Animation

[KathyC]

Hello. I'm using PE 3.0 and I'm doing a Winter DVD for the family. I'm wondering if it's possible to add animation to a slide - here's what I mean - since it's a Winter DVD I would like to have snow appear on some of the slides and I can't figure out if it's possible.

[ATR]

Part 1

The following links describe a procedure for creating a snow fall effect for a video, but it is done with Premiere 6.5, a non Premiere Elements version. These are the links:
http://www.wrigleyvideo.com/videotutorial/tutdes_makesnow.htm
http://www.doogs-tutorials.com/photoshop.html

I am going to try to draw from the above to suggest a way to do this in your Premiere Elements 3. You are going to need a snow.psd created in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. This snow.psd is “white speckles on a transparent background”. The first link above contains a link for downloading a snow.psd that you can use in Premiere Elements 3. But, I am going to go through the details of doing it yourself.

Creation of the snow.psd in Photoshop Elements 7 (also possible in other versions, although feature locations may differ from version to version).
Full Editor

File/New/Blank File
Blank File: 1000 pixels W, 750 pixels H, 72 pixels per inch resolution, Bkg content White.

With Foreground Color=Black and Background Color=White, press Alt Backspace to fill the Background Layer with Black. Then duplicate the Background Layer by pressing Ctrl J.

Shut off the visibility icon for the Background Layer and select/highlight the duplicate which is named Layer 1. Follow the following steps with the selected Layer 1 unless indicated otherwise:
a. Filter Menu/Noise/Add Noise, setting at about 140 (higher the value, more snow) and using Distribution=Gaussian and Monochromatic checked.
b. Filter Menu/Blur/Gaussian Blur, setting at Radius=3.8 px.
c. Enhance Menu/Adjust Lighting/Brightness & Contrast, setting Brightness=-12 and Contrast=100.
d. Filter Menu/Blur/Motion Blur, setting the direction of the snow (you could try -80 for a start).
e. Go over to the Layers Palette and add a Threshold adjustment layer above Layer 1. Set to about 110 to get well defined white specks on black background. Then with the Threshold Layer selected/highlighted, click on the Magic Wand Tool (Tolerance=32 and Contiguous checked). Now click on a black area on the screen to select the black area.
f. IMPORTANT. Now switch from Threshold Layer to Layer 1 (marching ants of selection still in effect) and hit the Delete Key. That should leave Layer 1 with just white specks on a transparent background.
g. At this point, delete the Threshold Layer. Convert the Background Layer to a regular layer and then discard it. Save you Layer 1 (white specks on transparent background) as a .psd file which you will next import into your Premiere Elements 3 project.

Part 2, next……

ATR

[ATR]

Part 2

Premiere Elements, “Snow Falling”

1. Open Premiere Elements and place your snow.psd on Video Track 2 at the beginning of the Timeline. Select the snow.psd and bring up the Properties Panel for it.
2. Click on and open the Motion Panel within the Properties Panel. First thing, go to Scale, and change the Scale setting from 100 to 200%. This is done to avoid getting blank (non snow areas at the top of your frame as you proceed in the next steps).
3. Next, you want to keyframe the snow Motion via Properties Panel/Motion/Position. You can do this in either of two ways, one using your cursor and the dragging the screen image incrementally downward in the keyframing process or incrementally increasing the numbers in just Position/Vertical in the Motion Panel options. I suggest for this time you leave the Position/Horizontal as is (360, I believe) and increase the Position/Vertical (from 240, I believe, upward in maybe units of 20). All this will produce a “straight down snow fall” which some may describe as 2 dimensional. If a 2 dimensional snow fall suits your purpose, stop here and place you photo in Video Track 1 below the Video Track 2 snow.psd with its Motion keyframed.
4. If you want to go for a more 3 dimensional look to your snow fall, then we need to place a snow.psd on each of additional tracks, like Video Tracks 3, 4, and 5, and keyframe the Motion of the snow for each. In the process of going for this more 3D look, you will be using

a. Copy/Paste
b. Offsetting the snow.psd on each of the Video Tracks
c. Adding a Fade In/Fade Out as appropriate and lowering opacity of each snow.psd
d. Slowing snow fall of Video Tracks 4 and 5 by stretching their snow.psd slightly
e. Extending time of each snow.psd on a given track from the original 5 sec to X sec by copying the snow.psd on that track and adding it side by side with the original on that track.
f. Via keyframing, changing the snow fall direction from downward/straight that you have for Video Track 2 to downward/to right (different degrees of “to the right”) for each of Video Track 3, 4, 5).

Do not be discouraged if keyframing of the snow.psd on Video Tracks 3, 4, 5 proves challenging. It takes a few tries to get it right, at least for me. For Video Track 3, 4, 5 snow.psd, I found that I could control the keyframing better if I used “the cursor dragging the screen image” route and followed the curve that was draw as the keyframing proceeded. (Tip: you should be able to bring up the curve if you click on the screen.)

I finally got a respectable snow fall out of all this. So, if you need more details, please let me know. Are you sure that you do not want to go for a a sunny California holiday instead of a snowy winter holiday for your project?

ATR

[KathyC]

ATR, thanks for the information - I'm new at this but I will give it a try.

[ATR]

KathyC,

I know you can do it. But, if any problems, let me know and I will try to nudge you in the right direction.

ATR