Apple LiveType 2 User Manual

Name: Apple LiveType 2
Brand: Apple
SKU: 1466471
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5 (1)

LiveType 2

User Manual

Apple Inc.

Your rights to the software are governed by the accompanying software license agreement. The owner or authorized user of a valid copy of Final Cut Studio software may reproduce this publication for the purpose of learning to use such software. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted for commercial purposes, such as selling copies of this publication or for providing paid for support services.

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Note:

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Apple, the Apple logo, AppleWorks, Final Cut, Final Cut Pro, Final Cut Studio, FireWire, Keynote, LiveType, Mac, Macintosh, and QuickTime are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.

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Preface 7 An Introduction to LiveType

How Does Titling Work?

A Realm of Creative Possibilities

Workflow for Creating Titles

About This Manual

LiveType Onscreen User Manual

Apple Websites

Chapter 1 13 The LiveType Interface

Canvas

Inspector

Media Browser

Timeline

LiveType Media Files

Chapter 2 31 Setting Up a Project

Templates

Starting a New Project and Setting Defaults

Setting Project Properties

Chapter 3 41 Adding a Background

Setting a Background Color

Adding a Background Texture

Importing a Background Movie or Still Image

Considerations for Rendering the Background

Chapter 4 47 Working With Tracks

Positioning Tracks in the Canvas

Creating Angles and Curves

Linking Endpoints

Adding, Copying, and Deleting Tracks Working With Tracks in the Timeline

Chapter 5 57 Working With Text

Inserting Text

Adjusting the Timing of LiveFonts

Formatting Text

Enhancing Text With Styles

Creating a Matte

Modifying Individual Characters

Disabling Fonts in Mac OS X

Chapter 6 79 Working With Objects, Textures, and Imported Elements

Working With LiveType Objects

Working With LiveType Textures

Importing Graphics, Images, and Movies

Transforming Objects, Textures, and Imported Elements

Chapter 7 87 Working With Effects and Keyframe Animation

Preset Effects

Applying Preset Effects

Adjusting the Timing of an Effect

Changing the Order of Effects

Duplicating Effects and Tracks

Modifying a Preset Effect

10 3

Creating a New Effect From Scratch

Chapter 8 109 Previewing and Fully Rendering Your Titling Movie

10 9

Previewing Your Work

112

Optimizing Preview Performance

113

Rendering, Saving, and Exporting Your Titling Movie

Chapter 9 117 Advanced Design Techniques

117

Words Within Words Warping Shadows and Glows

11 9

121

Track Curves

12 3

Creative Use of Special Characters

12 6

LiveFonts and Layers

12 8

Creating Scrolls and Crawls

Contents

Appendix A 131 Solutions to Common Problems and Customer Support

131

Frequently Asked Questions

13 3

Apple Applications Page for Pro Apps Developers

13 4

Calling AppleCare Support

Appendix B 135 Creating and Editing EffectScripts

13 5

Header

13 5

Default Timing

13 6

Keyframes

14 0

Sample EffectScripts

Glossary 14 3

Index 14 9

Contents

An Introduction to LiveType

Welcome to LiveType, a special-effects titling application that’s powerful, easy to use, and completely versatile— whether you’re creating movie titles and credits, broadcast ads, or web banners.

Producing dynamic video titles—titles that really pop—can be a painstaking process, fraught with manual adjustments and keyframe stacks daunting even to experienced animators. With LiveType, you can create phenomenal results, in the output format you require, with a fraction of the effort.

How Does Titling Work?

Traditionally, titling was the term for adding text to film. The evolution of digital graphics and video technologies has expanded the definition, which now includes just about any combination of text and images you want to add to a movie. Titling is the process of creating a digital overlay, which is added to edited footage in your nonlinear editor (NLE), or compositing program. LiveType is the design studio where you generate titles to import into Final Cut Pro.

Preface

Alpha channel technology is the basis of titling. Most compositing and animation programs allow you to create art with an alpha channel. In addition, most NLEs use alpha channels they detect in an image or movie to properly lay the element over video.

