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Thanks for providing all the detailed screenshots and preview capture.
That's some really nice work, and tomasc's original suggestion of producing the entire loop of only the rotating balls would work.
There are other ways of doing this, like using a black color board below the balls with the opacity set to 0 and then bringing it up to 100 to block all content above it, but that would interfere with the Columbia 2 clip if you wanted to include its visual content.
Probably the easiest way to do tomasc's approach would be to save the project, then draw a selection rectangle around just the ball clips and copy or cut them. Use File | New Workspace to create a clean timeline then paste the ball clips.
Go to the Produce page and set the output profile to the same one you're going to use for your finished project. Make sure you know where the clip is being saved to so you can import it back into your original project when you reopen it. You can change the folder location and name before producing if needed, then click Start.
Reopen your original project (no need to save this temporary workspace) then import the new clip. Remove the ball clips and place the produced clip on the timeline. Trim it to where the first ball has finished the second loop, then add a 1 or 2 second fade transition at the end so they'd all disappear at the same time.
You may want to right click on the timeline and choose Remove Empty Tracks to better match the workspace to your new content.
Thanks Optodata. I'll have a go at both yours and tomasc's suggestions. As a complete novice who is learning by trial and error I was unaware of the layering heirarchy in PD. If I understand correctly, the lower layers have priority over the layers above? Sort of the opposite to Photoshop where the top layers dominate the lower layers. I look forward to exploring this new information.
I'm quite happy with my project which starts with a spoof on the Columbia Pictures intro scene mixed with the Paramount intro scene of rotating stars. Using Photoshop, I have replaced the lady holding the flaming torch with our club mascot 'Gumby'. This latest screen shot shows what I'm trying to achieve. I want all the background to remain while the rotating balls fade away.
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When a new post is created, look just below the text area are the Options and Attachments buttons. Look two inches below that and two inches to the right you see the Preview and the Submit buttons.
I have not attempted such a project with nested loops. Someone who has tried this needs to respond. I believe that each ball needs to start at a different location for this to work.
Aha! Found it. Here (hopefully) is a grab of my project screen showing the tracks and also the preview window. The balls are all rotating when the project is being played;
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When a new post is created, look just below the text area are the Options and Attachments buttons. Look two inches below that and two inches to the right you see the Preview and the Submit buttons.
I have not attempted such a project with nested loops. Someone who has tried this needs to respond. I believe that each ball needs to start at a different location for this to work.
Aha! Found it. Here (hopefully) is a grab of my project screen;
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You can use the blue attachments button to hold the screen image the next time.
You can produce the project and apply the fades to ends of the produced files.
Thanks for getting back to me on this. Fabulous forum!
- Blue attachments button? Where can I find this? I was trying to use the image (mountain) icon and the film-strip icon in the attachments bar above but to no avail.
- The rotating balls I refer to are at the beginning of my project...a sort of intro like the Paramount Pictures rotating stars...which I want to fade into a screen of text. I guess what you're saying is that I should maybe make the intro a completely separate project on it's own into which I can then insert the next part as a nested project with a crossfade? I think that would work if I understand it right?
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I was going to do this with a screen image from my project but for some reason, the 'insert image' icon in the bar above won't let me insert an image. I get a message about URL's and HTTPS? Not sure what that's all about.
Anyway, instead of showing my problem I'll try and explain it. I have an image of a small ball travelling on a circular motion path on one track. I have duplicated this onto another 20 tracks and time-shifted each track by a small amount to create a rotating circle of balls. A stack of 21 tracks in total, each one slightly advanced in time by a little over a second.
My problem is; How can I get all 21 tracks to fade out in-sync at the same time while still rotating? I have tried fading each track separately and lining up the start point of the fades on all the tracks but I end up with the circle of balls depleting before the fades complete. I also tried grouping the tracks but this only seems to help in moving them around as a unit.
I also made a screen recording of all this but again, I couldn't work out how to attach the mp4 file I made. All I see is a pop up saying 'Source' which requires me to type something in. Not sure what.
Any ideas out there?
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Hi,
By default PDR opens a project with 1 video/audio track, an fx track and another video/audio track before the title music etc tracks.
You cannot remove these 2 video/audio tracks.
However, in the case where you want to work on, say 5 image only tracks, or video only or audio only - then a workaround is as follows:
Rt click on T1 and Add Tracks...
Select Video, Add 5
Select Position >Above Track 1
Select Audio, Add 0
Select OK
Now Tracks 6 and 7 ( the original tracks) can be deleted
Leaving 5 video only tracks vertically adjacent to each other.
Same principle applies for audio only tracks.
If this is a common requirement, consider making an empty project to your requirements and saving it.
Open it and then then Save As {your new project} to work on.
Cheers
PowerDirector Moderator
Thanks for this. It's what I ended up doing actually except that I haven't been able to delete the default tracks PD first displays when opening a new project but it doesn't matter as much since they are off the bottom of the screen now. Cheers, love the help available here from everyone, it's fantastic!
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Diri - In addition to what Philwild said, Do a left mouse click on the video clip first to highlight it. After that do the right mouse click on the same clip and the option to Link/Unlink the audio track should not be grayed out if it has an audio track.
Think I have it worked out now. The tracks I am working with are still images not videos so there is no audio to unlink. I thought I could delete the empty audio track to make more room on screen but it seems this isn't possible. Thanks anyway.
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Thanks Philwild but nothing I try works. I cannot delete empty tracks but I have found that I can move some of them to the bottom of the layer stack so they are out of the way.
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Are you trying to unlink "Tracks" or unlink the actual audio and video in a video clip?
If you are trying to unlink tracks that can't be done. You can add a single video or audio track and then remove them but if you add an audio and video track they are married and can't be separated, divorced or removed separately.
So if you have video in a video track and no audio in the audio track underneath it, you can't unlink or remove the audio track.
Thanks for this info. I had come to this conclusion but couldn't find any confirmation in any of the literature so was unsure. This will save me a lot of time in future. Thanks again.
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The help manual tells me that to unlink an audio track (in order to remove it) from a video track, I simply right-click on the track in the timeline and select "unlink video and audio tracks" but when I do this, no option appears in the pop-up box to unlink the tracks? If I select one of the video sections in that track then right-click on it, I see the option to unlink in the pop-up box but it is greyed out and unselectable. I have several empty audio tracks taking up valuable screen space which I can't remove.
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This particular file is not a picture, but a video preset. You will find it in the fix & enhance menu on the toolbar and in Color Presets & CLUTS, in the section Downloaded Presets.
Thanks for the help but I still couldn't find it anywhere in the fix and enhance menu. I then accidentally found it when I went to create a DVD disc of my production. It was among the presets for the menu type pages which preceed a video. Thanks again for help.
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No luck. I have sucessfully downloaded a file called 5.cdadj which is an image of a lady in drapes holding a flaming torch similar to the lady in the Columbia Movie trailer with a ring of stars around her. It currently resides in a folder I created separate to Powerdirector. My question is how and where do I put this file so that I can import it as a media file to be used in Powerdirector? This is frustrating the hell out of me as I can't seem to find instruction anywhere on what to do. The help menus in Powerdirector are rudimentary at best and really don't help at all as they dont provide enough detail. Any help appreciated.
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Firstly, I can't work out how to post a new question here so I hope this gets to someone.
When I download some free templates into a folder I have created and then double-click on them I get a msg saying the templates are installed and ready for use in Powerdirector but I can't seem to find them anywhere in Powerdirector. Is there a specific place where I need to place the templates for so that they appear in Powerdirector?
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