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Moogs
2004-05-29, 22:07
Figured we could make a thread where everyone goes to get their iMovie stuff answered. I'll start with a popular one:

How do you get rid of the jaggies in titles? I've tried both postscript and truetype fonts but both seem to get heavily jagged-out, and not just at large sizes.

Is the only solution FCE or FCP since they have much more advnaced rendering and titling capabilities?

psmith2.0
2004-05-29, 22:28
Are we talking serious jaggies here? :confused:

Because every iMovie I've ever watched, the type seems to look fine to me.

Moogs
2004-05-29, 22:36
Well, ya a lot worse than I expected. Maybe one of my QT settings is biffed or something but to me it just looks like really heavy anti-aliasing... and when I open the project in iDVD to preview it the jaggies aren't as pronounced but definitely still obvious. I even tried Arial, figuring that would be a sure bet but no such luck.

psmith2.0
2004-05-29, 22:43
Yeah, I'm wondering if something is indeed goo-gooed up in a setting or preference somewhere? Because that's one thing I've never noticed or stuck out to me when viewing people's iMovie or iDVD creations (jaggy, ugly type...if anything, it's usually quite nice).

I don't know where you'd check that though, being that I've never really used iMovie beyond putzing around the tutorial.

:(

Moogs
2004-05-30, 10:45
Hmm. All things QT seem normal. I even tried opening the movie in my QT Player in order to sift through all the movie file properties. Everything seems normal. The only possibibility I see is that something might be off in "Video Track | Graphics Mode" (copy, blend, transparent, straight alpha, etc.) or the maybe the "Video Track | Layer" or "Video Track | Mask" mode. They were all set to their default initially.

I've tried changing the graphics mode to Straight Alpha and a couple others but I don't see any difference in how the text appears / is being antialiased.

HOM
2004-05-30, 11:36
I've stopped making titles in iMovie and started making them in Text Edit. It gives me more text control. Export it as a PDF, convert to TIFF or JPEG, and import it into iMovie.

I used to have the problem of jaggies in iMovie, but when I would output to a TV or a DVD they were minimized. I think the resolution of the screen make the problem more noticeable.

Moogs
2004-05-30, 14:20
You're probably right on that. I figured ultimately I might have to import a still image, but obviously that negates the ability to use the titling effects.

Moogs
2004-06-02, 23:27
Upon further experimentation, I found that pure white on a black background has a much smoother look to it with some fonts. Still not really a professional look but not unprofessional either....

Does anyone happen to know: does Final Cut Express have a transition effect comparable to the Ken Burns Effect? I might have a business opportunity to do a bunch of for-pay DVD slide show type projects and I'd love to be able to use something like that in a more professional editing package.


Meantime, here are some quick tips I figured out / was given along the way (for slide shows in iMOvie).

1) If you spruce up your images in Photoshop first, try to crop or resize to a 4:3 aspect ratio... it will enable you to use the KBE without any letterboxing on horizontal images.

2) Be careful how much sharpening you use (like USM). With water especially, I noticed the Ken Burns Effect can cause a "twinkling" effect if you sharpen things too much. Pretty distracting.

3) If you plan to use transitions between shots, add at least a second (probably 2) to the amount of time you want the picture itself to be seen when setting the KBE parameters. iMovie takes the shot and it's two transitions as a single entity when figuring the elapsed time. Kind of goofy if you ask me but whatever.

Moogs
2004-06-05, 16:10
In doing some more searches for FCP / FCE tips and techniques, I found a great resource page with a lot of useful links. Including one that explains how to do a "Pan and Scan" with photographs in FCP -- that's the standard name for teh Ken Burns Effect, which being a bit of a video newbie I wasn't aware of. Just when you think you got stuff all figured out because you know Photoshop backwards and forwards, you try video editing and realize you only know 50% of what you'd like to know.

:)

Enjoy. (http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/fcp_homepage_index.html)

HOM
2004-06-05, 16:14
In Final Cut Pro, KBE is done using keyframes. Keyframes can be a little difficult to learn at first, but are extremely powerful.

If memory serves me, Final Cut Express 1 did not have keyframe support, but FCX 2 is really FCP 3 minus support of any codec besides DV.

Edit: I was right, FCX 1 did not have support for keyframing, but FCX 2 does. An explanation on how to do KBE with FCX2 can be found here (http://www.uemforums.com/2pop/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=32308&Main=31997).

Moogs
2004-06-05, 16:45
Thanks for the link. I noticed Ken Stone approached P&S the same way -- using keyframes. Apparently the motion tab within FCE is not as flexible as FCP but you can still achieve the same effect via canvas manipulation. Sort of like Director animation it looks like.

Meantime, I've had a bit of a revalation. What I really am interested in doing is working with still images and text animation, rendering to QT format with audio, then burned to DVD with some nice menuing options, etc.

It occurs to me now, that perhaps neither FCP or FCE is what I should be considering for a purchase, but rather Motion, along with DVD Studio Pro 3 (which I have intended to get all along once I had the funds). Seems to me Motion has as its primary purpose, taking still images and making animations / special effects out of them, with the intent of being rendered to video.

Apple's descriptions seem to bear this out, and it the preliminary NAB reports indicate that it will be a far more intuitive program than After Effects, while having some equally powerful tools (particle generator, gravity, etc.). Seems it would also be an even more powerful titling tool then either FCP or FCE, though I don't know enough about LiveType (for exampe) to make that assertion.

Moogs
2004-06-05, 17:03
Holy crap. Didn't catch this the first time I saw the Motion page...

check this out. (http://www.apple.com/motion/quicktour/)

Unbelievable.

torifile
2004-06-06, 13:04
Holy crap. Didn't catch this the first time I saw the Motion page...

check this out. (http://www.apple.com/motion/quicktour/)

Unbelievable.

Very cool. I wish I had a reason to use all these cool apps Apple's putting out. Maybe I'll try to convince my supervisor that we need to get into video....

Moogs
2004-06-07, 18:54
Seriously. Motion is that cool...

"Uh yah boss, you know I've been doing some research and well... we'd be certifiable not to add Motion to our repetoire!"

;)