An alpha channel represents eight bits of grayscale pixel information in a 32-bit file. The eight grayscale bits determine which portions of the image to superimpose over other layers. White alpha-channel pixels make the superimposed image completely opaque, while black pixels make the overlay completely transparent, or invisible. Gray levels represent varying levels of opacity.

LiveType automatically creates an alpha channel for your project when you render it with a transparent background.

A Realm of Creative Possibilities

LiveType has revolutionized titling in two major ways. First, it introduced 32-bit LiveFonts, a new approach to text animation in which every character of a font is a separate, animated movie. Second, LiveType handles effects and animation with greater ease than any other titling application.

Animated Fonts, Objects, and Textures

Three types of animated media are included in LiveType:

LiveType objects

LiveType textures

LiveFonts

All of these elements move inherently, even before you apply motion paths and special effects to them.

LiveType comes with dozens of LiveFonts and hundreds of objects and textures. What’s more, you can create your own animated fonts using the LiveType FontMaker utility, building characters using virtually any graphical object—from 3D animations and images created in Photoshop to video clips—and apply effects to them, just as you would to words.

are animated graphics.

are moving images used to fill backgrounds, text, or objects.

are complete, animated character sets.

Effects Handling

Effects in LiveType are handled as separate entities—“packages” encompassing movement, transformation, and timing parameters—that can be applied to any number of elements in the Canvas. You can take advantage of more than 100 customizable effects that come with LiveType, including fades, zooms, rotations, and motion paths. Or you can create your own styles by adjusting existing effects or building them from scratch.

From an animation standpoint, LiveType is easier to work with than other titling applications, since one keyframe marker contains all the parameters for an element at a point in time, eliminating the complexity of long keyframe stacks.

And powerful timing features allow you to control every aspect of your animation. In addition to basic functions such as loop, speed, and duration, LiveType allows you to sequence your effects. Sequencing lets you animate characters in a line of text individually, with their own timing elements, so you’re not constrained to blocks of text that fly around the screen as a unit.

Whether you’re combining prebuilt elements or generating all the pieces yourself, you can create wholly original, eye-catching compositions with surprisingly little effort.

8 Preface

An Introduction to LiveType

Workflow for Creating Titles

Video production is typically approached in layers from back to front, starting with shooting and editing the footage, then building in effects, then applying titles and sound. Likewise, your approach to title creation should be loosely approached from back to front. Of course, because the design process is fluid, there is no hard-and-fast prescription, but the following steps give you a sense of what’s involved for a typical project.

Step 1: Configure the working environment

Set the output resolution, frame rate, and other project properties.

Set up the grid, guides, and rulers in the Canvas, according to your working preferences.

Step 2: Apply a background, if any

Step 3: Create elements (text or objects) in the Canvas, one by one

Position and shape a track for the element.

Add an element to the track.

Select a font.

Adjust attributes and apply styles to the element.

Step 4: Animate the elements

Define the movie duration.

Apply effects and adjust the timing.

Customize the animation with keyframe adjustments.

Step 5: Preview and fine-tune the movie

Step 6: Render the final movie for compositing into your video

Step 7: Export the movie to an alternative format, if needed

You may be able to save considerable time by taking advantage of LiveType templates—project files provided with the software that offer many examples of titling formats. One might suit your needs with few changes, or you may find that certain elements within a template are useful, which you can copy into your own project. More about templates can be found in Chapter 2, “Setting Up a Project,” on page 31.

Preface

An Introduction to LiveType

About This Manual

Because LiveType is a creative tool, documentation can only go so far in describing its potential. This manual provides a detailed description of the LiveType interface, features, and functionality, and introduces you to the built-in resources and templates to give you a sense of the versatility of this product. In the end, you are limited only by your own creative vision, and the way to push the limits of LiveType is to jump in and start creating.

This manual begins with a description of the interface, followed by a series of chapters that explain the tasks you’ll need to perform, as well as advanced techniques.

Note:

This user manual is written for people with a rudimentary understanding of film or video production. Experienced users will be quite familiar with all such terminology herein. Others will find that most terms are defined in context, and the glossary at the end of this manual may be helpful as well.

LiveType Onscreen User Manual

The LiveType onscreen user manual allows you to access information directly onscreen while you’re working in LiveType. To view the onscreen user manual, choose Help > LiveType User Manual. The onscreen user manual is a fully hyperlinked version of the user manual, enhanced with many features that make locating information quick and easy.

