Applying perspective to text titles or shapes

Scott7268

Newbie Joined: Nov 05, 2018 01:55 Messages: 5 Offline

Solved by

Oct 18, 2020 01:13

Am I missing something obvious, or is it impossible to apply perspective to shapes and text on PD 19?

Of course, 3D text comes with depth perspective, but I can't find any way to key-frame 3D text. So I tried using regular text titles/labels. But with regular text you can't skew the perspective (as it's described in this tutorial video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_7KD9bSHWE )

I simply want to put a text label on a lake, maybe cast a shadow from the text down onto the lake, and have the text remain centered on the lake as the video moves.

I want to use flat arrows to show the direction from which water flows over a waterfall. The shape tool feels like it's missing all the features one would expect with a vector shape tool--keyframing every conceivable aspect of a vector shape. Easy shape manipulation is the primary benefit of a vector shape.

I attached a screen shot from PowerPoint showing what I want to do.

In my video, a drone flies over the lakes very slowly. I want labels, like in the PowerPoint example, to follow the lakes as the drone flies over. I also want to animate the arrows flowing over the waterfalls.

Thank you ahead of time for any help.

Scott


Filename	lakeDemo.PNG	Download
Description	Example of perspective
Filesize	3981 Kbytes
Downloaded:	28 time(s)

optodata

Senior Contributor Location: California, USA Joined: Sep 16, 2011 16:04 Messages: 8630 Offline

Oct 18, 2020 02:15

Interesting ideas and thanls for sharing the image of what you're hoping the finished product will look like.

If you have the NewBlue Titler Pro add-in, you can do all of those things for your titles - reflection, motion, perspective.

If you don't have that, you can use the Motion Tracker and keep a label stationary over the lake as your drone flies. You can't change the perspective or cast a reflection, but you can add a backdrop and shadow and the MT tool can adjust the size of the text automatically if the drone flies closer to or away from the lake.

I can think of a similar compromise with your arrow graphics. I haven't used the tool at all, but at first glance it seems like you can animate the arrow stretching to indicate flow. The shaft length can be keyframed to grow longer while the arrowhead's proportions won't change.

If you want to add perspective, make the animation, set a green color board behind it and produce it. Replace the shape with the produced clip and chroma key out the background, then you can use the blue freeform controls like the tutorial video shows to give the moving arrow any perspective you like.

Scott7268

Newbie Joined: Nov 05, 2018 01:55 Messages: 5 Offline

Oct 18, 2020 22:03

Quote Interesting ideas and thanls for sharing the image of what you're hoping the finished product will look like.

If you have the NewBlue Titler Pro add-in, you can do all of those things for your titles - reflection, motion, perspective.

If you don't have that, you can use the Motion Tracker and keep a label stationary over the lake as your drone flies. You can't change the perspective or cast a reflection, but you can add a backdrop and shadow and the MT tool can adjust the size of the text automatically if the drone flies closer to or away from the lake.

I can think of a similar compromise with your arrow graphics. I haven't used the tool at all, but at first glance it seems like you can animate the arrow stretching to indicate flow. The shaft length can be keyframed to grow longer while the arrowhead's proportions won't change.

If you want to add perspective, make the animation, set a green color board behind it and produce it. Replace the shape with the produced clip and chroma key out the background, then you can use the blue freeform controls like the tutorial video shows to give the moving arrow any perspective you like.

Thank you for the QUICK and thorough advice.

I tried NewBlue Titler Pro. It does all the things I want, except I can't figure out how to syncronize the titles with my video. In the New Blue interface there's a black background (no video preview). When you make title in NewBlue, apparently you can't manipulate any parts of it (location, scale, etc) in PowerDirector. I found a tutoril video showing a bizzar workaround to syncronize NewBlue titles to the preview video using a Sony video editing software (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXXD06pKEAI). All of the examples I've found on NewBlue tutorials show animated titles on a static image background, sort of like PowerPoint.

Any ideas?

Thanks again!

Scott

optodata

Senior Contributor Location: California, USA Joined: Sep 16, 2011 16:04 Messages: 8630 Offline

Oct 19, 2020 00:15

Yeah, it's a bit of a pain to do things outside of PD, but if you've got mostly smooth motion you should be able to keyframe the starting and ending positions by aligning the start and end of the title with the appropriate timeline locations.

I made a quick project using a few keyframes to move a title:

I've packed the project and you can download it from here. Maybe that will help you figure out what you need to do in your project.

I haven't worked with Titler Pro all that much, and the keyframes I used were only available for an 8 second duration. Hopefully that's long enough for your purposes - although you should post back if you need it onscreen longer and somebody here should be able to help.