Pinnacle Systems NewsCutter - 2.0 Effects Guide

Avid® NewsCutter®

Effects Guide

Release 2.0

tools for storytellers®

Avid NewsCutter Effects Guide • Part 0130-04674-01 Rev. A • November 2000

Chapter 1 Preparing to Work with Effects

Effect Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Effects Creation Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

About Real-Time and Downstream Key Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

About Real-Time Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Playing Real-Time Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Playing Complex Effect Combinations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Combined Rendering of Real-Time

and Non-Real-Time Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Displaying Effects On-the-Fly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Interrupting Render On-the-Fly. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

About Downstream Key Effects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Using the Effect Palette. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Displaying the Effect Palette . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Resizing the Effect Palette. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Understanding the Color Coding. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Displaying Effect Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Playing Effects in a Sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Using Third-Party Plug-in Effects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Chapter 2 Basics of Effects Editing

Deconstructing Effects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Applying Effects to a Sequence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Applying an Effect to a Single Transition or Segment . . . . . . . 34

Dragging an Effect from the Effect Palette . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Double-Clicking an Effect Icon in the Effect Palette . . . . . 36

Applying an Effect to Multiple Transitions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Applying an Effect to Multiple Segments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Deleting Effects in a Sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Deleting a Single Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Deleting Multiple Transition Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Deleting Multiple Segment Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Using the Fade Effect Button . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Working with Transition Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Types of Transition Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Applying a Dissolve Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Using the Effect Palette to Create a Dissolve Effect . . . . . . 45

Using the Quick Transition Button . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Using the Quick Transition Button to Apply

Effects to Multiple Transitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Understanding the Graphical Display in the

Quick Transition Dialog Box. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Adjusting the Effect by Dragging. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Repositioning the Effect with the Alignment Buttons . . . . 56

Creating a Dissolve in Trim Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Sizing the Effect to Fit the Media. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Trimming a Transition Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Creating Motion Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Rendering Considerations When Creating Motion Effects . . . 59

Rendering and Rerendering Existing Motion Effects . . . . . . . . 61

Understanding Motion Effect Type Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Creating a Freeze Frame. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Controlling a Freeze Frame with a Single Button or Key . . . . . 66

Creating a Rolling Clip That Freezes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Creating a Variable Speed Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Creating a Strobe Motion Effect. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Creating Mosaic Effects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Using the Effect Editor with the Mosaic Effect . . . . . . . . . . 75

Chapter 3 Customizing Effects with the Effect Editor

Opening the Effect Editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

Customizing the Effect Display. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Understanding the Effect Preview Monitor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Understanding the Tracking Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Displaying the Safe Title and Safe Action Guidelines . . . . . . . 85

Moving an Enlarged Image in the Effect Preview Monitor . . . 86

Changing Position in an Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Replacing an Effect in Effect Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Using the Effect Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Effect Editor Buttons. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

About Effect Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Using Parameter Sliders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

Using Parameter Enable Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Using the Other Options Button to Access Parameters . . . . . . . 96

Adjusting a Color Parameter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

Using the Eyedropper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

Using the Windows Color Dialog Box. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

Using Keyframes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

Adding a Keyframe. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Selecting a Keyframe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Moving a Keyframe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

Changing a Keyframe’s Parameters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

Copying and Pasting Keyframe Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

Deleting a Keyframe. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

Manipulating Effects Directly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Defining Motion Paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Moving the Image Directly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

Resizing a Foreground Image by Dragging Handles. . . . . . . . 107

Using an Effect Template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Saving an Effect Template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Applying an Effect Template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

Playing an Effect. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

Basic Playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

Playing an Effect in a Continuous Loop. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

Playing a Preview of an Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

Rendering Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

Creating and Using Render Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

Creating a New Render Setting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

Adjusting Render Settings Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Activating a Render Setting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

Partial Render . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

Interrupting a Render . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

Customizing Render Ranges Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

Rendering a Single Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

Rendering Effects at Position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Rendering Effects Between IN and OUT Points. . . . . . . . . . . . 122

ExpertRender . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

Rendering Effects by Using ExpertRender. . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Modifying ExpertRender Results. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

Considerations When Using ExpertRender . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

Examples of ExpertRender Behavior. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

Example 1: Nested Effect with Dissolves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

