white panel full screen on the mask track and use this as a mask. This could be used in many creative ways as it allows you to manipulate the transition between masks

So you don’t need to render the mask track out, just create new tracks and continue with the sequence. But if you prefer you can render the text out to a png sequence as this will give the mask with alpha channel and import it to a new project

example


I used iris transition between text mask and flat mask
Used newsprint fx on clip below mask add that to same clip to pop color to newsprint “otherwise it’s a bit dark and gloomy”
musicvid10 wrote on 8/27/2010, 2:31 AM
Rory et al,

Your examples reminded me of a transition effect I invented in Video SpiceRack several years back. It used a B/W of image B as the mask iirc.

http://shell.dim.com/~musicvid/images/Trans.mpg

How would one approach this in Vegas? I've never tried, but I still love the effect.
dogwalker wrote on 8/27/2010, 8:31 AM
Rory, I love your stuff! You're giving me great ideas.

I'm hoping to create videos/slideshows:
(a) one for the Troop showing our summer activities
(b) several for our Philmont crew, covering our backpacking
(c) a nice video for my wife, celebrating our 25-year anniversary (using footage and photos over the years)

Just takes time and creativity! Unfortunately, I'm short on both. :-)
Earl_J wrote on 8/27/2010, 4:38 PM
dogwalker,
I like it just fine ... if you've seen the video I referenced, you'll see it helps me quite a bit with building the parent/child relationship; if you have all of that sort of thing figured out now, TG may not bring you much advantage... I must admit I haven't played with every effect just yet; my impression so far is that it is a time-saver if you do not have a full grasp on building Sony and PTT specials of your own...
Much like PTT, which I am becoming a bit more comfortable with the more I play with it, if you have the fundamentals fully grasped, the advanced becomes much easier to figure out ...
For the complex, I use one of the collection effects, then adjust the text and keyframes from that point ... once I figure thagt sort of thing out, I can begin to understand how it was created, and finally get a feel for building an effect from scratch. . .
I believe I might very well purchase a PTT dvd myself. . .
I'm not much of DJ fan ... way too expensive for my hobbyist budget... (grin)

Until that time ... Earl J.
dogwalker wrote on 8/27/2010, 7:39 PM
Earl J, I have to agree. I went through a phase where I bought several DJ things, watching for sales each time (for example, each Editor Toolkit was $14), but after a while I realized how much I'd spent! And I'm just a hobbyist, like you said!

Same with Bluff Titler. At first, I liked it, and then I bought their first two DPacks, and suddenly realized, "holy cow, I could have bought Proshow Producer rather than all these things!"

So I'm done buying extra stuff for now. I'm going to learn to use what I have! Oh, wait, I did buy a few VASST training dvds recently, when they were on sale (thank goodness my wife's patient!).

Well, I did quit playing a certain online game which had a monthly fee, so I'm "saving" money there. :-)

Just the stuff I've seen and read about in this one thread will keep me busy all weekend!
Earl_J wrote on 8/27/2010, 10:05 PM
dogwalker,
I agree... after a while, one begins to wonder how difficult it might be to just learn it as you go to keep from spending so much for the help of others . . . I think that training DVDs are always a good investment, no?
Well, to learn the basics or advanced techniques in a certain version perhaps... it might make it easier to retain learning from version to version if the manufacturers don't change things without keeping track or informing those who upgrade or purchase the newer version. . .
Some manufacturers might include a few "undocumented features" that they believe to be enhancements ... for me, not so much ... (lol)

I hear you about the games... I just spent a few hours playing scrabble, for free, but still as much a time vacuum as any other. . . (sigh)

Until that time ... Earl J.
dogwalker wrote on 8/27/2010, 11:51 PM
Woot! I finally found out just how simple it is to fade that title track to white (making it completely transparent). Just turn on "Automation Settings" for the title track, which then allows fading it "to color" (in this case, to transparency).

Nice!
Byron K wrote on 8/28/2010, 12:07 PM
Reply by: dogwalker, Date: 8/27/2010 4:39:14 PM
I could have bought Proshow Producer rather than all these things!"

I think someone mentioned Proshow Producer a while back and I went to their website viewed the demos again to recall what it can do.

IMHO, yes it's a cool piece of software but the xitions are a little to cheezy, though it does have some nice backgrounds etc. but I feel that Vegas 9 can do almost all of the panning, zooming etc and most of us on this forum have the equipment and talent to create our own backgrounds in Vegas.

I've taken the advice from someone on this forum to always have a small video cam just for those moments where a picture or short video can be taken for b-roll, background stock footage.

Good practice for newbies like me, would be to re-create the ProShow templates in Vegas and create our own .veg libraries.
dogwalker wrote on 8/29/2010, 6:53 AM
Byron, I agree on all your points. I told a guy at work that I like the features of Proshow Producer (I don't use it, I use MemoriesOnTv and Vegas), but I get tired of all the glitz when watching the sample slideshows. I find that after a minute or so, they're distracting from the story of the slideshow.

My biggest gripe with Vegas, if I can call it that, is that it takes a lot longer to create a slideshow in Vegas than in MemoriesOnTv.

However, Vegas makes it easier to work with titles and to time my slides with music (I just drop a marker where I want to put the photos, while listening to the music). And of course, it's multi-tracked.

What I really want/need to do is just what you said - take the time to create a lot of templates, AND to work on my workflow.

In my case, when creating slideshows, I'd say the hardest parts are finding music, and planning/creating titles.