Tail on Type

[Little Nac]

Hi once again,
Thank you for such a warm welcome.
We are using PE4 and are wondering if some one out there can help us out.
We are trying to get a "tail" effect on type as though it is flying.
We are able to fly the type through clouds etc. to pass off the screen, even include the sound effects, but as it passes by, we want a tail effect on the type. Not all the way from the beginning, only as it seems to fly off the screen for the last couple of seconds. I have thought of importing from another program eg. Font Twister, but the tail would be on the type from the start.
I guess most of you guys are Americans and we visit your country from Australia for a couple of months each year, and the effect we are trying to achieve can be seen at Disney's California Adventure on the attraction flying over CA, where you wait outside with the TV monitors and all the city names fly through the sky.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you all.

[Chuck Engels]

I think you are trying to accomplish Motion Trails if I understand the question correctly.
From what I understand this can be done using the Echo Effect. Maybe someone here has done this already? There is a Wrigley tutorial that describes it for Premiere Pro 6, it can probably be duplicated in Premiere Elements 7 without too much trouble.
http://www.wrigleyvideo.com/videotutorial/tutdes_motiontrails.htm

I will keep checking into this, thought there would be an animated text preset for this effect but couldn't find one. Will probably run this by the folks at Muvipix too and see what they come up with.

[Chuck Engels]

After looking at this for awhile it seems to not be the easiest effect to accomplish. Adobe After Effects makes it a little easier, and there are some plug ins that will do this for you at a price (like Heroglyph by ProDad). But the best way to accomplish the effect may be to do it in Photoshop/Photoshop Elements, here is a nice tutorial
http://www.photoshopgurus.com/tutorials/t026.html

[ATR]

Little Nac

I was going to ask you if you had a picture of what you are looking for. I tried searching the Disney site to get a better idea of what you wanted, but did not find anything.

I came up with the following link to ask if this is the effect that you were looking for:
http://www.photoshopgurus.com/tutorials/t026.html

But it looks like CE found it also.

I will see what I can do to reproduce the effect for video. I had worked out something this morning, but I interpreted your question as a way to make the text banner twist as it existed.

Looking forward to learning of your progress.

ATR

[Chuck Engels]

I did have some help getting the Echo Effect working on a Text Title, thanks to Jamal at Muvipix :)

Export the Title as a AVI file (file/export/movie) and then you can add the echo effect, adjust the number of echoes to around 10, set the intensity and the time to what looks best for you, works very well but probably not exactly what you are after.

Maybe a combination of the Echo Effect and the Fast Blur set to Horizontal would be good. Stuff like this just takes some time to try different things and see what works. Unfortunately there isn't an effect that you can just apply, unless of course you pay for a plugin that does it for you. Sometimes people don't want to, or can't, spend the time, that is why the plugin people make money at what they do. They make the tough things easy, for a price of course.

[Chuck Engels]

I should add that you need to add your keyframed or preset motion to the text before exporting to AVI. So when you import the AVI file into your project and play the clip it will already be moving in the way you so desire. Then you can add the Echo Effect to the clip and it will work.

[ATR]

Once Little Nac confirms that is what he is looking for, I will also give it a try.

Thanks.

ATR

[Chuck Engels]

Here is another tip from Jamal at Muvipix
Zoom blur works pretty good for this and you have some additional control as you can keyframe the properties (zoom, blend and center) Center is important for positioning the direction of the blur. If you want a trail to the left simply place the center at the right hand edge of your text. Also lower the blend so that your text will be readable.

Here is a link to the discussion
http://muvipix.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=47643#p47643

Thanks for bringing this up Little Nac, it's been fun trying to figure out how to make this work :)

[ATR]

Very interesting.

Looking forward to Little Nac's comments.

ATR

[Little Nac]

Fantastic, thank you all.
Thanks to CE and ATR as that is exactly the effect I am looking for. Will give it a go ASAP but unfortunately today is out for me, but as soon as I can I will get onto it and let you know my progress.
Also ATR on behalf of my wife Bubby Grub, it works well by dragging the monitor to the second screen. That's great. We have chased forums trying to find out about this with no success. As for her slides tipping upside down and going black, she has just finished her project, and when she cleans off her drive, (which will be when our friend has seen it as it is for him), which will be today, we always run Tune-up Utilities over it and defrag it, so when she starts her new project, will keep you informed of progress.
Thanks very much once again guys for all your help. Terrific.
Talk soon.

[ATR]

Little Nac and wife Bubby Grub

Keep up the good work.

I will be watching for your progress.

ATR

[Little Nac]

Well back again, and am about to try all your suggestions.
Will certainly let you know my progress, but you must realise that I am pretty thick. I need a manual to operate a hammer!!
Thanks again to all.

[Little Nac]

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You.
I have been able to achieve about 99% of the effect I was after.
I firstly tried exporting the type as an AVI file and re-importing it. The effect was great, but as I wanted it to fly over clouds, which also is an AVI file, to get to see the type, it made the clouds more opaque, and this seemed to spoil the effect, so will try a few more things tomorrow.
I also tried the blur effect, but am still working on this one.
The one I did get my 99% success with was the smear transition.
By adjusting the time, the angle etc. it worked great. By the time I inserted a sound effect (of a jet passing by) and music it is fantastic.
If anyone is interested here are the specs.
Two lines of type, centered, with the text frame 6 secs. long.
MOTION: Start: 360 x 288 Scale at 0. End: 360 x 650 Scale at 100.
I used these if the type was to go off straight.
If the type was to have a slight twist off the screen I used 670.
To twist the type either -5 or 5.
THE TRANSITION: Make it 3 secs. Start: 0 End: 15
Change the angle at the top depending on which way the type went off the screen.
I'll post any further progress if I achieve anything.
So easy when you know how. I certainly could not have accomplished anything like it without everyone's help.
Once again, Thanks a lot.
I'll keep you updated.
Talk later.

[ATR]

Little Nac

Bravo.

Thanks for the outcome with details included.

ATR