The home page provides quick access to various features, including Late-Breaking News, the index, and the LiveType website.

A comprehensive bookmark list allows you to quickly choose what you want to see and takes you there as soon as you click the link.

In addition to these navigational tools, the onscreen user manual gives you other means to locate information quickly:

All cross-references in the text are linked. You can click any cross-reference and jump immediately to that location. Then, you can use the navigation bar’s Back button to return to where you were before you clicked the cross-reference.

The table of contents and index are also linked. If you click an entry in either of these sections, you jump directly to that section of the user manual.

You can also use the Find dialog to search the text for specific words or a phrase.

LiveType Help also contains information about issues with third-party software and known bugs. This information is found in the Late-Breaking News section of LiveType Help.

10 Preface

An Introduction to LiveType

To access Late-Breaking News:

Choose Help > Late-Breaking News.

Note:

You must be connected to the Internet to download the Late-Breaking News file.

Additionally, LiveType Help contains a link to the Creating LiveFonts PDF file. This document details the process of creating custom LiveFonts for use with LiveType.

To access the Creating LiveFonts PDF file:

Choose Help > Creating LiveFonts.

Apple Websites

There are a variety of discussion boards, forums, and educational resources related to LiveType on the web.

LiveType Website

For general information and updates, as well as the latest news on LiveType, go to:

http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/livetype.html

Apple Service and Support Website

For software updates and answers to the most frequently asked questions for all Apple products, including LiveType, go to:

http://www.apple.com/support

You’ll also have access to product specifications, reference documentation, and Apple and third-party product technical articles.

For LiveType support information, go to:

http://www.apple.com/support/livetype/index.html

Other Apple Websites

Start at the Apple homepage to find the latest and greatest information about Apple products:

http://www.apple.com

QuickTime is industry-standard technology for handling video, sound, animation, graphics, text, music, and 360-degree virtual reality (VR) scenes. QuickTime provides a high level of performance, compatibility, and quality for delivering digital video. Go to the QuickTime website for information on the types of media supported, a tour of the QuickTime interface, specifications, and more:

http://www.apple.com/quicktime

Preface

An Introduction to LiveType

FireWire is one of the fastest peripheral standards ever developed, which makes it great for use with multimedia peripherals, such as video camcorders and the latest highspeed hard disk drives. Visit this website for information about FireWire technology and available third-party FireWire products:

http://www.apple.com/firewire

For information about seminars, events, and third-party tools used in web publishing, design and print, music and audio, desktop movies, digital imaging, and the media arts, go to:

http://www.apple.com/pro

For resources, stories, and information about projects developed by users in education using Apple software, including LiveType, go to:

http://www.apple.com/education

Go to the Apple Store to buy software, hardware, and accessories direct from Apple and to find special promotions and deals that include third-party hardware and software products:

http://www.apple.com/store

12 Preface

An Introduction to LiveType

1 The LiveType Interface

The LiveType interface consists of four primary windows—the Canvas, the Inspector, the Media Browser, and the Timeline.

Canvas

Â Canvas: This is where projects take shape. You use it to position text and objects,

create motion paths, and view the results as you design.

Â Inspector: A toolbox of settings and parameters, including virtually every option for

building and customizing your titling creations.

Â Media Browser: This area provides access to all the fonts, textures, objects, and effects

you’ll use to create your titles.

Â Timeline: This is where you manage the frame-by-frame action of your titling

projects. Animation keyframes are created and adjusted in the Timeline, allowing you to orchestrate the movement of your titling elements.

Inspector

Media Browser

Timeline

The four windows float freely, and can be moved and resized to suit your working preferences.

To restore the default layout of LiveType:

m Choose Window > Apply Default Layout.

Canvas

The Canvas is your creative working environment, reflecting the output dimensions you configure in the Project Properties dialog. (See “Setting Project Properties” on page 34.) Whether you are working in HDTV, NTSC, PAL, or any other format, the Canvas is designed to help you lay out and view your titling project easily.

About the Canvas Interface

There are various interface elements and controls in the Canvas, outlined below.

