Swinging sign text

[Ian Stark]

Has anyone successfully created any 'swinging sign' text effects in Vegas? More to the point, does anyone know of any resources that might offer ready made keyframes? Although I am having some success it just doesn't match the smoothness I can get in After Effects. I'd really like to stay in Vegas if possible.

Swinging Text (motion typography technique) Tutorial - YouTube

gives some examples, between about 0m15s and 0m30s and here is a great corporate animation with several more:

BLP annual review on Vimeo

On a related note, does anyone have any idea why when setting track motion to 3D Source Alpha it automatically assigns a depth of 54? It took me ages before I realised that this was why when I moved the pivot point to the top of the object it was not pivoting as expected. Setting depth to 1 cured the problem. What's the significance of 54?

[Graham Bernard]

Originally Posted by Ian Stark

Although I am having some success . . .

What have you been able to do? Just exactly are you dissatisfied with? Otherwise we could get into that client<>producer thing of Yes-But No-But.. Yes-But . .. thing . . lol....

Originally Posted by Ian Stark

I'd really like to stay in Vegas if possible.

WHY?! Meaning, I could get into my morning eggie with a sledgehammer, although, just over there in our knife drawer, is a perfectly good and efficient tool called a teaspoon? Oh yeah, I can also use it for stirring my cuppa' too.

Ian what's your time worth? More to the point, how much do you need to bang yer bonce against the proverbial to stop doing it? And even more to the point, it is all about the narrative and getting to Oh Yessss! You've got AE - use it! Want to stay in Vegas? Then maybe Frameserver by Satish can provide the bridge - I dunno. But what I DO know, that spending time on a possible cul-de-sac of of your fine creative energy, when you already have a perfectly good tool . . well . . . I'm over eggie-ing the point now.....

I breezed through NB Titler Pro and viewed/sampled the Animations .....O...K... and then the SONY Titler . . . . 'nuff said .......

Here's my dismal, pathetic, forlorn attempt at this Swinging Text . . ugh . ..

YouTube (Short URL)

[Ian Stark]

Quick reply as I am off to a shoot:

"What have you been able to do?": I've got to pretty much the same stage as you. That was the easy part - making it look natural is less straightforward.

"What are you dissatisfied with?": The physics - i.e. the rate of decay of the pendulum action isn't natural and my maths isn't strong enough to work out the numbers! Also, it would be lovely to be able to do this on a per letter basis, but the effort in Vegas is just too great.

"Why stay in Vegas?": Because my client uses Vegas and they want to be able to edit the text in the project themselves, otherwise naturally I would use After Effects.*

"What's your time worth?": Enough to make me ask if anyone has done it before to save having to reinvent the wheel, hence the original post ;-)

* There's a second answer to this - because I like to prove (to myself, if no-one else) that such things CAN be done in Vegas.

[Graham Bernard]

Now I KNOW what you don't want, here it comes . . . .

Anything that is in motion will be affected by Gravity and in turn will be subject to Simple Harmonic Motion relating to that force, and here that is,again, Gravity. The major force in this scenario is Gravity.

So clock Pendulums will accelerate to the vertical position of their swing and will decelerate towards the end of their swing. A swinging sign SHOULD reflect the same motion. However, what is needed to be done is to make a FAST K/F towards the middle of the swing and then decelerate K/F from then on till the end and then an almost HOLD, quickly followed by a K/F that will again acceleration back to the middle again.

Simples!

Grazie

[Gerald Webb]

I had a crack in Vegas, see below.
I, ( like Ian,) enjoy doing things in Vegas that people normally would turn to AFX for.
I really cant get it to look very organic either.
I've wanted for years, to be able to keyframe in Vegas like AFX in trackview.
The closest I could get (easily) was smooth KF's at 100% smoothness.
As Grahame said though I think you would need those extra fiddly parameters to make it look natural.
AFX seems to do it easily though by choosing Easy Ease on all KFs.
Be good to have such an option in Vegas.

Swing tex on Vimeo

[Graham Bernard]

That's excellent Gerald.

G

[Ian Stark]

Grazie - I need numbers, man, numbers! :-)

Gerald - that's much nicer. Was that done by eye, or did you apply any maths to it? Care to share the veg?

[Gerald Webb]

Thanks Graham.

Here go Ian.
I didnt really do any math, just reduced the height of the swing in relation to the distance of the KFs.
And a bit of Height map for glassy look.
Cheers

[Ian Stark]

Many thanks Gerald. Interestingly you have fallen foul of the same issue as me - and that is that the placing of the pivot point doesn't seem logical. I assumed that if you put the pivot point dead centre top of the guide box that your media would rotate around that point. Certainly the box in the track motion window does, but not the actual media in the preview window. You have to move the pivot point about two thirds of the way down the guide box for it to pivot around the top. Does that make sense?

[Ian Stark]

Here's my attempt in context. I will have a play using your keyframes to see if I can improve on it. Like you, Gerald, I long for the extra control over keyframes in Vegas.

Oracle - segment 23 to 30 - YouTube

[Gerald Webb]

Ian,
That really looks pretty good to me.
The 3D track motion in Vegas has always been a bit odd to me, I work with it, but it doesn't seem to display correct values at all times.
I think its because it lacks the ability to create a camera like AFX, therefore taking into account field of view etc.
If you look at the paused points in this demo its just not right, maybe a lens boffin could explain whats happening better than I.
Again, I think you have done well with what we have available in Vegas.

3d-1.m4v on Vimeo

[Ian Stark]

Very interesting demo. It just seems that the whole thing is ever so slightly off - but 'ever so slightly' makes it 'ever so unusable' for critical work!