Example 2: Titles with a Dissolve Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

Managing Effect Media Files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

Understanding Effect Media Files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134

Revealing Effect Media Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134

Deleting Effect Media Files from a Bin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

Chapter 4 Creating Layered and Nested Effects

Creating Key Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

Using the Chroma Key Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

About the Chroma Key Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

Creating a Chroma Key Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

Creating a Luma Key Effect. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

Creating a Matte Key Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

.Using the Color Effect to Prepare a High-Contrast Image . . . 145

Working with Imported Graphics and Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

Editing with Imported Matte Key Clips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

Editing with Imported Master Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

Nesting Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

Expanding Nested Effects in the Timeline. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

Creating a Simple Nested Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

Nesting a Matte Key Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

Submaster Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

Applying the Submaster Effect to a Multilayered

Sequence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

Using the Submaster Effect with a Series of Short Clips . . . . 159

Collapsing Layers into One Submaster Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

Performing a Video Mixdown. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

Chapter 5 Creating Titles and Graphic Objects

Creating Titles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

Downstream Keying of Titles and Graphics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

Opening the Title Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166

Understanding the Title Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

Understanding the Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168

Using the Selection Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

Setting Up the Drawing Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

Installing Fonts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

Previewing Titles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

Using Title and Action Guidelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

Using Safe Colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

Selecting a Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

Using a Video Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

Updating the Video Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

Creating a Color Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176

Using the Alignment Grid. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

Displaying a Grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

Snapping to a Grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

Bringing the Title Tool to the Foreground . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

Working with Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

Creating Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

Copying and Pasting Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

Resizing Text Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180

Repositioning Text Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180

Editing a Text String . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

Formatting the Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

Selecting Text for Formatting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

Setting the Default Text Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

Selecting a Font . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

Changing the Font . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

Changing the Point Size. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

Making Text Bold or Italic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

Justifying the Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

Kerning the Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186

Adjusting Leading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188

Creating Graphic Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

Drawing a Square or Rectangle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

Drawing a Circle or Oval. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

Drawing a Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

Selecting Line Attributes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

Rounding Corners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

Selecting a Line or Border Width . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

Adding Arrowheads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

Changing Arrowhead Size. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

Creating Rolling Titles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

Page Count Limits for Rolling Titles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

Using Auto Size Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196

Setting Up Text Formatting for Rolling Titles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

Typing the Rolling Title Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

Resizing the Width of a Rolling Title . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

Scrolling Through a Title. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

Going to a Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199

Adding Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

Deleting Additional Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

Formatting Rolling Titles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

Selecting Colors and Setting Transparency. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

Adjusting the Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202

Blending Two Colors in an Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

Using the Title Tool Color Picker. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

Adjusting the Transparency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

Blending Transparency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206

Working with Shadows. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207

Applying Shadows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

Adjusting Shadow Color and Transparency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

Adjusting Shadow Softness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

Setting Shadow Softness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

Adjusting Shadow Softness On-the-Fly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211

Viewing Shadow Softness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211

Creating a Glow Effect. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212

Manipulating Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

Basic Manipulation Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

Layering Text and Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

Grouping and Ungrouping Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

Locking and Unlocking Objects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215

Aligning Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

Distributing Objects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218

Saving Titles and Title Styles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219

Matching Resolutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220

Saving a Title and Exiting the Title Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

Saving Multiple Titles in a Session. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222

Using the Fast Save Option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223

Saving a Title with Fast Save. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224

Viewing Fast-Saved Titles in a Bin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224

Rendering Fast-Saved Titles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224

Revising a Title in a Bin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

Saving and Recalling Title Styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226

Saving a Title Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

Recalling a Title Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228

Confirming Function Key Mapping of Title Styles . . . . . 229

Applying Title Styles to Text Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230

Managing Title Styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230

Creating and Using Title Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231

Creating Title Templates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231

Using Title Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232

Exporting a Title as a Graphics File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

Chapter 6 Editing with Titles

Workflow for Editing with Titles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235

Guidelines for Working with Titles and Title Media. . . . . . . . . . . 235

Downstream Keying of Titles and Graphics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235

Restrictions of Downstream Key Titles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236

Converting Downstream Key Titles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

Restrictions of Non-Downstream Key Titles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238

Playback Capabilities of Title Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240

