Re: MAGIX - Adding titles?


"Terry Pinnell" <terrypin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:m3dql3pfmiovscdkimgob3gcn6a5dofi6j@xxxxxxxxxx

First for adding the transition you can click on the AB box and
select the transition you want.

Well, that was my first thought, but darned if I can find a simple
Fade anywhere there, can you? Or in the FADES tab of the Media Pool. I
can see scores of effects, 99% of which I don't think I'll ever use.
But I just want a plain fade-in, fade-out, which I'd have thought was
one of the most popular?


It is the default, if you don't overlap the clips.

Try this just put a couple of clips on track 1 of the
timeline. You should now have two tracks; track 1 with
the video and track 2 with the audio in the clips. You
should have each clip one after the other on the timeline.

Now click anywhere on an unused track, to make it so
nothing is selected.

Now zoom in so that each of the timeline segments are
about 5 seconds in length. Then move to where you can
work on the transition between the two clips.

With the cursor in the intelligent mouse mode; click on the
first clip to select it. Now just grab the little box at the end
of the clip on top right. Drag it back to the left and notice
what part of the video you are on, stop when you are where
you want the fade to start. (You can adjust it later.) [ The
audio will also get the same fade, assuming both track 1&2
are selected at this point.]

Now click anywhere on an unused track, to make it so
nothing is selected. ( A good habit to get into.)

Click on your second clip, now. (You should now have an
AB box near the start of your second clip, ignore it for now.)

Grab and drag the little box in the upper left corner of the
clip, just like you did on the first clip.

Now click on the timeline ruler somewhere before the
transition to bring the scrub line. Click and hold the scrub
line at the top and scrub through the transition. You should
see that it fades the video (and audio) out as you travel
down the ramp and in as you travel up the ramp.

[ Right clicking on the timeline ruler brings the end marker,
so you can set the repeat loop]

---- That is how you can do the default fade--------

Now click anywhere on an unused track, to make it so
nothing is selected. ( A good habit to get into.)

Click on your second clip now, and let's look at the AB box.
When you click on it at this point you will see that "thru black"
is selected, which is the default we just made.

My MEP12 setup includes a few that might not be in MEP11
and I've added some from downloaded plugins. While 99%
percent of the time you will be using the default or no transition,
these can be fun to play with, especially if you have any of the
"3D Series" like the 3D Gallery that is used in the tutorial for
iClone & Magix. There are a few others you might be able
to download and try.

I also have options to "Apply to all objects in the track" and
"Random transitions in the track". (Sounds like they would
only effect the track your selected clip is in.)

Last on my AB box list is "Set transition length", which lets
you set a duration in seconds (actually 100th of seconds) and
has only three buttons "OK", "Apply to all", and "Cancel".
(Not sure what this "Apply to all" means exactly.)



BTW, the list under the A/B box, although presumably identical to the
one in Media Pool, seems to be in a random order here.

And when I click on a new transition in that way, the clip jumps back
to the beginning of the timeline!


For most of them it should jump back to the start of the
existing transition and drop the old one and apply the new
transition. (This is for the transitions between clips on a
timeline track)

*****Now for the 10 Title/text boxes ******



Enter Ctrl-T to bring up the title editor and place
a title overlay box on the next available track. The Title
Editor is pretty self-explanatory and some of the things
you can set in it, you can also set or adjust on the timeline.
When you have the text displayed as you want it click OK.

This is in Timeline view, yes? With 2 captions already made, I just
tried that. But after closing the dialog there were still only 2 (5
miles, 10 miles). On closer examination I found that the new text, 15
miles, had replaced the first caption! So I now have 2 captions, 15
miles, (at 3 mins), and '10 miles' (at 6 mins)!


What you could have done is; Hold Ctrl and Drag off a
copy of your title box, with your mouse. Do that till you
have all 10 title boxes. Then place them where you want
them, on Track 3. Now when you Double-Click on one
of the title boxes you will come up in the Title Editor and
you can change the text for that box. (You can change
anything else, also.) Or you could Right-Click on the
title box and load a title template.

If you wanted, say five using one kind of text transition
and five others with a different transition you could make
your first one then drag off five copies. Then take one of
the copies and change it to the second kind of transition
and then make four copies of that. [Hint: The Ctrl Drag
off will make a copy of all the objects you have selected.]




Now on the timeline move the text box under where you
want the title to appear. Drag it to the length you want and
select the transitions (start and end) for the text. Adjust the
ramps to your liking. Slide the play marker over your work
to see the effect.

One important thing to remember is to zoom in until you
have a useful size display to work with.

You can create copies of the title by holding down Ctrl
and dragging the copy off the existing one. Once you have
it placed you can load a different template or just change
the text. Clicking on a text box will bring up the Title Editor
with that box loaded.

Just hold control and drag your ten copies to any convenient
track, until you can place them where you want them.

I'll fiddle with it some more later.

Luck;
Ken


Thanks a lot Ken. I'll try some of those other tips once I get the
hang of the absolute basics. So far, as you'll have gathered from the
above, it's proving hard going.

For example, there is no vertical red line underneath the end marker,
unlike the start marker. Is that correct behaviour? Positioning it
exactly can be quite tricky.

My text title is in track 3. When I experimentally drag an effect onto
it, say Sunblinds, to my surprise it goes into track 4. So must I
always allow at least one empty track between any audio/video/text
tracks I use, to accommodate any possible effects I might add later?

But if I then drag the effect from track 4 to the text clip itself, in
track 3, this time it does get embedded, on the right of the clip.
However, simultaneously the duration of the clip shortens! What's
going on there please?


The titles are an overlay to start with. Many effects work
by making their own overlay. To do what you want, they
would have to be working with the text overlay as a clip
with some fixed parameters, not overlaid on some other
video.

For it to work right you should use the title effects
provided for in the AB boxes, of the title box (on track 3,
in your example) NOT try to apply a normal effect.
For the "Sun blinds" effect to be applied to your title's
text, click on the title box's AB boxes and select the
Sunblinds instead of the current fade in and fade out.

BTW, some of these effects, although dragged onto the text clip, seem
to apply the effect to the video clip above, instead of the text.

Because they are really intended for a video track clip,
not the title text overlay track clip. ( I'm pretty sure you
could make your own transition effect for text as well as
for a normal video effect, but that would be something to
try latter. Magix has these files out where you can get at
them and uses them in a modular way, so you could make
and add your own, not all editors do this.)

I also don't understand the Time display (the large red digits if you
r-click a clip and select 'Show Time'). For example, I stopped with
the marker around 2 mins into the movie, and the time showing
00:02:25:22. But when I then selected that clip ('scene'?), so that it
turned from grey to pink, the display became 001:00:000. And if I then
selected my next scene (which is from about 3 mins to 20 mins on the
timeline), the numbers changed to 105:01:008. And selecting the next,
final scene, changed them to 001:02:012. What do these numbers mean?
Why doesn't the time display continue to show the position of the
start marker? The only way I can get the time back to that correct
value is by clicking Play or Stop

It does seem weird, but it should be displaying the time for
the frame in the preview display which should be where the
"start marker"/"Scrub line" is and what is shown in the sunken
button on the tool bar just over the track area. When you
click on a different clip or point on the timeline, with the
"intelligent mouse" it assumes you want to look at that frame,
and puts it in the preview display. You can get things back
by clicking on the icon next to the time display in the sunken
button. Turn it off then back on to refresh the displayed time
on the preview display.


I've read the manual (128 page version) but there are many 'How To'
type details like this that aren't covered. (Or I couldn't find them!)
So I'm afraid there may be more questions like this from me!

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK


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