Pinnacle Studio

The Looks section

This section of the Motion Titler Album provides visual styles that can be applied to the text and shape layers in your motion title.

Preset looks

The easiest way to use looks is to select one of the icons in the Presets tab. The dropdown list above the icons lets you choose the built-in presets (“Standard”), or those you have designed yourself (“My Looks”).

Switching from the Standard (built-in) preset looks to the customized presets in My Looks. To begin creating a customized look, select a preset to use as a starting point, then click the Settings tab.

To apply a preset look to a text or vector graphics layer, first select it with the mouse by clicking in the Edit Window or the Layer List. You can also affect more than one such layer simultaneously using multiple selection or a layer group.

Having selected the layer or layers to change, use one of the following methods to apply a look:

·    Double-click the icon for the chosen look.

·    Right-click the icon and select Add to selected layer(s) from the context menu.

·    Drag from the icon onto the layer in the Edit Window (or onto any one of multiple selected or grouped layers).

Cloning a style

Rather than applying a preset as such, you can also clone a look as part of a style, which in the case of text layers includes font information as well as the attributes of the look itself. Use Copy style on the context menu of the source layer, and Paste style on that of the destination layer, to achieve this.

Customizing looks

The Settings tab provides access to the Looks Editor, where you can examine, modify, add or delete the individual detail layers that are overlaid to generate a particular look.

There are three types of detail layer: face (surface), edge and shadow. The three types differ not in the settings they support, but in the default position at which they will be inserted in the layer stack. Unless explicitly dragged out of position, face details always appear at the top of the stack, followed by edges, and finally shadows. After a detail has been created, however, it can be dragged up or down in the layer stack as desired.

Face, Edge and Shadow: A new face detail (left, top) is added above the uppermost existing face layer; new edge and shadow details are added below the bottommost layer of their respective types.

The properties of individual detail layers can be modified by means of controls on collapsible edit panels  in the Looks Editor.

The Looks Editor is opened by clicking the Settings tab in the Looks section of the Motion Titler Album. The title bar shows the name of the current look (‘Nautilus’) and three buttons for creating new detail layers. The edit panel for the Face 3 detail is open; below it, the panel for Face 2 is closed.

The following detail properties are available:

·    Offset X and Offset Y: These sliders set the position of the detail layer relative to the nominal position of the text or graphic to which the look is applied. The range of offset is -100 (left, or bottom) to +100 (right, or top). The maximum offsets represent one eighth the width and one eighth the height of the Edit Window work area.

In this example, a look with three detail layers has been applied to a single text layer. The detail layers are configured identically except for their offset values, as follows: top left (-100, 100); center (0, 0); bottom right (100, -100).

·    Size: This slider sets the thickness of the segments used to draw the text or graphic, from zero to 200, where 100 represents the default thickness.

This example includes three detail layers with varying size values. From left to right: 80, 100, 120. The visual effect of varying the size depends on the default thickness of the strokes in the layer. In a text layer, this depends the font family and size chosen.

·    Blur: As this slider increases in value from 0 to 100, the detail layer affected becomes increasingly ghostly and indistinct.

The detail layers in this example differ only in their blur settings. From left to right: 15, 0, 30.

·    Fill: Click the color swatch button to open a standard color dialog in which the fill color of the detail layer can be set. You can also use the eyedropper button to pick up a color from the screen.

·    Opacity: This slider sets the opacity of the detail layer from 0 (transparent) to 100 (opaque).

Working with detail layers

In addition to setting the properties of existing detail layers, the Looks Editor allows you to add details of any of the three types, to delete details, and to reorder the detail layer stack.

·    To add a detail layer, click one of the three small buttons at the top right of the Looks Editor. From left to right, these create a new face, edge and shadow layer respectively. The placement of the new detail layer in the layer stack is determined by its type, as explained above.

·    To delete a detail layer, click the trashcan button  at the right-hand end of the header bar of the detail’s edit panel.

·    To rename a detail layer, double-click its name, type the name you want, and press Enter.

·    To close down or open up the edit panel of a detail layer, click the  or  button at the left-hand end its header bar.

·    To reorder detail layers, drag the header bar of the edit panel to its new location. If the look you are editing contains more than two or three layers, it can be easier to follow the action if you close down the panels first so that the whole stack is visible at once.

Saving a custom look

Once you have finished editing a custom look, you can save it to “My Looks” by clicking the Save Look button at the bottom of the Looks Editor. Before saving, it’s a good idea to rename the look. To do so, double-click the current name in the header bar of the editor, type a descriptive name for the look, and press Enter.