What do you call it?

[Paz_Pazzaz]

I'm sure I can find online guidelines - instructions - if I knew what I want to do. I can describe it...

I want a scene of water sparkling in a stream. Then I want to cut to a clip of a flower with an insect buzzing around. I want the word "Flora" to appear - perhaps fade into view one letter at a time, in an easy to read font, but instead of the font being a color, I want it to be "empty" and have a lower layer with the sparkles in the stream showing up only in the font area.

Next, cut to a clip of a chipmunk - same sparkling stream layer underneath with the "empty" word "Fauna". The chipmunk is moving, the stream is flowing. Possibly the stream would fully show for a bit between flower & bug and chipmunk. Depends on if it flows or looks choppy and how things fit with the music.

I know it will require layers. But how to do the text? Will the text be a "mask"?

thanks,

Paz

[sidd finch]

I think you can create this in Photoshop. Where ever the letters are just make them transparent. Then the underlining sparkle will only sho through where the letters used to be. Hopefully I have understood your question.

Sidd

[Bob]

I assume you will be using Premiere. This is easily done with a track matte key. Background on track 1, text on track two, the text fill on track 3. Apply track matte key to the text on track two -- in the track matte key properties set the matte to be track 3.

[Paz_Pazzaz]

Thanks, Sidd and Bob.

I should have mentioned that the sparkling stream layer is video too. I think Bob's suggestion of a "matte" is the name I was trying to remember. I'll give it a go and let you all know.

thanks again!

[MrGrunthunter]

I think you could do a lot of what you're wanting to do with BluffTitler, if you have it.

[Peru]

I think you could do a lot of what you're wanting to do with BluffTitler, if you have it.

You can, but it's quicker in Premiere Pro (which I think Paz uses) or Premiere Elements. You also don't have to change it in BT and then export it again if you wish to modify it.

[Bob]

Here's a tutorial using track matte key in Premiere Pro that may help.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxGAUV2fNdQ[/youtube]

This tut uses a nested sequence to place the filled text over the background, but that's not necessary unless you want to do something such as add a drop shadow as shown at the end of the tut.

[MrGrunthunter]

Great tutorial Bob. Thanks for posting. I can't justify Premiere Pro but I do have VEGAS Pro 14. There must be a way to do something like that in VEGAS so I'll give it a try.

[Kent Frost]

As far as what it's called, the first thing that comes to mind is something we used to call it back when I worked in as a graphic technician at a photo lab. We called it a "knockout", where you keep all of the image of the font, except for the letters themselves, which are "knocked out" to show what's behind.

[Paz_Pazzaz]

Mask, Matte, Knockout... Whatever you call it, Bob Got it!

That tutorial is exactly what I need. I'll probably need nesting too since I want several lines of text over the same flowing stream, not all at the same time.

Thanks, everyone!

Bob... have I told you lately how much I appreciate you being a part of this forum????

Paz

[Paz_Pazzaz]

Not sure why my project isn't working. I have my water sparkles video on video 1 with the titles on video 2. Track Matte Key applied to water sparkles on 1 and the effect applied to titles on video 2. The main video (Sequence 3) on the combined sequences is on line Video 3 and when I play it, only the uppermost video shows.

I still have default colors - noticed that the tutorial Bob linked to has the gradient video colored purple. Mine is green, because it is a sequence. I watched how the author created his gradient background - with the Title Creation box. I can't do that for my project because my main video is a combination of flowing river - flower - flowing river - chipmunk - flowing river - bird...

So maybe my file type is wrong. I tried exporting the river-critters file and saving as an MP4, but could not figure out how to bring that in as a sequence.

Or perhaps I have not "nested" correctly. Any ideas?

http://www.patriceart.com/muvi/trackmat ... roject.jpg

thanks,

Paz

[Bob]

A couple of things need to be changed.

First, you need to arrange the tracks in the proper order. Premiere composites tracks from the bottom up. Your main sequence, the background, would go on the bottom (track 1), and the things that overlay it would be on higher tracks. It's like those acetate flip books with the background printed on the paper page and each acetate sheet above it is an overlay. You've placed the main sequence on top of the stack and that's all you will see assuming it's 100% opaque.

Second, you're using multiple titles for the matte with gaps in-between them. That's fine, Track Matte Key can handle that. But, if you are going to do it that way you need to specify Matte Luma as the "matte using" property. If you use Matte Alpha, where there is no title you will see the entire sparkles track. A little counterintuitive, but that's how it works.

Don't worry about the asset colors in the tutorial, he used Premiere Pro CS5 which has different default colors than Premiere Pro CS6.

[Paz_Pazzaz]

First, you need to arrange the tracks in the proper order.

Aw....I can't believe that's where I goofed! You got it, Bob!

Now that I can finally see it - I don't like it! Even with additional glitter the silvery river sparkles don't offer enough contrast to be able to read the text easily. Especially since some of my backgrounds are busy. I'll keep playing around to see if I can figure out something I like better.

MANY THANKS! I may want to use this technique another time.

Paz