Background (transparent)

Track, showing multiple

lines of text on one track

Zoom pop-up menu

Action safe guidelines

Title safe guidelines

Transport controls

Background

When you first open LiveType, the default checkerboard pattern in the Canvas represents a transparent background, allowing alpha channel titles to overlay video footage when composited in a nonlinear editor (NLE) such as Final Cut Pro. You can set the background as any combination of the following:

Â Transparent Â Solid color Â Animated texture or object Â Still image Â Movie

14 Chapter 1 The LiveType Interface

Backgrounds often cover the entire Canvas. However, when used with the matte feature in the Attributes tab of the Inspector, an element can appear to “punch through” an underlying element to reveal the background color, image, or movie. See “Creating a Matte” on page 72 for more about creating mattes.

Tracks

The dark blue horizontal line that appears in the default Canvas is a track. Tracks are the foundation of any LiveType composition. Every element of a project resides on a track. Tracks define:

Â The position of text and objects in the Canvas Â The layering of elements Â In some cases, the path taken by moving elements

Tracks have two endpoints, and can have any number of “control points,” which are nodes that create angles and curves in the track. When more than one track is in the Canvas, only the endpoints of the selected, or active, track are visible. This identification is helpful when you’re applying attributes to a track.

Action Safe and Title Safe Guidelines

The green hairline boxes in the Canvas represent the “action safe” and “title safe” areas. The action safe area, defined by the outer line, is the extent of the screen where the image is readily visible, given the curvature of the cathode-ray tube (CRT). The title safe area, represented by the inner line, is the boundary beyond which text is not easily read.

To turn the action safe and title safe guidelines off or on:

m Choose View > Title Safe.

Chapter 1 The LiveType Interface 15

Canvas Zoom Pop-up Menu

At the bottom of the Canvas is a pop-up menu for changing the magnification of the Canvas.

To change the Canvas zoom, do one of the following:

m Open the Canvas zoom pop-up menu at the bottom of the Canvas and choose one of

the magnification options.

Canvas Zoom

pop-up menu

m Choose Fit to Window from the Canvas Zoom pop-up menu, then resize the Canvas

window to a new magnification.

m Choose View > Zoom In or Zoom Out. m With the Canvas active, use the Command-Z keyboard shortcut for Fit to Window. m With the Canvas active, use the Command-+ or Command-– keyboard shortcut to

zoom in or out.

Transport Controls

The transport controls allow you to generate a RAM preview of your project so you can preview your titling movie right in the Canvas. When you click the Play button, LiveType renders each frame into RAM memory. This feature is referred to as a RAM preview.

Previous frame

Play

16 Chapter 1 The LiveType Interface

Next Frame

Loop

To render a RAM preview of your project in the Canvas:

1 Click the Play button (or press the Space bar when the Canvas or Timeline is active).

The preview renders each frame, then runs through the preview in real time.

2 Stop the preview by clicking anywhere in the Canvas.

The Play icon turns into a Pause icon when the RAM preview is playing. The Loop button is a toggle that gives you the choice of a single run-through or repeating the preview in a continuous loop.

See Chapter 8, “Previewing and Fully Rendering Your Titling Movie,” on page 109 for more about previewing your work.

Customizing the Canvas

Most Canvas settings can be customized from the View menu, allowing you to configure guidelines and magnification, and choose which elements appear in the Canvas. The grid, rulers, and guides are helpful for precisely aligning and positioning elements in the Canvas.

To show the rulers or the grid:

m Choose View > Rulers. m Choose View > Grid.

Ruler for

horizontal guides

Ruler for vertical guides

Grid

You can set the number of pixels between each grid line in the Project Properties dialog.

Chapter 1 The LiveType Interface 17

To customize the grid:

1 Choose Edit > Project Properties.

2 In the Ruler and Grid Settings area at the bottom, enter a new value in the Grid Width

field.

To add a guide to the Canvas:

m Click inside one of the rulers to insert a guide marked by its horizontal or vertical

pixel position.

To add crosshairs to the Canvas:

m Click inside one of the rulers and drag the pointer onto the Canvas.