About Title Clips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

Displaying Title Frames in the Bin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242

Editing a Title into a Sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242

Setting Marks in Rolling Titles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243

Splicing or Overwriting a Title into a Sequence. . . . . . . . . . . . 243

Dragging a Marked Title into a Sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246

Dragging an Unmarked Title into a Sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248

Trimming the Duration of Rolling Titles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249

Removing Titles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250

Replacing Titles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251

Fading a Title. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251

Adjusting Title Effect Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252

Revising a Title in a Sequence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253

Replacing Fill Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256

Rendering Titles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259

Re-creating Title Media. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259

Troubleshooting Titles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261

Title Does Not Display over Video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261

Downstream Key Error Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261

Wrong Title Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262

Chapter 7 2D Effects Reference

2D Effects Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

Global and Keyframeable Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264

Acceleration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265

Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266

Border . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267

Color Effect Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268

Luma Adjust . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268

Luma Range . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269

Luma Clip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271

Chroma Adjust . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272

Color Style. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273

Color Gain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275

Crop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276

Downstream Key. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277

Foreground . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278

Key Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279

Key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280

Secondary Key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281

Spill Suppression. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282

Matrix Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282

Mosaic Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284

Feathering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284

Mosaic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285

Motion Effect Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286

Freeze Frame Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286

Variable Speed and Strobe Motion Parameters . . . . . . . . . 288

Plug-in Effect Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290

Position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

Scroll Position V. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292

Scaling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293

Transition Parameters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293

Transition Effect Alignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294

Transition Effect Duration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294

2D Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295

Blend Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296

Dip to Color. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297

Dissolve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298

Fade from Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299

Fade to Color. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300

Picture-in-Picture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

Superimpose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302

Box Wipes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303

Bottom Box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304

Bottom Left to Top Right . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305

Bottom Right to Top Left . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306

Left Box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307

Right Box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308

Top Bo x . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309

Top Left to Bottom Right . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310

Top Right to Bottom Left . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311

Conceal Effects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312

Bottom Left to Top Right . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313

Bottom Right to Top Left . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314

Bottom to Top . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315

Left to Right . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316

Right to Left . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317

Top Left to Bottom Right . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318

Top Right to Bottom Left . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319

Top to Bottom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320

Edge Wipes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321

Horizontal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322

Horizontal Open . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323

Lower Left Diagonal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324

Lower Right Diagonal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325

Upper Left Diagonal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326

Upper Right Diagonal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327

Vertical Open . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328

Ve r ti c a l . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329

Image Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330

Color Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331

Flip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332

Flip-Flop. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333

Flop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334

Mask . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335

Mosaic Effect. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336

Resize . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337

Submaster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338

Key Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338

Chroma Key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339

Luma Key. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340

Matte Key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341

L-Conceal Effects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342

Bottom Left . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343

Bottom Right. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344

Top Left . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345

Top Ri gh t . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346

Matrix Wipes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347

Grid. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348

One-Way Row. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349

Speckle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350

Spiral . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351

Zig-Zag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352

Motion Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353

Freeze Frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353

Variable Speed and Strobe Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353

Peel Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354

Bottom Left Corner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355

Bottom Right Corner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356

Bottom to Top . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357

Left to Right . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358

Right to Left . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359

Top Left Corner. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360

Top Right Corner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361

Top to Bottom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362

Push Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363

Bottom Left to Top Right . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364

Bottom Right to Top Left . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365

Bottom to Top . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366

Left to Right . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367

Right to Left . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368

Top Left to Bottom Right . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369

Top Right to Bottom Left . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370

Top to Bottom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371

Sawtooth Wipes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372

Horizontal Sawtooth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372

Horizontal Open Sawtooth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373

Vertical Open Sawtooth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374

Vertical Sawtooth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375

Shape Wipes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376

4 Corners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377

Center Box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378

Circle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379

Clock. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380

Diamond . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381

Ellipse. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382

Horizontal Bands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383

Horizontal Blinds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384

Vertical Blinds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385

Spin Effects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385

X Spin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386

Y Spin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387

Squeeze Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388

Bottom Centered . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389

Bottom Left . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390

Bottom Right. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391

Bottom to Top . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392

Centered Zoom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393

Horizontal Centered . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394

Left Centered . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395

Left to Right . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396

Right Centered . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397

Right to Left . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 398

Top Centered . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399

Top Left . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400

Top Ri gh t . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401

Top to Bottom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402

Vertical Centered . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403

Title Effects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404

Comparison of Similar Effects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405

