Text: Written in realtime. How?

[Jamie Moeller]

If I would like to make a scene with black background and then a letter appearing, written letter by letter, in a font like Monotype Corsiva or whatever.
As seen in games like World of Warcraft, where the "quests" are written out in handwritting, instead of just appearing all at once.

Is this a feature I can reproduce in Vegas? It would really be lovely for the story-theme I'm trying to create...
I found this example:
http://www.creativecow.net/forum/read_post.php?postid=106457421738215&forumid=24&highlight=gradient&archive=_2003|3|2

But that seems very complicated and outdated, wondered if there were any new methods to doing it? I really don't think I can do what he describes...

[Edward Troxel]

You could simulate the same effect using Bezier masking. However, that's also going to take quite a bit of work.

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

You can find the technique in a tutorial from Jason Abbot.
http://www.vasst.com/resource.aspx?i...1-52b79f0ab20d

He goes through it in a couple different methods.

[Jamie Moeller]

Originally Posted by Edward Troxel

You could simulate the same effect using Bezier masking. However, that's also going to take quite a bit of work.

I never really understood what "masking" was and how do to it, though I've seen it mentioned sometime. Is masking something like marking or selecting an area?

Will try that guide and check it out! :)

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

masking is merely the ability to use invisible media to hide or reveal other media. I liken it to having a piece of cardboard, and you use an exacto knife to cut out shapes of areas that you'd like to reveal. Except in the case of video editing, the cardboard is invisible, and the cutout areas still allow parts of an image to pass thru. The "solid" areas of the cardboard just don't show up, and whatever is beneath it still shows thru.
Once you understand the basics of masking, it's very easy to adapt and expand your techniques of masking.
Heck, just putting text on the timeline is a very simple form of masking.
Put text on track one.
Put a busy, colorful video on track two
Put an average, not so busy or colorful vid on track three.
On track one, hit the compositing button on the track header, and set it to Mask/Multiply. You'll immediately see the background go black, and the video from track two will show thru the letters in the text of track one. This is basic masking. However, now we can't see the vid from track three.

On track TWO, click the Parent/Child arrow to make track two a child of track one. This will make the "cardboard" become invisible, allowing track one/two to be seen in the text, and track three will be visible beneath.

that's a great place to learn the basics of masking.

[Jamie Moeller]

Awesome tutorial, I just did it. Took no time and if that is masking, I understand the concept now :) Not sure I can come up with any situations where masking is a great tool for a movie, except for when making text get this look of what appears behind it.

But about this Realtime Letter Writing, do you suggest I use masking to make a movie of a black background with a bright coloured "stripe" that expands from the first word, all the way to the right and then the same on the next line afterwards?
Or what is this so-called Brezier Masking? I will try to look it up...

There is no real way to use masking to get the feel of the letters truly being writen with a pencil, am I right?
This solution, if I got you right, might work out fine, and surely be pretty easy.

Let me know if you have any suggestions to how I can use masking for my project with the letters :)

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

Jamie, if that's all you took away from masking....use your imagination. :-)
Masking is used every day for correcting color for instance. Ifyou want to highlight a shot, but don't want to raise the highlights of anywhere in the scene except the actors eyes, this is where masking comes in very handy. You can use it for so many, many things...I don't think I've completed a project in at least 5-6 years without some form of masking involved.
Try this one: http://www.vasst.com/resource.aspx?i...a-4108bb1bde6c

Or this one: http://www.vasst.com/resource.aspx?i...3-c7d05c4d902c

Here is a different kind:
http://www.vasst.com/resource.aspx?i...8-012275582727

These are additional examples of non-text masking.

[Jamie Moeller]

Awesome tutorial, I just did it. Took no time and if that is masking, I understand the concept now :) Not sure I can come up with any situations where masking is a great tool for a movie, except for when making text get this look of what appears behind it.

But about this Realtime Letter Writing, do you suggest I use masking to make a movie of a black background with a bright coloured "stripe" that expands from the first word, all the way to the right and then the same on the next line afterwards?
Or what is this so-called Brezier Masking? I will try to look it up...

There is no real way to use masking to get the feel of the letters truly being writen with a pencil, am I right?
This solution, if I got you right, might work out fine, and surely be pretty easy.

Let me know if you have any suggestions to how I can use masking for my project with the letters :)

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

The look of a pencil writing it would entirely be font-dependent. If you wanted to make it even more "pencil-like" you could also animate a shot of a pencil writing the text using keyframes to make the pencil move.

[Jamie Moeller]

I see you added some more to your post :) Looked at it, and I didn't find much help to get the kind of, well, I guess you can call it something like the TypeWriter this article, though more "Old" instead of the modern TypeWriter, I would love a PencilWriter thingie ^^ ...

I'd love it to keep the looks of something from a fairy tale or fictional Dark Age universe, so if it could be "masked" with a technique that revealed it sort of randomly, or how to put it...
I want it to look like a written letter, and just want to see if I can make the appearing effect boost the feeling of that time with Scrolls, Kings and Knights.
The background does not need to be anything but black, but the text itself and the way it is revealed, would be great to have made special :)

[Jamie Moeller]

Originally Posted by Douglas Spotted Eagle

The look of a pencil writing it would entirely be font-dependent. If you wanted to make it even more "pencil-like" you could also animate a shot of a pencil writing the text using keyframes to make the pencil move.

The actual pencil do not need to be included. The text would be enough, I'm sure.
I used keys for my Lightray on the Title of the movie, having three keys in total. One to the left of timeline and screen, with no light strength, one in middle with 0.250 or so strength and then one to the right of timeline and screen, making the lightsource "move" from left to right.

But that is the only thing I did with keys. I'm very much a beginner with Vegas and more so with keys. How could I use keyframes for my advantage, in this text writing of mine?

[Brian Kennedy]

Jamie - if I am reading your question correctly, you most definitely want to do Bezier masking and use a "handwritten-looking" font. It really isn't that difficult to use a Bezier mask to make it look like the letters are being written on the screen, one stroke at a time, but it does take some time, as Edward said. The nice thing is you don't have to redraw all the points every keyframe; you can just drag on a line to move two points at a time.

Try Googling "vegas bezier mask handwritten text" or "vegas bezier mask tutorial text" or similar combinations and you're bound to find a tutorial.

[Jamie Moeller]

Originally Posted by Brian Kennedy

Jamie - if I am reading your question correctly, you most definitely want to do Bezier masking and use a "handwritten-looking" font. It really isn't that difficult to use a Bezier mask to make it look like the letters are being written on the screen, one stroke at a time, but it does take some time, as Edward said. The nice thing is you don't have to redraw all the points every keyframe; you can just drag on a line to move two points at a time.

Try Googling "vegas bezier mask handwritten text" or "vegas bezier mask tutorial text" or similar combinations and you're bound to find a tutorial.

I will try that! Thank you in advance :) ...

EDIT:
Sadly I've tried all combinations, and the only tutorials I could find was some where I need to purchase a plugin of some sort.
Were you referring to these or do you know about any written guides out there to help me with this?

[Mike Kujbida]

Jamie, take a look at Wax (it's free) at http://www.debugmode.com/wax/
There's a "handwritten text" effect tutorial for you to watch and see if this is what you're after.

Mike

[Jamie Moeller]

Originally Posted by Mike Kujbida

Jamie, take a look at Wax (it's free) at http://www.debugmode.com/wax/
There's a "handwritten text" effect tutorial for you to watch and see if this is what you're after.

Mike

That sounds very interesting. I will give it a go!