Guide marker showing

pixel position

Crosshair guide

To remove guides from the Canvas, do one of the following:

m Drag guide markers off either end of the ruler. m Choose View > Clear Guides, which removes all guides.

You can isolate a single track and display all other elements as bounding boxes— rectangles that roughly show the size, position, and orientation of an element. This option is useful for cleaning up the Canvas as you work on a single track, and it saves preview-rendering time, because only one item of your composition is being rendered.

18 Chapter 1 The LiveType Interface

To isolate a single track in the Canvas:

m Select the track you want to continue working on, then choose View > Selected Only.

Revert to the normal view by choosing View > Selected Only again.

Bounding boxes show the size and position of deselected elements.

Choose View > Selected Only to view only the contents of the selected track.

The Proxy Frame Only option in the View menu–which applies only when you’re using installed LiveType media—renders LiveFonts, textures, and objects as proxy frames in the Canvas, essentially freezing their inherent animation.

Particularly when the animated element has highly variable content from frame to frame (such as Particles objects, which contain few if any pixels in the beginning and ending frames), the proxy frame is easier to work with, because it shows a more representative shape of the object regardless of the playhead position.

Chapter 1 The LiveType Interface 19

Inspector

The Inspector is your toolbox for transforming elements—text, objects, or images. There are unlimited combinations of parameters and attributes you can use to make your titles dynamic and original.

The Inspector consists of a text-entry box and Live Wireframe Preview at the top of the window, and five tabs of parameters. Inspector settings always apply to the track, character, or effect that is currently selected in the Canvas or Timeline.

Text-entry box

Live Wireframe Preview

Inspector tabs

Text-entry box (in the Text tab only)

Text-Entry Boxes

There are two areas in the Inspector where you can add text to a track. One of these is in the upper-left corner of the Inspector. Because this text-entry box is visible no matter which Inspector tab is selected, it is a convenient way to identify the active track, as well as to add or change the text on a track, as you can type directly into it. The textentry box at the bottom of the Text tab is larger, making it easier to insert and edit larger amounts of text.

The text-entry boxes also allow you to select individual letters or words on a track. When you highlight text in the text-entry box, those characters are selected in the Canvas. This is particularly useful when the text you want to modify is obscured in the Canvas by other elements.

20 Chapter 1 The LiveType Interface

Live Wireframe Preview

In the upper-right corner of the Inspector, the Live Wireframe Preview continually plays your titling movie, with small bounding boxes indicating the movement of each character or object. This feature gives you a quick indication of how your adjustments have changed the overall animation, without rendering a full preview with every change you make.

Small bounding boxes depict the movement of the Canvas elements.

Preview playhead

Click to turn the preview on or off.

To freeze or unfreeze the Live Wireframe Preview:

m Click inside the preview area.

Inspector Tabs

There are five tabs in the Inspector. Â Text tab: This is where you enter text and adjust the size, alignment, and spacing of

text on the active track.

Text tab settings

Chapter 1 The LiveType Interface 21

Â Style tab: This tab provides options for the Shadow, Glow, Outline, and Extrude

treatments, which can be applied to text or objects. These are often used to add depth and highlight the text or object, although a wide variety of graphical outcomes are possible.

Style tab settings

Â Effects tab: This tab lists the effects that have been applied to the active track, and is

used to view and change effect parameters at any point in your titling movie. Effects are combinations of movement and transformation that can be applied to any track. The On column of the Effects tab allows you to turn an effect off or on for individual characters on the track.

Effects tab

22 Chapter 1 The LiveType Interface

Â Timing tab: Timing parameters for tracks and effects are controlled in this tab. While

the Timeline provides a frame-by-frame diagram of tracks and effects with their associated keyframes, the Timing tab is a single pane that allows you to adjust the overall timing and modify the parameters of your animation.

Some timing adjustments are made more easily by moving elements in the Timeline, rather than entering values in the Timing tab. However, the Timing tab gives you access to the full range of timing variables, as well as effect parameters that let you fine-tune your animation, creating exactly the look you want.

Timing tab

Chapter 1 The LiveType Interface 23

Â Attributes: This is where you assign a variety of attributes—opacity, blur, scale, offset,

rotation, and color—to elements in the Canvas. Attributes can be applied to entire tracks or individual characters on a track.

