Can I widen the background band in a caption?

siegbrunn wrote on 12/6/2015, 9:12 AM

Can I widen the background band in a caption? Or otherwise asked, how can I design my own caption title?
I'm using MEP 2015 / 14.0.0.183

I need to do a whole series of captions for a concert video. In all but one of the pre-designed captions ( there are 30 or so offered in my Magix MEP) the background band is too narrow, because I have more than one line of text.  The one with enough space ("plain 3") Is just a big white box and very clunky.

Of course I could make all of the text 7 point, but then no-one can read it. Can I edit the mxv or tfx files somehow, so that I can widen this band?  Or can I use another method to throw a band across the lower part of the screen that I can fade in and out?

 

Thank you for any help.

MEP 2015, Win7

Comments

browj2 wrote on 12/6/2015, 11:33 PM

Hi,

Yes. Place the caption and select it on the timeline. Ungroup it. Regroup only the top 2 objects - alpha image and background. Go to Effects, Movement effects, Size/position. with the double object selected (background) uncheck Maintain proportions. Drag the object in the preview monitor upwards. Drag the middle handle down to inscrease the height of the background without affecting the width. Repeat. When done, place it at the location that you want. Now select the text and move the box up or down to the location on the background lower third that you just re-sized. Add a second line of text. Change font size, etc. When done and with the text object selected, also select the background double object (Ctrl + left mouse button). Group. Play it to make sure that you are happy. Right click on the text object, Save as special effect, give it a name, note the location. The filename will have tfx as the extension. Mine goes to .....\Standard by default.

Move to another object. Under Title tab, select the location of your caption effect, in my case Standard. There it is as one of the selections. Apply it. Click on the text object and modify the text.

Done.

You may lose some quality.

There was a thread in the forum or Q&A part here a while back about how to make your own lower thirds. You might want to track it down.I used Xara Photo & Graphics Designer X11 to create and animate the background, imported it into and a black and white alpha copy onto the timeline, created mxv files of each, imported these onto the timeline, Added my text box, and saved the grouped objects as a special effect. Sounds easy, but creating the graphic and animation with some special effects was time-consuming.

 

Last changed by browj2 on 12/6/2015, 11:33 PM, changed a total of 1 times.

John C.B.

VideoPro X(16); Movie Studio 2024 Platinum; MM2025 Premium Edition; Samplitude Pro X8 Suite; see About me for more.

Desktop System - Windows 10 Pro 22H2; MB ROG STRIX B560-A Gaming WiFi; Graphics Card Zotac Gaming NVIDIA GeForce RTX-3060, PS; Power supply EVGA 750W; Intel Core i7-10700K @ 3.80GHz (UHD Graphics 630); RAM 32 GB; OS on Kingston SSD 1TB; secondary WD 2TB; others 1.5TB, 3TB, 500GB, 4TB, 5TB, 6TB, 8TB; three monitors - HP 25" main, LG 4K 27" second, HP 27" third; Casio WK-225 piano keyboard; M-Audio M-Track USB mixer.

Notebook - Microsoft Surface Pro 4, i5-6300U, 8 GB RAM, 256 SSD, W10 Pro 20H2.

YouTube Channel: @JCBrownVideos

siegbrunn wrote on 12/7/2015, 4:30 AM

Thank you John! I'm opening MEP right now and will try this. 

siegbrunn wrote on 12/7/2015, 10:49 AM

It worked great, John,  and I thank you, thank you, thank you!