Any way to do an animated clock?

[plnelson]

I'm doing a series of videos for artists for practicing gesture drawing. They basically consist of 1 or 2 minute poses interspersed with 30 second pauses. The poses are drawn from my portfolio of model photography I've build up over many years, so they are stills. The 30 second pauses are just so the artist can flip to another sheet of paper, sharpen a pencil or shake his arms out.

When the pause is on the screen it will just display a generic background with some text showing which pose is coming up and a boilerplate copyright notice. But I thought it would be nice to have a little countdown timer being shown during the pause so the artist can see how much time remains before the next pose starts. What's a good way to integrate a little animated timer or clock that doesn't look too amateurish?

Thanks in advance.

[BrianCee]

There are a number of ways - how amateurish they look is up to you.

basics - make yourself a number of still images with 1 - 30 on them - put them in the video track with 1 second duration each - they can be any font of your choosing - on any background - with a number of options for changing numbers depending on what transition you use between them - - then render out a 30 second video so you only have 1 item to insert at each of the other rest periods - put that video in the overlay track at each rest period and use a frame or PiP to make them look professional.

OR film a digital clock or timer and put that in the overlay track and size it to fit somewhere onscreen in a professional manner

Or search the internet for one which some one else has already made.

here is a short demo which I quickly knocked up a few months back using numbered images - probably to amateurish for you :-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kg-mAdxgicA

[rwernyei]

Brian has provided some options. Here's some more. Depending on the footage, one could use Robotiq Timecode filter in VSP. Found here: http://forum.corel.com/EN/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=12610
I say footage because it was written for SD footage and not HD. So if decide to use with HD, you are limited to using the top left corner. If you feel like making a purchase. http://www.dvmp.co.uk/
Last option is to use freeware Virtualdub with Add Frame Numbers plugin. http://spreadys.wordpress.com/2013/01/3 ... -frame-no/

Hope this helps.
Robert

[plnelson]

There are a number of ways - how amateurish they look is up to you.

basics - make yourself a number of still images with 1 - 30 on them - put them in the video track with 1 second duration each - they can be any font of your choosing - on any background - with a number of options for changing numbers depending on what transition you use between them - - then render out a 30 second video so you only have 1 item to insert at each of the other rest periods - put that video in the overlay track at each rest period and use a frame or PiP to make them look professional.

I thought about doing that - you're right that it would give me good control over fonts, appearance, etc. But it seemed very labour-intensive so I thought I'd see if there were any good alternatives first.

If I do decide to do that are there some colour schemes that would be better as a general-purpose overlay than others, i.e., if I want the numbers to be opaque but the background (the layer underneath) how do I do that?

When I finish this if there are others who would find it useful is there someplace I can upload it to to share it?

While researching the countdown timer thread mentioned by Robert I see someone in that thread said

" Check New Blue FX, I think it is in Video Essentials IV. Works great, much better than this one."

So I went to the Video Essentials website http://www.newbluefx.com/products/essen ... sentials-4 but I was unclear what it is. It that something that can be used with VideoStudioPro6 or is it something for Premier Pro?

[Ken Berry]

Essentially, NewBlue make plug-ins which work with a number of video editing packages, including Video Studio. I have the first 6 packages, and indeed Essentials IV has the timer clock. The packages are not particularly cheap, however, though they occasionally have good offers, though none that I am aware of at the moment. If you decided to buy, just make sure you are getting the package that works with Video Studio.

[RobertOZ]

The Timer Clock within VE package 4 can be purchased as an individual effect for which you will be expected to pay $29.99, very expensive if you consider that last September you could have purchased New Blue EFX Series which included all 6 Essential Packages for just $115.88 Aud.

Robert

[queman]

Don't know how well this will work, but worth a try. In win 7 there is a clock widget. You should be able to use the VideoStudio screen capture to capture the clock as it runs. You can then crop this image and display it on the overlay track.

Hope it works for you.

--Queman

[BrianCee]

If I do decide to do that are there some colour schemes that would be better as a general-purpose overlay than others, i.e., if I want the numbers to be opaque but the background (the layer underneath) how do I do that?

simply make your numbered images as transparent .tif's or .png's so that the numbers will be opaque in VideoStudio.

heres one for you to experiment with - download it, unzip it and put it in an overlay track while you have something in the video track.

Number.zip

(10.67 KiB) Downloaded 184 times

[lata]

Hi

You could simply use the Screen Capture to capture the digital clock playing over 30 seconds.
Import that to VS overlay track and mask to isolate the clock.
Render to a new video file, then use Chroma Key to remove the background leaving you with a transparent clock that plays for 30 seconds.

[plnelson]

Hi

You could simply use the Screen Capture to capture the digital clock playing over 30 seconds.
Import that to VS overlay track and mask to isolate the clock.
Render to a new video file, then use Chroma Key to remove the background leaving you with a transparent clock that plays for 30 seconds.

Thanks - I looked all over for a digital clock or timer that just counted down seconds without other distracting visual elements and I couldn't find one so I think I'll just bite the bullet and make 30 images in Photoshop.

But thanks for pointing out the Screen Capture tool - I didn't know VS had that - it will come in handy for other things.

[lata]

Hi

The digital timer I was referring to is the one within Video Studio, bottom right of preview screen.
Place a clip in the top track and play, screen record the clock whilst playing.
The frame will be to large so some masking required.

But Brian’s suggestion of separate numbers should work, in fact you are creating your own digital clock.
Using the Title option of Video Studio rather than separate images should also work.
Set all Titles to one second and animate Crossfade.

I have added a VSP as a zip file, contains 20 seconds.
You do not say what version of Video Studio, this VSP will open with X4, X5 or X6

hope this gives you some ideas

[plnelson]

OK, so far so good. I made 30 images in Photoshop - white numbers on a plain dark-green background. I plopped them into my timer project; gave each one a one-second duration, and now I have a nice 30 second count-down video. So what do I do next?

I'll want to put this video in the overlay track for every 30-second "intermission" between model poses in my video. The intermission screens are a blue-purple gradient with white text containing pose information and a boilerplate copyright notice. All intermission screens have the same layout so they all have a space where the timer will go. I want to make the green background on the timer screen transparent so the intermission screen shows through except where the numbers are.

One question is what video format should I store the countdown video in? Thanks to everyone for their suggestions on this so far.

[BrianCee]

I would just make a DVD (mpeg2) video and save it on your HDD - then at each intermission just put it in the overlay track - size it - move it to where it should be and invoke Chroma keying to remove the green background.


Actually just thinking about it a little more - if you are going to use the same background at every intermission why not make the video of your countdown clock on the background exactly as you want to use it - then render that as a video - using the same format as your main video - then you would not even need to use the overlay track just put your clock video in the top track each time and then use titles to put your text on it.