Hi,

What are you planning to do? Your head - is it an image, footage, drawing? There are several free- but also not free - to pick from. I'm just wondering; could you just use the image of your head as png file- and keyframe it up/down?



Nina
Just something.
https://www.petitpoisvideo.com

I have several idea's in mind and know that more will come on future projects. In essence I want to be able to bring a layer of additional graphic to scenes, for titles and so on.
For this particular project the aircraft will have my head in it bobbing but also towing a line of film that will, I hope, have frames running and so to be able to create a scene (layer) that can then be imported in PD13 would be so useful.
Also, for titles sequences it would be great to gain a more dynamic set of letters.
I have been advised that Blender might be of use, but never tried it.

Mark,

you have plans I understand! You may have different ways to go about these ideas. Of course if you sketch or you are planning to go in to 3D stuff you have different programs to choose from. I have earlier been looking in to 3D making software but have decided it will be taking too much of my time to get in to it. Maya, Blender etc will take you in to the 3D world; great if you get the hang of it. Then you have the different sketching / drawing / cartoon softwares - if you are going that route.

Now, these days, there are many tools / utilities to find online to use for free. Getting to know some of them and spend some time trying things out can possibly be a route. Not seldom I use tools like these myself - if I am in need of a gif animation, a funky image in a hurry or even a little sequense of png files converted in to a video file which I can overlay and chromakey out.

Just now I went to this site: http://gifmaker.me/ where you can make animated gifs or even download your .mp4 file for free. You can make a few edits. I uploaded a few png files and downloaded an .mp4 file. Under, in the first round of display, you can see how the file was when downloaded and overlayed + chromakeyed in PD. In the second display, I just sliced up the downloaded file in bits fitting the different leaves, added fade in/fade out + made the duration of each slice longer in Power Tools (Video Speed).





You mention letters and more dynamic movements. I gather you have looked through PD's text templates. Quite a few choices there. Also, you can maybe find something here?



Good luck!

Nina
Just something.
https://www.petitpoisvideo.com

Hi Mark -

That's quite a challenge you've set for yourself, unless you already have your head around animation software. It sounds like you're not familiar with either the software or the process.

Nina's suggestion about using .png files and keyframing movement in PDR has great merit! A while back I spent some time doing just that... making a series of animation files by manipulating objects on the screen & taking screenshots of each frame (much like traditional animation).

Now - if you just wanted a biplane flying across the screen, that'd be easy! Each element of your grand vision adds a little complexity... & each complexity requires a little more learning... and time and effort.

The complexities are:

1. The head bobbing up & down


2. The banner flying behind the plane


3. The video being displayed in the banner


4. Combining all of that into synchronised motion

As a little example, there's a project attached with the bobbing head keyframed - BUT the plane hasn't got off the ground... nor has the banner and its video insert! It wasn't till after I'd done that I realised you wanted the head popping up & down rather than bobbing from side to side.

So - my view would be not to worry about other software but to concentrate on getting greater control of PDR. It can do what you want.

Cheers - Tony
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If you want to go on the 3d space the best tool I discovered is HitFilm Pro.
It's not free such as non commercial version of Nuke or Fusion but it works using layers, leverage standard hardware, integrate both animation, 3d compositing, vfx.
Of course if your needs are for 2d or 2.5d it's a completely different path. 3d work is not trivial and you will need to learn before doing anything.

As far as animation is concerned I've never really tried other than the basic skills I have gains in PD13 and they are just really pretty placement skills. It does occur to me that I need to get my head around key frames, this is next then because it would appear that all I need for my idea is the use of key frames.

See, most of my use with PD13 is for wedding video's ... and they can be quite generic at times and require little inspiration for graphs and so on, for those my art is the editing of scenes for the music, thats what I do best but now I'm pushing the boat out more and for a trip later this year I'm filming everything I can and it's the intro scene I'm working on, here's what I have thus far and you can see my idea for the plane placement idea for the few frames of animation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNqBOEAOUEI&feature=youtu.be

I have to admit I don't really want to step into the 3D world ... all seems rather too heavy for me :

You didn't need 3d for these animations, PD using key frames and PiP will be enough IMHO.