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Hi!
Thank you. I meant to search, but didn't quite know what to search for. Blurred? Diffused? Fuzzy? It took a long time just writing the post as I was having problems describing what I wanted. I am glad you understood what I wanted. Thank you again.
I suspected it had to be done from scratch. But I didn't know what colour to use for transparancy, or what file format, what size or how PD would recognise it, if at all. Now I know, and will create my own custom mask for what I want to do. (Although I think it should be built in - there is a blur setting on borders, why not masks?)
Brgds
Danny
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Hi!
I have a project with still photographs like a slideshow, and want to superimpose some moving video on top. The video needs to be round, offset and to the side so you still can see the picture behind it, and I've figured out how to use Motions and Masks for that. But the frame is perfectly sharp - like a picture in picture TV - and I want the edges to be blurred, to blend in with the background. I've looked for days. How?
PS. Ideally I'd like for the video to be oval, not round, but can only find a round mask. Is there a trick to make it oval?
Brgds
Danny
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Hi!
Quote:
Have you tried the two types with video clips to compare them?
No, I hadn't. I'm a newbie and have only worked with still photos so far. But with video I can see the slight difference between Overlap Fade and Cross Fade. Thank you for the suggestion, it really helped to understand. However - the point remains that there is absolutely no difference between an Overlap Fade and a Cross Fade on photos. The Overlap is only irritating then, as it moves the Clips about. There should only be one for photos, Cross as it doesn't change the position of them.
Quote:
... from the PD9 User Guide (also in the Help file):
• Cross Transition: when using a cross transition, the two clips are side by side
on the timeline and the transition acts like a bridge between them. For
example, if you add a two second transition between two five second clips, the
total duration is 10 seconds. The transition begins at the four second mark of
the first clip, and ends at the one second mark of the second clip.
• Overlap Transition: when using an overlap transition, the two clips overlap
when the transition is taking place. This allows for parts of the two clips to play
over each other during the transition. Using the same example as above, the
total duration is eight seconds, with the transition playing for two seconds over
both clips.
I read this before trying it on video, didn't understand it then. It's the terminology that's confusing. With "Cross" I think that the two clips cross over into eachother, and with "Overlap" I think they overlap - which is the exact same thing in my head. And it is when it comes to photos. I couldn't understand how 5+5 seconds became 8 seconds in the overlap example, because I didn't get "overlap". I guess I'm dim.
Brgds
Danny
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Hi!
Yes, and it works. But I don't understand the point of having two types of transition to begin with. I don't even understand the difference between "cross transition" and "overlap transition". They sound like the same thing to me. Or why this "overlap" is default. Or why "overlap" changes the length of the clips. My point was that it is all not intuitive, at least to me.
Brgds
Danny
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Hi!
Ah, yes that helped. But I'm still bewildered. Everything in PD9 seems counterintuitive to me. If I place a transition between two pictures I simply expect it to transition between those pictures, that's all. I don't understand why a second button click is necessary to achieve that.
Oh, and the fact that every time you make some change the Mode changes back from Movie to Clip is driving me crazy.
Brgds
Danny
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Hi!
I'm really finding PD9 incredibly non user friendly, if not impossible to use. At the moment I have a Project of a slide show where I've aligned the music perfectly to the picture changes. I've spent a lot of time synchronizing the music with the picture changes. Now I'm trying to add various transitions between the pictures. That should be an easy-peasy drag-and-drop kind of thing. But whenever I drag a Transition between the pictures, it shortens the following picture. It seems to move it too. Please tell me I'm an idiot and that I'm doing it wrong. As an example, say I have two pictures with a duration of 3 seconds each, 1-3 and 3-6 seconds. Now I want a 2 second Fade Transition between them without moving or changing either. How do I do that?
Brgds
Danny
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Hi!
Just so no one doubts it - my original question was answered long ago. And I'm happy.
The ensuing confusion was caused by an extra tip, which I also found helpful. Which probably caused some further confusion as to which "direction" I was asking about. I was asking about transitions across all the tracks, vertically, even ones with no clips in them yet. The bonus tip was about transitions horizontally, within the tracks.
Brgds
Danny
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Hi!
