Lower thirds, half an upper third, and maybe PA?

[Theo Van laar]

Lower thirds (background for your text, placed at the 20% lower part of the event) can be made in many many ways. They can be animated or just stills. You can use any type of transition to make them appear and disappear. You can generate pre-made animated lower thirds in Production Assistant, in Boris Graffitti, Heroglyph etc. But it is really fun to create them your self, completely adjusted to your film. You can use photoshop to generate the background pictures (that contain e.g. motifs from your film). You can generate animation with the track motion tool.
A very simpel way to create abstract lower thirds can be done completely in Vegas. Just create a shape with the track motion tool or the coockie cutter tool. Place a copy of the event you are playing in the video also in the track with the track motion (or coockie cutter) and apply a blur (or any other effect you like). Play with light and opacity etc. Using your imagination will result in very cool custom-made lower thirds. Much nicer then all the pre-made stuff.

And the ‘Upper Thirds’ (nice word!!) can be made also with the track motion tool. To avoid losing to much of the scene, you can make them e.g. 50 transparant.

Theo

[John Rofrano]

> I have Production Assistant, but have not used it yet. Is this a job for PA, or should I use a feature that is native to Vegas?

You already have 50 lower thirds built into Production Assistant and we have religious themed lower thirds in GrafPak-4 Worship that you can buy and add to PA.

As Theo said you can also make them yourself. A simple piece of solid color generated media that is resized or masked will do fine under the text track.

~jr

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

[Adam Rose esq.]

also, within the text tool, you could apply a black glow, with whatever amount of blurring/size you prefer, to make the subtitles stand out, and avoid the use of a proper lower third. Works like an outlining.

or just add Drop Shadow to the subtitle track via Track Motion, but the glow usually works better.

[Norman Willis]

It sounds like I really have some good options there. I am going to have to experiment, and see what is easiest, and looks best.

Thanks!

Norman Willis
http://www.nazareneisrael.org
servant@nazareneisrael.org

[Norman Willis]

The black glow is working good. Under Media Generator, on the Effects Tab, I check “Draw Outline”, and then set Feathering to Zero, and Width to 1.000. Then I am setting RGB to 40-40-40, while leaving Alpha at 255. It really makes the text stand out, while minimizing the amount of on-screen real-estate lost.

I will need to apply these same settings to all of the subtitles on this track. Is it possible to apply these settings to all of the existing media generator clips on this track automatically /globally? Or must this be done manually (in each and every media generator, individually)?

Norman Willis
http://www.nazareneisrael.org
servant@nazareneisrael.org

[Adam Rose esq.]

off the top of my head, I think you need to do them individually………you can’t paste attributes >< not nice, I know, I've been there an alternative is to apply the glow via Track Motion. You won't be able to tweak the properties as much, but is an option. also, you could save one instance as a preset within the text generator, then open the 2nd subtitle, copy the text already there, apply the preset (which will replace the text) then do Ctrl A, Ctrl V, and move on the the next subtitle. You won't have to close the text generator window in each case, just open each time. have fun 😉