Stone Design Forums

Andrew,

Let's say I have imported a screen capture movie that is 10 minutes long, but there's a section in the movie where there's a progress bar action that takes 1 minute to complete..

Now, I have two questions for you..

1) Is there a way to cut out the bulk of this wait and apply some kind of transition, like a fade or wipe between these two parts? You know, something that would indicate the passage of time?

In FCP or iMovie (for example) you can insert cuts (like with a razor blade) so the movie is now cut in two, and you can then apply any of the available transitions between the two sections (or clips).
In Videator though, it looks like the only option would be to either select the unwanted section, and then hit the delete key; however since this does not break the movie into two sections, but merges them back together without a seam, I don't see any way to assign a transition between them.

Furthermore..

2) I have looked over your documentation about transitions, but do not see how to use them.

In fact, if you teach me how, I will gladly produce another tutorial on the subject. Unfortunately, the documantation assumes you know how to set and define the input values - I do not. In fact, the docs never refer to movies at all; but always talk about images, leading me to suspect these transitions are just for slide shows.

Please enlighten me on this will you?

Thanks again.

A transition needs to end at the beginning of the new clip - so instead of cutting out the entire progress bar, leave a second or three and set the In marker there, set the Out marker at the beginning of the new clip.

Now, add a transition with the markers set.

Did that work?

You might consider making little movies that are transitions of the style you want, then you'd but the in and out marker together at the transition, and drop in that transition movie clip if you want some other style than the 9 offered.

Can you be more explicit regarding this suggestion?
What you are implying sounds interesting, but I need more detail.
Do you have an example movie file of the type you are suggesting I make?

You make it sound like there is a well (or something) that I can drop a transition movie onto.

Some applications I have seen use a method where you are told to make a gray scale movie that will ultimately map it's pure white pixels to movieA, and the pure black pixels to movieB, and all the grey pixels in between will be a mix of the two. Where, for example, an animated gradient that starts out all white, and then animates the mid point across the screen from left to right, so that it ends up all black, produces a simple wipe effect. And these applications then give you a well to drop your grey scale animation into.

But, I do not know of a way to assign a custom effect animation in Videator as just described - or is there?.

Your explanation needs to be complete enough for me to get how to do this.

Sorry, if I'm missing something obvious here.

So, one can:

copy a clip in other movie apps or from Videator, paste it in to where the markers are.

or
drag and drop a QT movie into the movie area, select "Add to movie" , and it will be inserted where the markers are.

If you want to store a qt movie for quick access, you can drag that into the "flix" library (which is just your Movies folder in your home folder.)

If you want to add a movie to a filter that takes an image (or movie) input, you just drag it into the filter's "image/movie" well in the options area.

But back to a much simpler practice - that of inserting a transition where a cut is to go:

1. Set in and out markers at beginning and end of the cut
2. Choose Edit -> Delete Selection (in and out are at the cut)
3. Move the in marker back the duration of the transition (say 2 seconds)
4. Effects -> Transitions -> Mod (or whatever!)

Of course another technique would be to simply set the I and O marker on either side of the cut, drop in a movie, say "overlay" to the dialog, and set the Fade In transparency to 100% and Fade Out transparency to 100% and then the movie will act as the transition.

I'll be there are a bunch of other ways too! But I got to read to my son (The Return of the King)...

Here's another super-easy technique to INSERT a transition that does NOT use any time of the movie clips on either side that I thought of while I was wide awake due to the cognitive dissonance of Daylight Savings Time:

1. Delete the unwanted clip - the I and O and Head are together at the last shot BEFORE the deletion( Edit -> Delete Selection)

2. In Preferences, Images, set Duration to 1 second, Transition to 0.

3. Set Image Well to JPEG (TIFF or PNG) and drag the image into the movie

4. Select "Add into Movie" from "Overlay Selection" dialog

WOW - it automatically applied a transition too! (I usually just leave transition style on random to amuse myself but Ripple is cool!)