Help with a Title project

[jasonmach]

Hi,

I need some serious help with a title sequence for a video I'm making. I'm somewhat new to Ulead-I've used VS6 I believe before...but I am mainly a Pinnacle user. Here is what I would like to do:

I am going to create a title in Pinnacle and render it as an AVI file, because I like Pinnacle's Title program better. It will be on a white background.

Somehow I need this title to appear in a "circus tent" in VS. I am assuming I will have to create the "frame" of the tent in a graphics program, and insert that image as a title in VS and set the background to transparent, and have the title AVI made in Pinnacle underneath, so it will show through. I could not find a "stage open/close" effect in either Pinnacle or VS...but I need the circus tent to open to reveal the title. All of this will stay on the screen and the Quidam logo will then fall into place, inside the tent, below the title video. (This will then be 3 layers-the title video, the title with the tent, and then the Quidam logo...will I have to make the Quidam logo a title in order to keep the transparency, so you can still see everything around it...title and tent...?).

Now, this is where it gets even more complicated...After all of that has been up for a few seconds, I would like to have the beginning of the Super Mario theme play, and have a picture of Mario (you know, the pixelated side profile from the 80's!) jump in from the left, jump onto the Quidam logo, and then jump off screen to the right...then after that is done, I need to have the curtains close on the whole title sequence.

I have no clue when it comes to stuff about animation-is there any way I can do the Mario thing in VS? I'm assuming I would need to make the title video and the Quidam logo into one thing (probably an image) to free up a layer...

I'm not really sure how to go about doing this...if you have any suggestions or ideas they would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Jason M.

[Ken Berry]

With a complicated intro like that, I would have to suggest you do the whole thing in a special 3D animation program such as the free Ulead Cool 3D program which comes with VS 9, or the higher end product, Cool 3D Production Studio. Sadly, though, that will require something of a steep learning curve to produce a title along the lines you want.

VS9, IIRC, does allow some use of logos in titles, and you could get the Mario head to 'fly' in, stop in the centre (where presumably the logo would be) and fly out again, but by fly I mean glide gracefully, rather than jump, which I guess is really and literally the effect you are after.

I have never used Pinnacle so can offer no comment on its titling ability.

There are some simpler 3D titling tools out there, such as Xara 3D, which I sometimes use, but I have not been able to find any setting in it to produce 32 bit alpha channel transparencies, so its utility is limited (at least to me) to quite sophisticated animations against a solid background.

[Ron P.]

Have you thought about creating your title in a Flash authoring program?
If you have Macromedia MX or SWiSHmax this could be done. The file then is exported to an AVI file, then import that into Video Studio.
I know Video Studio is limited on layers, and to create a title as yours you need more layers. Media Studio Pro allows several tracks and maybe a better choice. However wait a few weeks and MSP8 will be out.