Appendix A Using AVX Plug-Ins

Installing AVX Plug-Ins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407

Locating the AVX_Plug-Ins Folder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409

Upgrading AVX Plug-ins and Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410

Assigning Multiple Tracks in Plug-in Effects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411

Using AVX Plug-in Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 412

Accessing an AVX Custom Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 412

Custom AVX Controls in the Effect Editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413

Troubleshooting AVX Plug-Ins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414

Plug-in Does Not Appear in the Effect Palette . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414

Plug-in Does Not Load. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414

NewsCutter Cannot Render the Plug-In . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414

Blank Effect Icons in the Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415

Missing Effect Categories in the Effect Palette . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415

Index

Tables

Table 2-1 Playback Capabilities of Motion Effects . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Table 3-1 Effect Editor Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Table 3-2 Render Settings Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Table 5-1 Toolbar Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

Table 5-2 Title Object Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196

Table 6-1 DSK and Non-DSK Title Playback Capabilities . . . . 240

CHAPTER 1

Preparing to Work with Effects

NewsCutter offers many effects that you can apply to your sequences. This chapter describes concepts you should understand before you begin creating and editing effects into sequences.

• Effect Types

• Effects Creation Tools

• About Real-Time and Downstream Key Effects

• Using the Effect Palette

• Playing Effects in a Sequence

• Using Third-Party Plug-in Effects

Effect Types

Much overlapping occurs between the various types of effects you can create, as well as the methods used to create them. Your system offers four basic effect types.

• Transition effects (dissolves, wipes, and so forth) are applied at the cut point between two video clips that are on the same video

track (that is, the same video layer). For more information on creating transition effects, see Chapter 2, “Basics of Effects Editing

and Chapter 3, “Customizing Effects with the Effect Editor.”

• Segment effects are applied to an entire clip or group of clips. There are two types of segment effects:

-A single-layer segment effect, such as the Mask effect, is

applied to a segment on one video track. Single-layer segment effects use one stream of video. For more information on creating single-layer segment effects, see Chapter 2, “Basics of Effects Editing” and Chapter 3, “Customizing Effects with the Effect Editor.”

-A multilayer segment effect, such as the Picture-in-Picture

effect, is applied to the top layer or a middle layer of segments that contain two or more video tracks that will be played simultaneously. For more information on techniques for creating multilayer effects, see Chapter 4, “Creating Layered and Nesting Effects.”

• Title effects are created with the Title tool and edited onto their own layers in a sequence. For more information on techniques for creating and editing title effects, see Chapter 5, “Creating Titles and Graphic Objects” and Chapter 6, “Editing with Titles.”

• Motion effects (freeze frame, variable speed, and strobe) are created by manipulating the playback characteristics of a clip of footage. For more information on techniques for creating motion effects, see Chapter 2, “Basics of Effects Editing.”

Effects Creation Tools

The following chart presents the basic tools used to create effects.

Sources of effects:

Effect Palette

Apply transition and segment effects directly to tracks.

Effects editing in default editing mode:

Motion Effect dialog box

Title tool

Title and motion effects appear first as clips in the bin.

Edit effect clips into the Timeline.

Effects adjustment in Effect mode:

Effect Preview monitor: Allows you to preview an effect, manipulate keyframes, and manipulate wire-frame representations of the effect.

Effect Editor: Allows you to adjust effect parameters.

About Real-Time and Downstream Key Effects

Many effects are real time, which means you do not have to render them before you play them. Other effects require rendering before you can play them back at full speed. You can preview effects that are not real time before rendering.

Titles and graphic elements imported with an alpha channel display as downstream key (DSK) effects. DSK effects play in real time. See

“Downstream Keying of Titles and Graphics” on page 235.

About Real-Time Effects

A real-time effect is an effect that you can apply to a sequence and play without having to render it first (rendering takes time and disk space). A real-time effect has a small orange dot within the effect icon in the Timeline. Effects that must be rendered have a small blue dot within the effect icon in the Timeline. Effects that might need to be rendered have a small green dot within the effect icon in the Timeline. For more information, see “Understanding the Color Coding” on page 27.

