Oh no... not another Title clip question...

[drdean]

Hi All

Yes I'm afraid that I have another title clip question for you all.

I'm using the fly command on a title clip to make rolling credits. This works fine. However, I do not seem to have enough control over the font format that I need to format the credits exactly as I want them.

When I hit return in the title box I can start a new line of text but the gap between this line and the previous line is too large for the format that I want (it seems to have a minimum gap determined by font size). I ideally want the top of the text in the new line to "almost touch" the bottom of the text in the preceeding line (if you see what I mean).

I need some control over the line spacing in the title box. Is this possible?

I'm using MSP7.3 on Windows XP.

Thanks
Dean

[rwernyei]

Dean,
Here's a couple of ways of doing it:

1) Create your desired text and spacing in a photo editing program and save with alpha channel if needed for overlay purposes (TGA, PNG, GIF, PSD, etc...). Then use Moving Path and set beginning and ending keyframes to create rolling credits.

2) Use MSP7's CG Infinity module.

Hope this helps.

[drdean]

Hi rwernyei

Thanks very much for your tips. I used to use Photoshop to make the rolling credits in just this way. The problem here was that I hit the 4000 pixel (or whatever it is) limit on image size on the moving path. So generally I had to split the credits and make sure that each block was the same height and scroll time (or else the blocks would scroll at different speeds). It's just a pity as the fly command is so much easier to configure but has this format restriction on it.

I thought about having each line of the credit on a separate title block with its own fly command but this just gets messy.

I've never actually used CG Infinity. Is this method just basically another way of creating an image for MSP or is it a bit cleverer than that? Is it possible to precisly control text formats and then link this into MSP7 so that the text remains configurable?

Cheers
Dean

[Devil]

One of the problems with v. 7.3 titles with long rolling credits is that it takes an eternity to render them when you have finished. I rarely use them but I did on a couple of occasions, using the external Corel Draw!/overlay/moving path technique (much faster). However, on one occasion, the guy I was doing it for was shocked that it seemed to go on for ever (the clip was over 1 minute long, necessary for it to be readable) and he asked me to replace it with a five-line credit. He realised that no one ever read such long credits. On another occasion, I was able to halve the time by having two-column credits (the time limitation is not the amount of text but the speed of scrolling it. In fact, I found that rapidly F/Xing pages of fixed text is quicker to read than scrolling text).

I remember when I was beta-testing MSP8 that I deliberately did a very long scrolling title and it worked well with shorter rendering times. I tried to find a reference to it in my archives. I found, in early beta-testing (several months before release of 8.0) that there were problems such as limit of the imported txt/rtf files to 10 kb but my main beef was the way it handled non-Latin characters (still not very good).

[rwernyei]

Dean,
In CG Infinity, one can create text and add motion with start-end keyframes. I am not aware if it has a character limitation but it works much better than MSP's titler. I use it for titling, masking, lower-thirds with/without gradients, etc... Once CG project is done, save as XXX.ucg and switch to Video Editor. Upon import step, click add video and browse to XXX.ucg project file and it will keep alpha channel for overlay purposes. If needed, one can use moving path, filters, etc...

Hope this helps.

If you have any questions PM or email me.

[Gra]

Hi

I've used CGI a few times and the results have been good (but you need to spend a bit of time playing with it if you've never used it before). Also I found it is limited in length (I'm with Devil in relation to making sure any credits are either neceesary or achieve a purpose - i.e. I did some jokey credits mixed in with the serious ones, which was part of the overall movie).

Although I'm wth MSP8 now, I think titling remains the same and I've used the way rwernyei suggested also and imported a PNG to the timeline as an image and added a basic moving path. It with a massively long and there didn't seem to be any problems with size (did you import to a timeline or in to the title under insert title clip?)

[drdean]

Hi Guys

Thanks for your comments.

Right, here's what I'm doing... and I'm using MSP7.3 on XP.

I'm accurately replicating the credits from a 1960s style roller caption. (These were originally made by using letraset transfers and hand making each credit onto transparency paper. This was then rolled past a camera using a roller caption machine - but I digress).

Anyway I create the credits in photoshop because MSP7 does not give me the flexibility in font format. Specifically there is a minimum distance between consecutive lines which is just too big on the default settings in the titler. I need a very specific format where consecutive lines almost touch. Interestingly, I've also been unable to get the format that I need in MS-Word. The control over line spacing seems pretty poor. It's possible to INCREASE the spacing beyond the default value but REDUCING it is not easy. You get into all sorts of problems with the tops of letters being chopped off. The only reasonably easy way to get the format that I want it is in Photoshop.

Now I can create a complete very tall roller caption graphic in Photoshop. Typically this would be something like 12,000 pixels high by 768 wide. Which is not actually very tall compared to the length of movie credtis. Obviously if I import that image/graphic into MSP with no path it gets squashed to 720x576 (I'm in the UK). This is no use so I'd like to add a path to it to restore it to 12,000x768 (or 720) but I cannot do this as MSP7 has a limit on the size of image that can be used within a moving path. I can't remember the actual limit (I'm on my work PC at present) but I think its 4096 pixels high.

So what I have to do is chop the graphic up into chunks that are 4000 pixels high. I can then add a path to these and scroll them. It's important that each chuck of graphic is the same start point and end point on the moving path and that it occupies the same amount of time in the timeline or else the chunks would scroll at different speeds (speed = path distance/time).

Now I use the above process to get what I want but it¡¦s a bit fiddly. The difficult bit is getting the spacing right between credits on each consecutive chunks and I have to 'nudge' each block in the timeline and use the preview window to get the spacing right of credits in consecutive blocks. It's longwinded but it works.

What I was hoping for was that there was an easier way to do this. If the font restriction didn't apply then I could just type the credits into the titler and apply a fly command - easy. But as I have to manually format the text as a graphic and then move it with a path I have all the extra aggravation.

I hope that clarifies what I am trying to do.

Thanks
Dean