Thank you. And sorry, I should have checked the board first.
Brgds
Danny
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Hi!
It seems that tracks are randomly disabled. It happens right after, or a few seconds after I've gone into PiP Designer, Motion Effects, and adjusted a Fade In or Fade Out. Sometimes they're not disabled, but when I press Play in the Preview it only shows the clip I've just edited. If I then switch to Movie, all of a sudden the other tracks are disabled. Sometimes it doesn't even seem to be the same tracks, just some of them, quite randomly. The type of tracks that are disabled can be any, including Music which of course has nothing to do with PiP. Even locked tracks.
What's this about? Is this some functionality that I don't understand, being a newbie, or a bug?
Brgds
Danny
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Hi!
Thank you both. I already have a black picture, that I use to fade out from in a different situation. I hadn't thought of simply doing the same, but on the last track, to get a "universal" fade.
The YouTube video was very helpful too. I hadn't noticed the Favorites before, it's very useful.
Brgds
Danny
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Hi!
Well, it just so happens that my native resolution IS 1920x1080. It's a 50" plasma TV. It still makes text unreadable at that size, especially considering I'm in a 10' experience situation.
Please refrain from saying I can change my DPI or buy a second computer/monitor to run graphics work on. You don't get my original post at all.
Brgds
Danny
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Hi!
Then neither of you read my post. The issue is that I can't use those higher resolutions, as well as others according to the search I've done of this forum. The workaround I posted, made it possible to start PowerDirector in a "lower" resolution.
Brgds
Danny
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Hi!
"Map the nominal resolution to the monitor's resolution"? How do you do that?
Brgds
Danny
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Hi!
I have a widescreen monitor, and the only readable resolution is 1202x688. Since 688 is lower than 768, PD9 keeps saying I need to run at resolution 1024x768 all the time. I've seen several have posted about this before, but could not see any resounding successes in resolving it. (This message is cr*p anyway; What is resolution? Number of pixels on the screen. 1024x768=786,432 and 1202x688=826,976 pixels. Ie, I DO have a HIGHER resolution. What they're actually complaining about is Height, NOT Resolution... And in this day and age, to insist on a 4:3 ratio in a commercial video editing application I find astounding.)
I contacted tech support and got the usual standard answers that I'm sure everyone else with the problem has had. It felt quite rude actually, fobbing me off. Even though I had already said that any higher resolution than what I have, is unreadable, they said I should switch to 1920x1080 resolution. That resolution literally makes all text, including PowerDesigner, utterly unreadable on my monitor. Letters the size of ants heads.
But I have found a workaround I wanted to share. I noticed that if you start it in 1024x768, leave it open, and change the resolution back to what you actually want, it will work just fine. It will say "...supports 1024x768 or higher. Do you want to continue?" and if you press "Yes", it will indeed happily continue. I have not found any problems with that, except for only seeing half of the Start button on the Produce page, but I can live with that; I can still click it.
Then I discovered this tool: http://www.12noon.com/displaychanger.htm It allows you to change the resolution in a script. After a few hours of tinkering, I got a perfect workaround. I created this bat file:
C:
cd "C:\Program Files (x86)\12noon Display Changer\"
"C:\Program Files (x86)\12noon Display Changer\dc64cmd.exe" -width=1768 -height=992 -depth=32 -refresh=30 -
fixedoutput=center -apply
cd "C:\Program Files\CyberLink\PowerDirector\"
start PDR9.exe
"C:\Program Files (x86)\12noon Display Changer\dc64cmd.exe" -width=1202 -height=688 -depth=32 -refresh=60 -
fixedoutput=center -apply
It works like a charm. Running it, the screen turns black for a moment while searching for the resolution, and comes back with PowerDirector in the resolution I want - with no messages of any kind.
If anyone has a better solution, I'd be glad to hear it.
Brgds
Danny
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Hi!
Is there a way to apply a master transition, that automatically applies to all tracks, including new ones that I add? I'm specifically thinking of the ubiquitous "fade in from black" and "fade out to black" which basically all videos have. And related to that, is there no way to apply such a "fade in from black" on an effect in the Effects track??
Brgds
Danny
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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
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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
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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
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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
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