The Attributes tab also contains options for creating a matte effect, in which an element appears as a cut-out window that reveals the element below it. A simple line of text, for example, can be matted to a movie clip, which essentially “fills” the text. The Matte to Texture option lets you fill track contents—even individual characters—with an animated texture, without having to add the texture to your project as a separate element.

Attributes tab in the

Glyph pane

Glyph settings include

attributes such as the

shape, color, and position

of text and objects.

Attributes tab in the Matte pane

Matte settings are variables for creating cutouts and textured fills.

24 Chapter 1 The LiveType Interface

Media Browser

Most of the installed resources available for your titling projects are available through the Media Browser—except for LiveType templates and images and movies you import from other sources. There are various tabs representing different elements installed on your computer: LiveFonts, system fonts, textures, objects, and effects. Using the Media Browser, you can scroll through and view representations of all these elements before you apply them to your project.

Browser preview

Tabs of media and effects

The Media Browser preview is the only way to see how LiveType media—LiveFonts, textures, and objects—move and transform until you install the full data file onto your computer. When you first apply one of these elements to the Canvas, a single representative frame is displayed, not the entire animated sequence. Installing the data component allows you to see a true representation of the LiveFont in each frame of your movie. See “LiveType Media Files” on page 28 for more about LiveType file management.

Chapter 1 The LiveType Interface 25

Timeline

The Timeline depicts the frame-by-frame orchestration of your titling project, and provides many tools for designing the movement and timing of your titles. The Timeline allows you to do the following:

Â Set the timing and duration of tracks and effects Â Manage the track order, or layers Â Group tracks to maintain their relative position Â Enable and disable tracks and effects Â Work with keyframes to customize your animation Â Select specific frames to view or adjust Â Set markers to render only a portion of your movie for previews or final output

About the Timeline Interface

The following are the interface elements and controls in the Timeline.

Project tab

Grouping buttons

Timeline zoom slider

Playhead

Enable/Disable

buttons

Timecode

Frame ruler

Keyframe

Render Selection

Effect

Out point

Track

Background bar

Project Tabs

Tabs at the upper-left corner of the Timeline indicate which projects are currently open, and which one is active.

Playhead, Timecode, and Frame Ruler

The playhead and timecode on the frame ruler indicate which frame is showing in the Canvas. The playhead moves along the frame ruler when you play your project, and it can be dragged to any given frame.

To view a specific frame, do one of the following:

m Drag the playhead to the desired frame. m Click a frame in the frame ruler.

The Canvas always reflects the frame under the playhead.

26 Chapter 1 The LiveType Interface

Render Selection Markers

The In Point and Out Point markers in the frame ruler allow you to determine the portion of your movie you want to render. Using these markers, you can:

Â Save time rendering previews when you don’t need to see the entire movie Â Choose the precise number of frames you want to include in your final output

To change the render selection, do one of the following:

m Drag the In Point and Out Point markers in the frame ruler. m Position the playhead and press the I key on your keyboard to set the Render Selection

In Point, or the O key to set the Render Selection Out Point. The Timeline must be active for these hot keys to work.

As you constrain the range of frames to be rendered, the information box in the upperleft corner of the Timeline reflects the modified duration and number of frames.

Note: To quickly locate the Out Point marker when it is beyond the end of the visible Timeline, move the Timeline zoom slider all the way to the right.

Tracks and Effects

Tracks are numbered according to their layer position in the left column of the Timeline, and Track 1 is always the top layer.

Effects are depicted as separate bars underneath the track they apply to. An effect may extend for the entire duration of the track, or only a portion of it. One track may have several effects applied to it, in sequence or overlapping.

Background Bar

Any item that falls below the background bar is a background element. You can drag the background bar up or down to any position between tracks in the Timeline. For more information, see “About the Background Bar” on page 43.

Keyframes

The basis of most digital animation, keyframes contain the parameters that elements in the Canvas reflect at a specific point in time. When a movie is rendered, LiveType interpolates the movement of the elements in between keyframes for smooth, continuous motion. When an effect is increased in duration, or stretched, the keyframes spread out with it, and the effect takes longer to complete. See Chapter 7, “Working

With Effects and Keyframe Animation,” on page 87 to learn more about keyframes.