Playing Real-Time Effects

You can create a sequence that has any number of real-time and non-real-time effects. The following maximum capabilities for NewsCutter determine the playback of real-time effects:

• You can play one segment effect at a time.

• You can add a maximum of one additional DSK title or graphic. The DSK Title effect can be either a static title or graphic.

• You can add and render a Dissolve effect between adjacent segments containing real-time segment effects, and the track will continue to play in real time.

The following sequence demonstrates the maximum real-time playback capabilities of the system.

DSK Title effect

Nested Mask effect

Color effect

Playing Complex Effect Combinations

If your sequence contains a combination of effects that exceeds the real-time playback capabilities of the system, you can achieve successful playback by using the following additional techniques:

• Render some or all of the effects. For more information, see

“Rendering Effects” on page 113.

Consider rendering transition effects such as the Dissolve effect or wipe effects first; they take less time to render than titles or segment effects. The ExpertRender option can help to identify which effects NewsCutter needs to render to achieve real-time playback. This option can minimize rendering and improve playback. For more information, see “ExpertRender” on page 124.

• Use the Submaster effect to reduce the amount of rendering. For more information, see “Submaster Editing” on page 157.

• Perform a mixdown of video tracks. For more information, see

“Performing a Video Mixdown” on page 162.

If your sequence contains multiple short clips with multiple real-time effects or images with a high level of complexity, you might exceed the capacity of the hardware to play these in real time, even if these effects would not normally exceed the real-time playback capabilities of your

system. This results in Video Underrun error messages. In this case, render some of the intermediate effects before playing the sequence.

Combined Rendering of Real-Time and Non-Real-Time Effects

The combination of real-time and non-real-time effects on the same video track can show different results, depending on when you render the non-real-time effects:

• If you render non-real-time segment effects after you apply a real-time transition effect, the sequence plays in real time.

• If you render non-real-time segment effects and then apply a real-time transition effect, the transition effect plays as a cut.

Displaying Effects On-the-Fly

The Render On-the-Fly option allows you to play back real-time effects and preview non-real-time effects frame by frame, immediately after applying them.

To display effects immediately during effects editing:

t Choose Render On-the-Fly from the Clip menu.

Interrupting Render On-the-Fly

Using Render On-the-Fly can slow down your editing of a sequence. If you are compositing and then change the frame you are monitoring, the system automatically renders the single frame.

Instead of waiting for the system to finish rendering, you can interrupt Render On-the-Fly. Interrupting Render On-the-Fly interrupts only the rendering of non-real-time effects.

To interrupt Render On-the-Fly, do one of the following:

t Drag the position indicator in the Timeline.

While you are dragging, the sequence appears in the Source/Record monitor as it would if Render On-the-Fly were not selected from the Clip menu.

t If you click in the Timeline and the system begins to render,

quickly move to another location in the Timeline. This interrupts the rendering process until you release the mouse button.

About Downstream Key Effects

By default, NewsCutter creates all titles using its DSK capabilities. Graphic elements imported with an alpha channel are also created as DSK clips.

Downstream keying allows you to add uncompressed titles or graphics over multiple streams of compressed media and continue to play the sequence in real time. You see the real benefits of downstream keying during editing of Title Effect clips into sequences.

For information about editing with DSK titles, including descriptions of various restrictions and playback capabilities, see Chapter 6.

Using the Effect Palette

The Effect Palette is a window that lists all the effects available on NewsCutter. Other effects that are available on your system depend on what third-party plug-ins you might have installed. You select transition and segment effects from the Effect Palette.

The left side of the Effect Palette displays a scrollable list of effect categories that includes the following standard categories as well as categories for any third-party plug-ins you have installed.

The effect categories list also includes open bins when those bins contain effect templates or other kinds of effect files.

•AVX Sample

•Blend

• Box Wipe

• Conceal

• Edge Wipe

•Image

• Key

• L-Conceal

•Matrix Wipe

•Peel

•Push

• Sawtooth Wipe

•Shape Wipe

•Spin

• Squeeze

The right side of the Effect Palette shows a list of the individual effects that are available for the currently selected effect category. Each effect has its own effect icon. Effects that are or might be playable in real time appear with a color-coded dot.

