Creating Rolling Credits with an Alignment similar to Hollywood movies

[Steven Pukin]

Sorry when I posted this, I didn’t realize it didn’t keep the formatting as I was writing it quickly. Essentially I would like to know if it’s possible have a single layer or two layers that combine to represent two columns of rolling credits. On the left columns would be names of characters (right justified), and on the right column, there would be left justified text. The end result would be a space between two columns in the exact center of the credits, which would be maintained throughout the credits (just like many Hollywood film credits). Is this is possible?

[Mark Frazier]

Here’s how I got it to work:

Each column is a layer of text in it’s own title container. Justify the text in the text window (left justify for the right column; right justify for the left column) and position the X-axis of each CONTAINER to where you like it.

If you adjust the Y-axis settings, remember to set both containers to the same values so they will roll at the same speed.

Give it a try, and if you come up with a more expeditious method, let us know.

[Steven Pukin]

Hi. I tried your suggestion and worked for the most part, except there seems to be a lag when one of the layers text ends. It’s hard to explain but I originally had to modify the y-axis on one of them so the text would be aligned between the two columns (for some reason a centre layer of text I added seem to affect the other two columns alignment). Than I remembered what you said. So I tried modifying the margin for the right hand column instead and returned the y-axis values to normal, so the left and right hand column would stay in alignment. But still, my right hand column text layer seems to linger until the rest of the credits are done, even though the rest of it is just text on the center layer.

Any suggestions?

[Mark Frazier]

I set up a 3-column roll (each column in it’s own container) so they all three rolled together to the end. With a slight adjustment, I got them to line up (although theoretically the adjustment shouln’t have to have been made. But you know how them reotheticals are.)

Is it possible that your right column did not have the exact same number of text lines in it? (If you have one more line of text in the left column, you’ll need to add an extra “return” at the bottom of the right column to make the lines all match up, etc.)

Also, check to make sure the values of the ending keyframes of each title layer and container layer all match. Somehow, one of my containers “adjusted” the settings slightly on the ending keyfames of both the title and container layers, which threw off the alignment just enough to be slightly noticable at the end of the roll. When I matched the keyframe settings to that of the other containers, the roll matched perfectly. Same goes for the beginning keyframes, but I’ve never had issues with their values drifting.

Hope this helps. Let me know either way.

[Steven Pukin]

Ok, I am not sure but I think I got to work without adjusting the y-axis or margins as I had done before. But I couldn’t simply hit return to make them aligned, I had to fool around with it a little bit to make it aligned. In previous attempts to align, I had to make the right hand column have a y-axis value of 245 instead of 240. My second attempt was to make the top margin for that layer as 19 instead of 24, but that didn’t work as I mentioned.

What I ended up doing is removing the spaces below the text for each of the left and right hand column (for Boris title crawl) but since there was more text in the right hand columns, they were misaligned, so I had to try I do hit return a few times so they would be aligned.

Essentially the problem is this. the left and right hand columns (which use their own independent boris title crawls and text layers), end before the center layer ends.

For example: Credits by (in the left hand column); meanwhile my name is the right hand column, aligned with ‘Credits by’ and directly below on the next line is my brother’s name.

Then the center column continues a few spaces down with “shot on location….copyright 2005…..and then the name of the film to end”. It appears that the text layers have all the same lengths (0:00:0-0:41:29) but what do you mean by containers? So I don’t know the lingo that well, as I am learning this as I go. Do you mean each individual Boris title toolkit layer-one for each column?). Wouldn’t make the left and right hand columns as long as the center column put the columns out of alignmen?(considering the last left or right hand column text ends before the centered title end)

It remains be seen whether or not I will still have the same problem with a right hand column that seems to freeze at the top edge of the screen until the center column roll is done. If you can offer me any more insights before I render this again, let me know.

thanks,
David

[Mark Frazier]

David,

It sounds as if we may have been approaching this credit roll from two different directions. I don’t know if it would make any difference, but I’m using Red 3.0, and it sounds like you may be using Graffiti or FX. I don’t see anything called “Boris Title Crawl” in my settings.

