3D movie captions

[Charles Moir]

We're working on a X3D6 and would like to make it easier to use X3D for creating movie captions. I know there are traditional blue-screen (or green screen) methods that work now, but these methods are severely limited and rather technical.

Does anyone have any suggestions for ways in which we can easily make it easier to create animated 3D captions to movie files?

One thought - that may or may not be easy - is that we do the work ourselves and import a movie one frame a at time and, composite the animation on the frames and export the movie again. This would have the advantage that we can have properly anti-aliased edges, real soft shadows etc. But this method has complex issues about movie export format control and the fact it might be re-compressing the movie. But it would at least be very easy for the user - just select the movie you want the animated caption applied to and press 'go' and that would be it, you'd have a finished movie with the caption added.

Another possibility is that we generate a separate animated movie, but using alpha-channel frames. I have no idea whether such a thing exists, but I have seen oblique references to movie formats that are 32 bits-per-pixel where 8 bits is alpha-channel. It would be easy for us to write such formats (in effect it's just a sequence of alpha PNGs). This might be useful if movie editors out there can composite one alpha movie on top of another. but I have no idea whether such things are common-place or not.

As you can tell I'm a newbie when it comes to movie editing and formats etc. Just trying to understand ways in which we can make this area easier. Strikes me there would be demand for a nice and easy, low cost, way of adding animated 3D captions onto movies.

[Charles Moir]

We're working on a X3D6 and would like to make it easier to use X3D for creating movie captions. I know there are traditional blue-screen (or green screen) methods that work now, but these methods are severely limited and rather technical.

Does anyone have any suggestions for ways in which we can easily make it easier to create animated 3D captions to movie files?

One thought - that may or may not be easy - is that we do the work ourselves and import a movie one frame a at time and, composite the animation on the frames and export the movie again. This would have the advantage that we can have properly anti-aliased edges, real soft shadows etc. But this method has complex issues about movie export format control and the fact it might be re-compressing the movie. But it would at least be very easy for the user - just select the movie you want the animated caption applied to and press 'go' and that would be it, you'd have a finished movie with the caption added.

Another possibility is that we generate a separate animated movie, but using alpha-channel frames. I have no idea whether such a thing exists, but I have seen oblique references to movie formats that are 32 bits-per-pixel where 8 bits is alpha-channel. It would be easy for us to write such formats (in effect it's just a sequence of alpha PNGs). This might be useful if movie editors out there can composite one alpha movie on top of another. but I have no idea whether such things are common-place or not.

As you can tell I'm a newbie when it comes to movie editing and formats etc. Just trying to understand ways in which we can make this area easier. Strikes me there would be demand for a nice and easy, low cost, way of adding animated 3D captions onto movies.

[Egg Bramhill]

Charles
Great news to hear progress towards Xara3D6.

I'm afraid I've never worked with movies & captions so I've nothing to add to this debate, but as an additional use for Xara3D it sounds like a great idea. I know that 2 or 3 users on the conference use Xara3d for this manner.
Egg

[fencepost]

Charles,

I sent you a Private Message.

Fencepost

[raynerj]

Hello Charles,

I have used 3D5 and Xara X to do title work for for a DVD or two and a couple commercials.

I have used the Blue/Green screen technique with some success. To make XD5 into a dynamite titler, you would need to be able to import the clip as a background first of all.

Next you would need to be able to scale the object accurately and place it accurately anywhere on the screen. A method to control when and where the title work would be visible would be extremely helpful (Fadein and out).

I am by no means an expert but there are several things I have learned and would gladly pass on my limited knowledge if you are interested.

[erikger]

hi

posted a new topic, didn´t see this posting before sorry

i am working with video and several title animation tools.

it would be great if i was able to export the xara3d animation as an 32bit tga sequence or as an rgba avi file or as an 32bit png sequence quicktime movie.

if you are interested i can send you some links to äsimilar tools with there export formats

[AjIsCoool]

i think that the best is to go with eriker sugestion

to export sequence images that suports alpha channel

i also - use a lot of application that can produce caption for movies - if you are interseted - i will point them out to you

==

[John Rayner]

The Latest Version of Premiere works with AI files and rasterizes the vector in Preimiere. Encore, (The adobe DVD Menu Program) uses PSDs for the menus, buttons almost everything.

In this months stop and post I did a "Dr Sues's Grinch" in xara X1, saved it as an AI and had only 1 problem with it in premiere. The internal measurements are different in AI and X1. 740X480 comes across as 554.99X360 I think it is the 96DPI Vs 72DPI problem. Mathematically, the file comes across .75 times smaller. Easy enough fix I would imagine, just need to enlarge the file as part of the save routine.

If you are looking for the best deal on an Adobe premiere package (I can point you to where you can get a OEM version, registered, legal and everything for pennies on the dollar compared to list.