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Creating Personal Transitions
Can someone give me the name of a good piece of software to create personal transitions?
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8 Replies
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Thanks Steven for being a forum leader but I think your answer holds a bit of sarcasm. If you dont have a non-sarcastic helpful answer (i.e. “take 4 years of computer programming to create personal transitions”)or telling me that you dont know of an answer (i didnt make a post for someone to tell me that they couldnt help me) then please leave the posts to answers that help.
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There’s lots you can do to personalise and customise the built-in transitions, and if you have After Effects installed too you can use a lot of its plugins to create something special to you.
The gradient wipe effect will let you choose your own custom-creatd images and use those as a basis for a transition – which can look good. There used to be something called SpiceRack from Pixelan to help with that, but haven’t heard of it for a good while. Might be better to make your own gradient images in Photoshop or similar ….
Om the 3D transition side, Canopus do a standalone called XPlode (which I understand will work with PPro though I haven’t tried it), which has a lot of fast presets but will also allow you to customise quite a big variety of transition styles.
Further down this board, someone recommended WinMorph, which could be used for this kind of thing.
On another level, it troubles me a little to get TOO concerned about the transitions … this is “just” a way to get from one interesting, arresting, moving, sparkling, fresh, insightful image, right …?? Smart transitions won’t do much to rescue poor material, and if you sprinkle too much of this stuff over your work, a little care might be needed to keep it from looking like a techniques catalogue. I personally can find it tiresome if the same lengthy transition keeps butting in to the action, but quite appealing if the transitions seem to grow out of the visuals or story … What sort of stuff do you like?
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Thank you so much. I was basically trying to make a transition where the video freezes and the next clip is pushed out from behind the outline of a subject. Ill look into after affects (gotta reinstall it) for some help. Its a very goddy transition but i think its needed. More of like a sfx than a transition.
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That may not be too tricky for PPro, if you have access to a graphics program (like Photoshop, Paintshop Pro, whatever) that can make images like .tga or .tif, with an alpha channel and a mask. This should work for you ..
You might be able to get your freeze to work by exporting the frame to freeze as a still image – i like targa format – the inserting the still in the timeline. Should be OK provided there’s not a lot of movemement going on causing flicker between the video fields.
Then add the shot you want to introduce in the layer above.
In Photoshop / whatever, open the freeze image you saved and draw a mask shape around the area you want to keep – the subject outline you talked about. In photoshop, draw a selection (mask) using the selection tools. Save the selected area as an alpha channel, and save the file. If you like you can use a new file name. make sure to save to 32 bit.
Now you want to put the freeze frame still where it belongs, and position the copy with the alpha channel, 2 layers up. Set the transparency of the top layer to alpha if you need to, and reverse the mask if you need to.
Place the incoming shot you want in the layer between the two stills / freezes. You should now see the full-size incoming image behind the selection / mask shape you drew.
Resize and reposition the incoming video start point so it’s fully hidden. However long you like down the timeline, scale it up and reposition it so that it is fully visible, clear of your mask shape – you may have to keep it quite small, and push it to one side of screen.
Then another second or whatever along the timeline, set the scale and position to normal.
If you scrub through the effect you’ll see the new image appear from behind the shape you drew, come clear of that shape, and grow to full screen, but still masked by your shape. You’ll want to shorten – trim the outpoint – of the freeze frame still on the top layer so that, when the incoming image would be blocked by the mask at it comes around it, the still and its mask are gone – probably just a little after your first rescale point for the incoming image.
If you can, it’s nice to set smooth bezier curves for the motion and scale keyframes …
That’s it. Hope it works out …
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You crazy fool! Thanks! I used photoshop and did exactly that. I dont know why I didnt think of just masking the object and repositioning the other layer under it. You are one hell of a helper. If I gave away emmys youd get one. Thanks!
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I am not trying to start a flame war but (IMHO) you asked the wrong question originally.
Steven Gotz’s answer was probably correct based on your question.
If you had of asked “How do I do this (specific)?” your responses may have been more succinct. Luckily you got an answer and you were able to get a great result.
The combination and creative uses of what is available ( f.x / transitions) is virtually unlimited in what it can achieve. You already had the tools but you needed someone else to “lead” you in the right direction. Great thing about these forums – the combined brain power of many.
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Sorry it took me so long to get back to this thread, but I have been getting my new house ready for moving in.
I understood the question to be “How do I create transitions?” And yes, the SDK is a tough grind requiring lots of programming experience. Creating transitions is hard work. But creating special effects is something completely different, as you have discovered.
It was not sarcasm. It was merely a quick answer. Too quick, it seems. Sorry about that.
Steven
Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5.1 / After Effects 6.5 Pro https://www.stevengotz.com
Learning Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5 https://www.lynda.com
Contributing Writer, PeachPit Press, Visual QuickPro Guide, Premiere Pro 1.5
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