Grouping Buttons

Grouping buttons let you group tracks together in the Canvas, locking their relative position while allowing you to move the group as a unit.

Chapter 1 The LiveType Interface 27

Enable/Disable Buttons

The Enable/Disable buttons turn tracks and effects off or on. When a track is disabled, its contents are removed from the Canvas, although the blue track line remains. Disabled tracks are not rendered in previews or movies. Similarly, effects can be disabled.

Timeline Zoom Controls

Typically you use the zoom controls to adjust the amount of time represented in the Timeline window. This is helpful to do while working with timing a long or complex composition.

The main zoom control is the Timeline zoom slider, which zooms in and out around the playhead as you drag.

You can also use the Command-+ or Command-– keyboard shortcut to zoom in or zoom out on the playhead when the Timeline is active. Another helpful command is Shift-Z, which adjusts the Timeline to show the entire project at once.

Shortcuts and Hot Keys

The LiveType interface includes numerous menu items and shortcuts to help you use the application easily and efficiently. It’s important to note that the function of these options depends on which LiveType window is active.

For example, when the Canvas is active, the arrow keys nudge the active track in small increments. However, when the Timeline is active, the right and left arrow keys advance the playhead or move it back one frame.

LiveType Media Files

LiveType includes hundreds of media and effects files, which are the resources available to you within the Media and Template Browsers. Animated files include LiveFonts, objects and textures. Preset effects and templates, as well as various other LiveType resources, are also included with the application. These files are collectively known as LiveType media files.

LiveType now uses a single file format for media such as LiveFonts, textures, and objects, but media using the earlier “pair format” is still supported.

28 Chapter 1 The LiveType Interface

Locating LiveType Media Files

When you install LiveType, a folder hierarchy is placed in the following location: Library Application Support/LiveType/. This is where LiveType looks first for media files such as LiveFonts, objects, textures, effects, images, movies and templates. LiveType media files can also be installed on other hard disks including a network server. You can assign any location for media files from the Preferences dialog.

Media file types Media filenames Media file contents

Effects LTFX Contains effects files and sample

movies for each effect.

LiveFonts LTLF Animated font characters

Objects .LTOB Pre-rendered animations with

an alpha channel

Templates LTTM LiveType projects

Textures LTTX Full screen animated

backgrounds. These animations can also be matted to any font character or element on the LiveType Canvas.

About Installing LiveType Media Files

The LiveType installation process allows you to install LiveType media files in any location. For more details concerning installing LiveType and the LiveType media files, see the Installing Your Software document that is enclosed with the installation discs.

Managing LiveType Media Files

Any element in the LiveFonts, Textures, Objects, and Effects tabs of the Media Browser has a corresponding media file, which contains the components needed to work with LiveType. Once these media files are installed in the /Library/Application Support/ LiveType folder, you can move them to a different disk.

To use LiveType media that is located outside the application support folder:

m Assign the location of the media files from within LiveType using the Preferences

dialog. Choose LiveType > Preferences.

Note: To use LiveType media that is located outside the application support folder, assign its location from within LiveType using the Preferences dialog. If you have media installed from a previous version of LiveType, the Media Browser reads “Yes” or “No” in the Installed column for that media which indicates whether or not the media files are installed. This convention only applies to earlier “file pair” formats. New content comes in the form of media files that appear in the Media Browser with a double dash in the Installed column indicating they are installed. The Install and Uninstall buttons in the lower-left corner of the Media Browser do not apply to the newer content, only to LiveType media files from previous versions of the application.

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Creating Custom Categories for LiveType Media files

You can create custom categories for LiveType Media by simply creating a new folder within the Media folder, such as LiveFont/My folder/My font. LiveType only recognizes one folder level after the original media category.

You can move “file pair” media files from previous versions of LiveType to another disk, but they must be in the same folder hierarchy that they were previously located in.

Using Imported Files

When you use graphics or movies from other sources in your project, LiveType needs to refer to the source files for these external elements. Therefore, once you’ve placed an image or movie, it’s best not to move or rename the source file. The Images folder in the LiveType folder hierarchy is a convenient place to store images associated with your projects.

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