Newbie question about customizing effects

Daniel Magnus

Newbie Joined: Mar 28, 2011 15:06 Messages: 19 Offline

Solved by

Mar 28, 2011 15:17

Hi!

I've only used Power Designer 9 this afternoon, but am finding the transition/effects difficult. I keep looking for things where they aren't. I've watched practically every tutorial I could find on YouTube.

At the moment I'm especially struggling with fading the effects. For instance, I have a fog effect. I want it to come in slowly and then slowly fade away. It doesn't, it just suddenly vanishes, and fog does not behave that way. The snow effect automatically fades away beautifully. It's the built in effects I'm talking about. Similarly, the fog is very dense and fills up the screen rather quickly so you can't see the background. How do I change the opacity of the effect??

Oh, and can't you apply several effects at the same time? I've figured out that you can drag one effect to the video clip, and a second to the effects track to get two. Is that it? No more than two effects when we have 100 tracks?

Brgds

Danny

1Nina

Senior Contributor Location: Norway, 50km southwest of Oslo Joined: Oct 08, 2008 04:12 Messages: 1070 Offline

Mar 28, 2011 15:22

Hi,

you might get something out of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvU0ADuw_Jw&feature=youtube_gdata
Just something.
https://www.petitpoisvideo.com

Daniel Magnus

Newbie Joined: Mar 28, 2011 15:06 Messages: 19 Offline

Mar 28, 2011 16:09

Hi!

Thank you for the prompt reply. I have been searching and searching for "Power Director 9 effects" but did not find this video.

However, unfortunately it didn't help. The fog is too opaque (what I'm after is a soft morning mist), and doesn't fade out at the end (like the snow does). I had already expected it to show up under Keyframe, but the only options there are Speed and Direction. No Opaque setting or Fade Out kind of thing.

Brgds

Danny

Daniel Magnus

Newbie Joined: Mar 28, 2011 15:06 Messages: 19 Offline

Mar 28, 2011 16:12

Hi again!

After thinking long and hard, I've come up with a workaround; I've created a PNG which is totally invisible, inserted two of them in a new video track, and added a Fade Transition between them, with the Fog effect applied only to the first one.

But that still seems unnecessarily complicated. Is there no better way?

Brgds

Danny

1Nina

Senior Contributor Location: Norway, 50km southwest of Oslo Joined: Oct 08, 2008 04:12 Messages: 1070 Offline

Mar 28, 2011 16:25

As I recall, the fog-effect only has keyframe modifying for
speed and direction, not opacity.
Your workaround sounds fine!
Just something.
https://www.petitpoisvideo.com

Cranston

Senior Contributor Location: USA Joined: Aug 17, 2007 02:26 Messages: 1667 Offline

Mar 28, 2011 16:47

Hi Daniel Magnus,

You are correct. The fog effect does not have the capability to adjust it’s opacity.
Some effects’ opacity can be controlled with the Key Frames, some can’t. A definite shortcoming.

There is workaround of sorts, but it’s pretty laborious as you found out.
Go to C Drive > Program Files > Cyberlink > PowerDirector > PIP Objects
Then locate the Fog Particle folder, and copy the 2 ,png image/templates to (for instance), My Pictures.
Now import the 2 templates from My Pictures, to 2 timelines in PD9. Then, using Key Frames in PIP Designer, create a motion path with size changes and custom changing opacities.
Again, it’s time consuming.

As to your second question. You can drag a total of 7 separate effects “into” a clip or image, and 1 into the effects track. So you can have a total of 8 effects happening at once, at any given time.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Mar 28. 2011 16:50

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Daniel Magnus

Newbie Joined: Mar 28, 2011 15:06 Messages: 19 Offline

Mar 29, 2011 06:17

Hi!

Thank you for the tip about fog. It seems the Particles are more useful than I thought, I will definitely need to try it out.

Brgds

Danny