I am learning about bottom third titles and would sure love some advice

[John Rofrano]

The narrators are correct. Professional lower thirds usually have a graphic behind them to ensure that the text stands out better. Here is one I just did quickly in Vegas using Color Gradient Generated Media, a Pan/Crop Mask, Sony TV Simulator FX, and a map of Australia I pulled off of Google maps.

You can use a Push or Wipe transition to animate these on and off and you can add a little animation to the lower third by keyframing the parameters of any FX you add to them.

These are very quick to make but some people would rather just buy them. We (VASST) have 8 collections of lower thirds called GrafPaks that you can use in Vegas. Take a look at our web site for some ideas.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Mike Kujbida]

Three things I noticed in your screen shots were different font styles (best to stick to one), a lack of outline and drop shadow (helps the font to stand out) and rather thin fonts in the first two shots (thin ones are harder for video to display properly, especially after encoding to DVD).

These issues and more are covered in an excellent article here on the Cow called Great Titles with the DV Codec.

[Don Kimball]

I created this mock-up using some tools in microsoft word etc for expediency and decided to give folks an idea of what I had envisioned based on the feedback I received. I changed the font for example to impact as per suggestions. One major thing I did was to simply make the bottom third accentuate the bird species title rather than create a more of a powerful bottom 3rd. The reason for this is that I wanted to avoid the television news show look which is great for announcing lets say a flood in Burma but not so great for conveying information about our natural world subtley but effectively.

One thing I have no clue how to do is take the small map of Australia and impregnate it into the bottom third or (in my case a makeshift one)I am thinking this is a new lesson in pancrop?

Many thanks to Mike et al for their kind suggestions. As you can probably tell I am keen but have tons to learn. If you are kind enough to do so I would love screenies on how to impregnate the small map and not have a large white square etc. Thanks very much!

Don

[John Rofrano]

> If you are kind enough to do so I would love screenies on how to impregnate the small map and not have a large white square etc. Thanks very much!

You need to make an alpha channel with a graphics program like Photoshop. You should invest some time and money in a good graphics package. It doesn’t need to be Photoshop (I used Paint Shop Pro for years) but understanding how to make graphics in Photoshop will increase your production value.

We (VASST) have some excellent tutorial DVD’s on Photoshop that Richard Harrington (moderator of the Cow’s Photoshop forum) did for us. I know, I learned a lot from them. You’ll notice that my map of Australia has no square around it. I did this in Photoshop using the Color Range tool and I learned how to do it from our Photoshop for Video, Vol 1 & Vol 2 DVD’s. Click on the link for Vol 1 and view the preview video on that page. It just happens to talk about Alpha Channels which is what you need.

You could also use the Mask tool in Vegas to painstakingly trace the outline of Australia. It is just much easier to do this in a graphics program.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Gilles Gagnon]

John,

I assume that we must always keep the lower third within the safe region?

Also,

In creating a lower third in PS, what dimensions would you recommend to make the graphic with? i’m referring to the bg “rectangle” on which the text will go.

Thanks,
g

[John Rofrano]

I assume that we must always keep the lower third within the safe region?

Yes. All text should fall within the text safe area.

In creating a lower third in PS, what dimensions would you recommend to make the graphic with? i’m referring to the bg “rectangle” on which the text will go.

It depends on the look you are going for. Some people like thin backgrounds, some people like thick ones. As the name implies, it should not take up more that 1/3 or the screen but quite often I just make background big enough to cover the text. I do all of this with generated media right in Vegas. In fact all of the lower thirds in the eight volumes of GrafPaks that VASST sells are all created with generated media. Vegas is quite capable of making some interesting animated lower third backgrounds.

If you are creating them in Photoshop, I would take a snapshot of the timeline in Vegas to use as a reference.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Gilles Gagnon]

As always, thanks so much John.

“If you are creating them in Photoshop, I would take a snapshot of the timeline in Vegas to use as a reference. ”

–> great idea!

The reason I had thought of using photoshop is because I was thinking of doing one like this:

picture a lower-third with a right side that doesn’t quite reach the right side of the screen AND is rounded (i.e. half circle), something like what a Popsicle stick looks like.

Can this be done using the generated media?

Gilles

[John Rofrano]

picture a lower-third with a right side that doesn’t quite reach the right side of the screen AND is rounded (i.e. half circle), something like what a Popsicle stick looks like. Can this be done using the generated media?

Yes, very easily. Just use the Bézier Mask tool and you can create any kind of shape you want.

This one was made with a blue gradient, Bézier mask, and Bump Map:

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Gilles Gagnon]

EXACTLY what I was looking for John! Thanks! I’ll give ‘er a try!

Hey! that’s some vintage gear you have there. Here I thought my Triton Classic was ‘old” 🙂

but…How do I apply the mask? I tried before but it masked everything that was under the “mask track”. In this case, we only want to mask the lower third graphic.

G

[John Rofrano]

Hey! that’s some vintage gear you have there. Here I thought my Triton Classic was ‘old” 🙂

Yea, I still have my Hammond B3, Minimoog, and Polymoog keyboard. I use to play them 5 nights a week on the road with several bands… those were the days. (but I digress…)

but…How do I apply the mask? I tried before but it masked everything that was under the “mask track”. In this case, we only want to mask the lower third graphic.

Sorry if I wasn’t clear. This has nothing to do with the track in mask mode. This is the Mask tool in Pan/Crop on the Generated Media event itself. Only that event is affected. Here is how it works:

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com