Titling: Opaque Matte behind lettering of Super

[Scot Sheely]

Bill,

You can indeed create a nearly opaque, bordeless rect (or any other shape native to the titling tool) in PPRO.

Are you trying to simulate the CSI Miami open? What are you trying to achieve? Understanding your end-goal would help towards providing the correct advice for your situation.

In the titling tool, once you have created your shaped object, on the right-hand side, you can drill-down (some call this “Twirl down”) the attributes until you find the shape and border fill. One of the items that can be modified is the opacity for each of these respective categories.

In your case, if the you truly want the border to be completely opaque, then set that opacity level to 0. For the main body fill for your rectangle or other object shape, I suggest you try an opacity of 1 to 5% and set the color to white, which is the least obtrusive when viewed on your timeline.

You cannot have a 100% opaque object, but you can have a completely opaque object with a (somewhat) visible border, or vice-versa, if that makes sense to you. Some amount of fill must be present, even if a tiny amount, for the shape to be able to be added into your timeline. 1% is the least amount possible (technically, you can do less, as in .5%, etc., but I believe you know what I mean).

If it is the CSI Miami opening title effect that you are trying to achive, then simply add in a blur to that shape on your timeline. Experimenting with the opacity, blur type and blur level will help you achieve your desired effect.

You can copy the blurred shape in your timeline, and stretch and skew this same shape by adjusting the rectangle shape in the Effects Controls panel. In this manner, you can make many different looking shapes from just the single, original rectangle without having to go back into your titling tool. Of course, animating these shapes across the screen using keyframes is how you will achieve that CSI look.

If, instead, you simply want a completely opaque object (can’t imagine why, I would love to hear your reason behind this; we humans usually don’t see invisible objects!), forget the blur, just set the rect fill opacity to 1% / white as previously suggested.

At any rate, I hope this helps you out. Please let me know what your goal is here, what effect you are ultimately trying to achieve. That will help in any further analysis and recommendations.

Scot Sheely

[William Mcqueen]

Thanks for your speedy and generous reply, Scot.

I have some very “busy” video which is “distracting” to the super name and ID. I want to put an underlying opaque rectangle to enhance readability. AND at the same time the lettering seemed to “degrade” when I originally output to AVI, not so bad in QT h.264. Ultimately, I have two short video clips created for the Web, but want to super in PPro.

I did not make the opaque rectangle before I made up the name and ID, and can’t for the life of me get a borderless rectangle afterwards. I can only guess that that the underlying layer has to be put in first, then the text. But maybe I’m missing an approach.

Most of this started out to create accessible web captioning for video media. I’ve been using (in PC) Charles Silverman’s JustTheCaps early beta, an offspring of CapScribe, a more developed and sophisticated programme of media captioning for the MAC. (https://snow.utoronto.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=393&Itemid=356)

And you’ve given me some new ideas, and for that I’m very appreciative, too.

Thanks again.

Bye for now,

Bill in Toronto

[Scot Sheely]

Bill,

Yes, the opaque shape must occupy the underlying layer preceeding the title for it to act as a base, or lower-third type of object.

In other words, you video on track 1, then the rect, then your name / ID text.

Another possiblility would be to play around with the track matte effect, with the rectangle being the object specified by the track matte, and the text being the object that the effect is actually applied to.

If that is the case, then have the track that the rectangle occupies (which should be ABOVE the text layer) DE-selected (click on the eyeball on that track to make it invisible), apply the track matte effect to the text layer and specify the rectangle track as the matte.

You can make many interesting effects by playing around with this important tool, and it really comes alive when you use animated backgrounds for the matte. There are other options to play with in that effect as well (matte alpha vs. matte luma), and it is far easier to create a video tutorial on this than it is to describe it via text here.

If this is something that interests you, check to see if the Cows already has such a tutorial for PPRO; if not, let me know and I will gladly create one for you and this community.

Scot

[William Mcqueen]

Another possibility would be to play around with the track matte effect….
You can make many interesting effects by playing around with this important tool, and it really comes alive when you use animated backgrounds for the matte. ….

If this is something that interests you, check to see if the Cows already has such a tutorial for PPRO; if not, let me know and I will gladly create one for you and this community.

A tutorial would be really awesome, Scot. I’ve looked and don’t see any examples on the site.

But your information gave me just what I needed; and thanks so much.

Cheers,
Bill in Toronto

[Tim Kolb]

Keep in mind that whatever shape you draw takes on the attributes of the typestyle you have active when you make it. You would change attributes like outline (stroke) and shadow in the attributes menu where you would do it for text…

it does not matter what component you make first if you want the text and the rectangle in the same document, right-clicking and selecting “move to back” (under I think…”arrange”) will move the rectangle behind the other objects in the document.

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

Creative Cow Host,
Author/Trainer
http://www.focalpress.com
http://www.classondemand.net

[Scot Sheely]

Bill,

I have been quite busy with editing and rendering on my main machines and haven’t had the systems free long enough to capture a screenshot movie tutorial yet, but I promise I will do so sometime in the not too distant future. You are right, nothing exists here on the Cows as far as a track matte tutorial, so the idea is a sound one, IMHO.

However, always being the trooper that I am and never giving up too easily, I did find a static web-based tutorial (in other words, not a movie, but it does include screenshots).

Here is the URL: https://www.digitaljuice.com/support/tutorials/editors_toolkit/using_overlay_mattes_with_premiere.asp

Of course, most everyone here is quite familiar with DJ’s fine products, and this effect does not necessarily rely on their graphic elements, but they (or any other) can be used to achieve this important and often-used effect.

Hope that helps you out!

Scot Sheely
IMG Videos.com