Magnetic:
Well I agree, Using Wildfire the first Time may be a bit confusing, but once you have checked out how it works, it is simply amazing (Given the fact how old Wildfire actually is, even more)
I am not a Wildfire "Crack" either, but as I am currently doing several VCD Menus I can give a short step by step howto.
First have a look on the result found
here (Sorry I made this one in a hurry, actually this is a 32 sec long mpeg movie
But you should get the Idea)
Well for this little Anim with blend, colourcycle and wave effect you have to generate 5 Operators (well there are actually 6, but I disabled the Image FX bolt efect, looked to ugly as gif anim
But lets begin from start.
When you fire up Wildfire, you will see a Window with 3 different Tabs: Project, Effects and Options. On the Project Tab, you can define your Input picture (could be on of 4 different types, black frames, Animation, Picture list, Image sequence.) For this Project I have choosen Image sequence (don`t be confused, a sequence could be also a single image)
There will be a requester popping up where you can define how many frames your project will have. But you can change this value whenever you want by pressing the releated Options Button.
Next to check is whether we create Linear or Nonlinear effects (or just convert an Animation)
I choose linear here, Imho it is more powerfull even if its said to be a bit more complicated.
Next to check is the outputformat, just have a look on the image on the right side and the related buttons to get an Idea whats possible.
Ok, next step
So you are going to make a gif anim? Well then go to Options Menu and switch depth to 8 bit. For mpegs this is of course not neccesary here you will choose 24 bit
btw, you can also change the thumbnail width here IIRC the given size is 64, which I found much to small and changed it to 128.
Tata, now we go "ans eingemachte" as we say in German
First you will choose the right Operator, we start with Text.
Click on "Operators" A window with all available Effects will pop up.
Next we choose "misc/text" Doubleclick or drag n drop it to become available in the Effectlist.
When you have your effect you can simply manipulate it by double-click.
In our case it is the efect Window for the text operator.Ok, lets start with the easier things here
The bottom side should be self-explainable, choose your font and the Text to be displayed here. We type "The" and in a Second Line "Munsters" here.
Ok back on top and a little sidenote about input and outputhandling from wildfire.
your given input Image is "Stream" every effect can be processed directly to the stream or into a temporary "storage" to be availabe for further effects.
Well as we want to "compose" this texteffect later with the main Image we will choose "Temp1" as output (see the gadget on the right corner)
Now have a look to the Options Section. Here you can decide which effect your text should have. As Style I have choosen Normal and Adjust is centered.
Ok, the very interesting part comes now
You remember the nice colour cycle effect?
This is done with Wildfires Variable generator (A cool thing, one highlight is, if you decide to change the framenumber, Wildfire will adjust all variables for you, no need to do that manually
)
First we do the colourcycle effect for red.
Click on the small button beside the slider.
"Variable Select" Window will pop up.
We create now the "Colourcycle red" Variable.
To do this simply click on "create"
Another window
Name your variable as you like, as I said I named it colourcycle red.As shape we choose Triangle.
We create a rgb efect, so as Unit we choose "Color" which gives as the max value 255.
So Offset is 0.00 and Amplitude 255.00
Start and Endframe:
Well as I said this was a 32 sec Anim with 800! Frames, but for a gif anim this would be an overkill
So I adjusted the anim to have 40 frames instead. And Wildfire gave me an endframe "12" for this effect. So this is what we select as endframe here. (Startframe is 0 just in case you wonder
)
No hit "ok" and lets start to manipulate the shape.
Well actually this effect starts with red, cycles to green and back to red.
But the start Variable is 0 here...
Well very easy to change:
Select the first Point from your triangle.
Ignore Frame and Value range and concentrate on the field Frame and Value instead. To start with red, we choose the value 255 for Frame 0. (don`t forget to hit enter)
Now that was easy, he? lets do the same for the other to points, remember we will cycle from 255 to 0 to 255. Voila your first Variable is generated
btw, I choose "spline" as Type...
Guess what`s next
Yeah right, the same procedure for "green"
generate a new variable and proceed like the red colourcycle. But remeber, start and end values are 0.00 here...
If you made it so far, well you have generated your first effect then
up to now you should have a general Idea how the effects are done using Variables.
the next operator is well known, Again "Text"
the text itself contains the Titles as seen on the anim
The difference here is, we cycle from white to green and back.
But the nice thing is, we allready have a variable which does exactly what we want:
the red colourcycle Variable.
red:
hit the variable button. select colourcycle red from the var list. Hit apply. Thats it
green: as we start with white, (and red + blue will also will start with 255) you select 255 using the slider or typ the valure directly into the field.
blue, same as for red.
Output (almost forgotten) will be "Temp 2"
So lets start to bring that text on the picture
Select from the Operators menu "buffer" the "compose" effect
(You know doubleclick is next
)
Background is "stream"
Foreground is "temp1" (containing our colourcycled Munster Title)
Destination goes to "stream" (we don`t need any further effects for this text)
"Options"
well we have to decide where to place our little text, this is done by changing the values for top and left
here it is top 195 left 19.
And now comes the next effect, a small little fade effect ( I admit it is hardly noticeable, for the 40 frames Variant the fading is done in 2 Frames
hit the Variable button. create a new variable. select shape ramp, unit free. Offset is 0.00 Amplitude 100 Start Frame 0 end Frame 2
Genlock: Choose single color here and use "black" as genlock color. So we have only text and no black square with text on the Image.. well.. genlock
Great, it`s almost done!
Next step, make the titles "wave"
>> Operators/2D/wave
Input: Temp2
Output Temp2 (we need to compose this later with stream)
Options:
Wrap: Off
Axis: X
Frame 403 (Well I believe this value is much to high and comes from the 800 Frames anim.. in doubt set it to 20)
Frames:803 (same as above, in doubt set it to 40)
Amplitude: Time to generate a new variable
(Type Triangle (spline) Offset 0.00 Amplitude 11. Startframe 6 endframe 13)
CentreX: 176
CentreY: 144
Wavelength: 88
Phase: 0
Shift: hey new Variable
Type is a sine, we have to adjust the other settings direct in the Variable window:
Frame Range is 0 to 18
Value Range is -21 to 1
Point 1: Frame 1
Value -10
Point 2: Frame 3
Value -20
Point 3: Frame 5
Value -10
Point 4: Frame 7
Value 20
And so on
Damping Off
Zoom 1.00
Tata, Final Operator (for this example, actually as I allready mentioned, the Image FX Lightning Operator is missing
)
Again the Compose Operator. Settings are almost the same as above, including the same var for the fade effect.
Therefore simply select the prior compose effect, hit duplicate. (we could have done of course the same for the text effect
)
the changes are: Foreground, it is Stream 2 here
Left is 148
Top is 105
And now its done
Ok, lets see if everything is allright, perhaps we need some changes for the effects? Well lets render a sample preview:
go to the project tab, hit "render preview" small window pops up.
Hit calculate et voila: there we can watch out little anim the first time!
Lets assume everything is ok.
Back to the project Page
You have decided which saverformat you want?
Everything is allright?
Right savepath given and so on?
Well then, hit the "Convert" button.
And when its done, simply enjoy your anim
BTW, I good way to start is, to have a look into the various anims included on the Wildfire CD.
Oh and thanks to mui, there are many many many help bubbles, which explain alot.
So.. now thats it. Sorry for the typos which will be in this Posting, and for my obvious bad english
But here it is three a clock in the morning and I really have to go to bed now
I hope you find this Text usefull