Displaying the Effect Palette

To display the Effect Palette:

You can also display the Effect Palette by pressing Ctrl+8 on your keyboard.

Scrollable list of effect categories

1. Choose Effect Palette from the Tools menu.

The Effect Palette opens.

2. Click an effect category on the left side of the Effect Palette to select it and display effects in that category on the right side.

Resizing the Effect Palette

Blend effect choices

You can resize the Effect Palette to display more effects when a particular category includes a long list of icons.

To resize the Effect Palette:

t Click any corner or side of the palette, drag the palette to the size

you want, and then release the mouse button.

Understanding the Color Coding

Effect icons in the Effect Palette and in the Timeline display color-coded dots to help you determine whether an effect is real-time or non-real-time. After opening the Effect Palette, you will notice that:

• Real-time effects are preceded by an orange dot. These effects take advantage of fast rendering.

• Real-time effects that might not be playable in real time due to their position in a sequence or the options available on your system are preceded by a green dot. These effects take advantage of fast rendering.

The Submaster effect has a green dot in the Effect Palette. Other effects might show a green dot in the Timeline, based on the complexity of the sequence.

• Non-real-time effects have no dot in the Effect Palette. In the Timeline, the effect icon contains a blue dot until you render the effect.

When you edit a non-real-time effect into a sequence, the effect icon appears with a blue dot in the Timeline, which indicates that you must render the effect to play it in real time. After you render the effect, the effect icon appears in the Timeline without a dot.

All color-coded dots disappear in the Timeline when you render effects.

A real-time effect might not be playable in real time for a variety of reasons involving the complexity of the sequence and the real-time effects capabilities of the system. For more information, see “About

Real-Time and Downstream Key Effects” on page 21.

Displaying Effect Templates

Effect templates allow you to save the parameters of an effect to a bin and use them again to create or modify other effects.

In addition to displaying all the standard effects, the Effect Palette allows you to view and access effect templates stored in open bins. The names of open bins containing effects appear in a list below the effect categories.

To view the effect template:

1. Open the bin containing the effect templates.

2. Choose Effect Palette from the Tools menu.

The Effect Palette opens.

3. Click the bin name below the effect category list to view the effect templates in the bin.

Effect category list

Bin name containing effect templates

Effect templates

For example, in the preceding illustration, the bin named Effects contains a series of effect templates using the Picture-in-Picture, Mask, and Superimpose effects.

The Effect Palette also displays other effect files, such as matte key clips and titles.

Whenever you open or close a bin or whenever you drop an effect into a bin, NewsCutter automatically updates both lists. Once a template appears on the right side of the Effect Palette, you can apply it as you would any other effect.

Playing Effects in a Sequence

Some effects in NewsCutter are non-real-time, which means you must render them before you play them. You can preview non-real-time effects frame by frame by using Render On-the-Fly, as described in

“Displaying Effects On-the-Fly” on page 23, or you can play the

effects after rendering them explicitly. For more information see

“Rendering Effects” on page 113.

You can also use Play Preview in the Effect Editor to preview effects before rendering by using their outline form. An effect’s outline is a

wire-frame representation of the effect’s position, scale, and path of motion. See “Playing a Preview of an Effect” on page 112.

Using Third-Party Plug-in Effects

You can use third-party plug-in effects to add new effects to NewsCutter or to update existing effects. Third-party plug-in effects are compatible with the Avid Visual Extensions (AVX AVX is a cross-platform software architecture designed to allow software effect modules to be dynamically linked with a host application such as an Avid editing system.

After you install third-party plug-ins, the effects appear in the Effect Palette in their own category (usually the name of the plug-in vendor). Individual effects all have a plug icon. The plug icon also appears in the Timeline when you apply a third-party plug-in effect. After you create an effect, you can save it as an effect template and reapply the template to other transitions or segments in your sequence. Effect templates also appear in a special section at the bottom of the Effect Palette.

™

) standard.

For more information on AVX plug-ins, see Appendix A.

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