Write-On Effect

jkb242 wrote on 5/27/2006, 11:22 AM
Can someone please point me to a very good explanation with point by point instructions to create write-on title effects.

There is simply no canned effects in Vegas to do this but Vegas will certainly accomplish it with a combination of pan/crop and mask generator. I just can figure out how to do it even if it is a manual process. There are too many little un-documented steps in the process.

Please help!!

Thanks

Comments

rs170a wrote on 5/27/2006, 1:27 PM
I just did a search on the VASST site for writing and found 3 tutorials, two using Spicemaster and one for Vegas by itself.

Mike
TeeJay wrote on 5/27/2006, 6:23 PM
I have done this successfully with Bezier Masking, by masking the whole text and gradually doing a 'reveal'. It's very time consuming though.

Recently, I bought Bauhaus Mirage, and this is one thing that Mirage excels at amongst others. Mirage is an amazing accompianment to Vegas and is well worth the money.
farss wrote on 5/27/2006, 8:59 PM
This question comes up regularly and last time I suggested if you had a tablet you could use any graphics program with something like Camtasia running in the background to capture an AVI.
However as was pointed out if you're anything like me and my handwriting the result would make your GP blush.

However here's perhaps a better idea.

Create your beatiful script text using an appropriate font in say PS. Make it say 100% green. Now use a broad hard brush and use the tablet to paint over it with say 100% blue and capture to an AVI using something like Camtasia.

Now the resulting AVI will contain an easy to separate mask. The Secondary Color Corrector in Show Mask Only or the CK FX in the same mode should do it.
Render this out as uncompressed (progressive might be good) and reverse the clip.

You now have a mask to apply to the original text that'll reveal the text with correct timing.
Grazie wrote on 5/27/2006, 10:26 PM


.. and yet another way . . If you don't have Camtasia, is to use the Bezier "Mask" option, and do a reveal that way! If you have "dots" on "i" the dash for "t"s you simply use multiple Beziers and create little Bezier Islands.

Grazie
johnmeyer wrote on 5/27/2006, 10:52 PM
This might be useful:

Bezier for Handwriting!

jkb242 wrote on 5/28/2006, 6:06 PM
Johnmeyer,

Much thanks for the reply and those of the others as well.

The write on effect I am trying to get in Vegas is one from a title or typed text using the media generator within Vegas. I suppose the text could be generated outside of vegas as well but it does not appear to be necessary to do this from the example. This example was a sample project on the Vegas site. It is still there I believe but this is where I got the idea. It was a promotiional video for Boston and the effect looked great. If it is not there any longer or you need this project file, I can post. With this project on the time line you can look at the effects in Vegas and see that the mask generator was used but I have never been able to figure out how that mask was created. If you look at the part of the timeline in the sample that contains this effect, you can watch the effect take place but how this was created is not clear. Other than the mask it uses key frames and the pan and crop generalor.

The Pan and crop vegas plug-in only moves the finished written on text from a background plancement to a foreground one. There seems to be a lot of interest in this effect from all the hits in April but this is not a hand written write on effect. If you have some insight on how to help me generate this I would really appreciate your assistance as I believe it is possilbe to create this completely from within Vegas.

Much thanks to you and anyone who can post a step by step proceedure to create this nice effect.

johnmeyer wrote on 5/28/2006, 10:14 PM
Well, I am not sure what you are looking for, especially since I don't know the Boston video.

You could go to the VASST site and type "title" into the search engine. There are dozens of title examples there.
mrBun wrote on 5/28/2006, 10:56 PM
Dunno if this will help you or just muddy the water but;
There is a very simple beginners tutorial to do this in 3ds Max.
(You can download a free 30 day trial) It will take an absolute beginner 1 hour at the most to learn this.. (and maybe a couple more to refine and customise it).
Once you have your animation set up, delete everything except your text, and render it out as a "tga" sequence with alpha.
Bring it into Vegas and overlay.

If you decide to go down this path...
"Help/ Tutorials/ Getting Started/ Animation/ Animating a pen"
Should get you into the ball park
.
jkb242 wrote on 5/30/2006, 2:01 PM
TEE Jay

Could you tell me how you did this or point me to an explanation in Vegas.

Thanks!!
je@on wrote on 5/30/2006, 4:40 PM
The old school way from the Paintbox era still works: In Photoshop, start with your complete line on a transparent background then erase a bit, save it as a PNG. The do it again and again until you have a sequence of stills to import into Vegas. With some experimentation you can acheive a very organic motion to the write-on (or -off.)
DGates wrote on 5/30/2006, 9:30 PM
Best advice: Get a Mac and use LiveType. Nothing looks better or is easier to do. All this workaround Vegas stuff is lame.

lwx wrote on 6/7/2006, 8:49 AM
It couldn't be simpler in Mirage, so I do it there - but I beleive you can do this sort of thing very easily using presets in Graffiti, too.