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mask text
I would like to have some upwards scrolling text body that is masked on top and bottom so that you don’t see all the lines of text at once – only a few lines at a time. For some reason, I can’t figure our how to do this.
When I use pan/crop to make a mask box, then apply movement to the clip using pan/crop, the mask travels with the clip motion. I’m sure there’s an easy solution but mt brain’s not working today.
Thanks in advance.
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13 Replies
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It sounds like you’re accidentally adding keyframes to the mask.
On the mask track, delete all unnecessary keyframes as you only need one (the very first one).
Make sure the Sync Cursor (looks like a lock) isn’t enabled. -
Mike – thanks for the quick reply.
I only have one keyframe for the mask at the beginning of the track. Also, I had the lock to track button deselected.
I have a list of words that runs vertically on the screen. I would like only the middle portion of the screen to show the words in as they scroll upwards. But the problem is that mask – it travels upwards as well. I’m stumped.
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Nathan, do you have an errant keyframe in your text (specifically the Placement tab)?
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[Nathan Halder] “I have a list of words that runs vertically on the screen. I would like only the middle portion of the screen to show the words in as they scroll upwards. But the problem is that mask – it travels upwards as well. I’m stumped.”
If you are animating the scroll using Pan/Crop then that’s the reason the Mask is scrolling with it. What Mike is suggesting that you scroll the text using the Placement tab on the text instead. This will keep the mask in place.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
Thanks John.
I’ve been using the Placement trick for moving text for so long that I forget not everyone uses it or is even aware of it. -
Yea Mike, I often forget those things I do by default too. Sometimes it takes a 3rd party to see that two people are using the same works but talking about different things.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
Thanks Mike and John. That was an easy solution. I was using the Pro Type Titler, however. I know that has keyframing but I find it frustrating that I can’t lock the cursor on that screen to my timeline preview window. That makes it really difficult if you’re timing text moves to video but not so much if you just have some text effects over a background.
So, I switched back to the Text tool to use the placement tab. That was the easy fix I was looking for. One small issue with keyframing in the placement tab – it’s less elegant than the pan/crop. I can neither lock movement to the X or Y plane only nor can I rotate the text (not needed in this case). Maybe in 11? 🙂
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[Nathan Halder] ” One small issue with keyframing in the placement tab – it’s less elegant than the pan/crop. I can neither lock movement to the X or Y plane only “
But you can type in the X and Y values so it’s really simply to align the text at the keyframes. Not as nice as a lock, but totally workable as a solution.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
“I can neither lock movement to the X or Y plane only…”
I enter a positive value in the x or Y box and adjust as needed.
Once I figure out the positive value, I enter the negative value of the same amount in the last keyframe.“…nor can I rotate the text”
I use Pan/Crop or Track Motion for this.
Here’s a tip for cleaner looking text for you.
Double the frame size in the Generated Media box.
If it says 720 x 480, double that to 1440 x 960.
Your text will look a bit sharper and cleaner, especially of you have to zoom in on it.
BTW, nothing else is affected by doing this.
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@John – I figured out that I could just type in different values – just means I have to do some addition and subtraction! 🙂
@Mike – great tip on increasing the workspace size – I’ll add that to the tool box.
I was just playing around with keyframing on the placement tab and noticed that when I created text then dragged the event to change its length, I was still only seeing 10 seconds on the keyframe timeline. This doesn’t happen when keyframing with the pan/crop tab – it automatically adjusts as you change the length. I’m sure you two know the workaround, but for anyone else reading this, here’s what I discovered.
Right click on the event in your timeline. Go to Properties/Media and change the length box to what you need (in my case it was 50 seconds). Then when you go back to your placement tab, you can keyframe the entire event length.
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