When I do a roll, I type up my info in a layer of text, (the manual mentions that I can import it from a word processing program, but I’ve never done that) then under the “Track” pulldown, select “New Title Container”. It will automatically put the text layer in that container.

In the Control window for the title container, there is an Animation tab with an “Animation Style” selection window, where I choose the “Roll” option. Under the Position tab for the container is where I change the X-axis settings (but I suppose you can use the positon tab for the text layer instead.)

You have to put each text layer into it’s own container (with each container having the same beginning and ending settings) if you want them to roll side-by-side, otherwise the container will “stack” the text layers one after another. The defaults of the container roll will begin and end the text roll completely off the screen.

If you want to adjust where the text will be at any given point in the roll, click on the beginning or ending keyframe of the container, then set your CTI wherever you want to check in the timeline, and change the Y-axis setting according to where you need to move the text.

If you have the center column come in after the left and right columns have rolled off the screen, you will need to adjust the ending of the left and right containers to get them off the screen sooner, and adjust the beginning (and possibly the ending) keyframes of the center container so it will “follow” the other two up and off the screen.

And once you get everything timed out, the Animation tab of the container also contains settings for masking and blending the top and bottom of your roll, so they can appear and disappear anywhere on the screen, if you llike that kind of thing.

I hope this helps more than it confuses.

Mark

[Steven Pukin]

I think I have Boris FX if I remember correctly. What I do is put down three text layers (before I was using adjustment layers in the first credit roll I created). Then for each layer, I right click ‘effects’, scroll down and it to ‘Boris’–>Text Scrambler, Title Crawl, Vector Shape, Vector Text (I choose title crawl) and I after that it seems like what we are doing is fairly similar. I using the plugin for Adobe After Effects 6.5 on my PC.

The center column only continues after the left and right hand column, but it actually starts before they do (but I sent that the lengths as the same, except there is empty spaces in those layers until text pops in them). For example: Cast (in order of appearance) would be the first thing you see in the center columns, than the characters/actors would be in their respective columns below that, then next time you would see text in the center column would be for ‘Crew’ and so forth.

[Steven Pukin]

The Boris title crawl option allows me to choose the speed, the type of credits (which I choose as roll), just like you and I also modified the geometry along the x-axis so they wouldn’t overlap onto eachother. None of the text is on the text layer itself but rather in the Boris title crawl that is on top of it (you can import text from a word processor and change the font, bolding, etc from the Boris toolkit, which seems to be similar to what you are doing, just with different terminology).

[Mark Frazier]

Hmmmmm…….

We are definitely coming at this from totally different directions.

I would almost go back to when you are typing and importing the credits. Instead of using spaces to separate the columns, is there any way to use “tab” settings? For instance, set a right-justify tab for the left column, then a left-justify for the right, then just center the “CAST” and “CREW” headers? Of course, it would have to import into A/E or Boris properly and from your first post, it sounds like this has been an issue.

Can you create the text within the Boris application? Boris Red has tab functions in the Text window (you have to double-click them to change their justification), but I don’t know if they would import tab settings from another application or not. If you can get this method to work, it may be possible to do the whole roll as one chunk of text, instead of trying to piece it together a column at a time.

This is all I can think of right now. Good luck, and let me know if it works.

[Steven Pukin]

Yes, you can create text within the Boris Title Crawl window. You go to effects control where you would adjust such things as speed, but then you can either hit options or a large graphic that says “Boris Title Crawl} and smaller graphic beside it saying “Boris Title Tool Kit”. I double click on it, and I can type or insert and modify the text, the font I am using, the justification, the shadow, the size of the text, etc.

Anyways, I rendered what I did and it no longer seems to have that problem with the last portion of right hand column credits freezing at the edge of the frame. I am not sure, but the alignment between the columns might be still a pixel or two off, but I am not sure if it’s noticeable. Maybe I am just being paranoid. Everything within each column is aligned (unlike the way I was doing credits previously) but as I said the right and left hand columns might be slightly disaligned.

If I am reading this correctly, are you proposing that I don’t use a center column at all but just use tabs to center it in either the left or right column? I have already made left-justified (for the right) and right-justified columns (for the left). Forgive me if I am confusing your words. I don’t mean to sound as dense as I probably seem ;).