New Xara Designer Pro X (365 or X12) works properly with VPX and MEP!

browj2 wrote on 7/5/2016, 12:10 PM

The new Xara Designer Pro X (365 or version 12) now works properly with VPX and MEP for creating overlay animations, finally! It was broken in versions 10 and 11.

In MEP 2016 Plus/Premium, right-click on a video object, select Video effects from the menu, Create overlay graphics/Animations, and the video opens in Xara. Create an object, like a star, give it a name, click on Copy in the Animation box at the right to advance (0.5s by default), move the object, Copy, move, repeat. You can try changing the size of the object, colour, rotation, even the form and everything will tween. You are subject to the Flash animation tools, so feathering and the fancy new brushes cannot be used. File, Exit and return to document, and the animation will be brought into VPX/MEP. Double-clicking on the animation re-opens Xara for editing.

You can create multiple objects and animate them. This is the compositing tool that we needed. If you want moveable, resizing masks, make sure to make them white. You can use transparency, but not feathering (which is an annoying limitation).

Note that the animation created, so far as I can tell, will be the same length as the clip, so trim the clip to just what you want. Note the length of the clip. In the animator, you have to continue it to the end or the animation will start repeating in MEP until the end of the clip.

Warning, I tried using the new brushes and they cause both programs to crash.

Comments

browj2 wrote on 7/9/2016, 11:14 AM

After paying for Xara DPX (365 or 12), the tool no longer works. Xara crashes upon exiting to the movie editor. I tried just a rectangle, no name, a few copies, exit, crash. Tried a named rectangle, moved it around for each frame. Crash. Tried nothing, that did not cause a crash.

If anyone has these two products, could you please confirm?

Thanks,

browj2 wrote on 7/11/2016, 12:16 PM

To make a liar out of me, the VPX Xara interface worked fine last night. So today I investigated more.

There is a button "Exit to movie editor" that causes the crash, but not always. I can get it to work once or twice, but it will soon cause a crash. Using File, "Exit and return to document" or closing the program with the upper right X works fine.

Secondly, using one of the fancy brushes causes Xara to crash upon exiting.

Thirdly, feathing can cause a crash or the XAR object no longer works.

A crash corrupts any other XAR objects that are in the project and they are not recoverable, so before adding or modifying a XAR, save. If Xara crashes, exit VPX/MEP without saving and re-open the project.

No word from Magix on my new ticket for this.

By being careful, I have found some great effects. I was trying a simple mask with transparency to simulate feathering. It looked terrible. Then I remembered how Magix made some of the captions, by creating 2 alpha masks, one white, one black. I now had a nice feathering on the moving mask.

I tried simply duplicating the white mask on the timeline, inversing the alpha arrow, and this also worked, but not as well as the two masks. More testing required.

I did a text along a line and animated it. Nice.

johnebaker wrote on 7/11/2016, 2:49 PM

Hi John CB

. . . . To make a liar out of me . . . .

Computers do that - just when you think you are the mastering them, they turn round and bite back.

. . . . I was trying a simple mask with transparency to simulate feathering. . . . .

Can you post a screen shot or short video of what you are trying to do please? It sounds interesting.

Thanks

John EB

browj2 wrote on 7/11/2016, 10:06 PM

Hi John EB,

Too busy with tiling the bathroom to do much else. I want to work up a nice tutorial but that will take a long time. I will post a few things as I have time for.

Here is a quick image of Bernadette running through her name. The title is in VPX. The problem is that this type of thing should be done with the camera on a tripod, so I will just show 1 frame. I made a mask in Xara that resized and moved with Bernadette, then put it between the video background and the text object in VPX.

Oops, I just did something that messed up VPX, have to reboot.

browj2 wrote on 8/6/2016, 11:11 PM

Just to add some content, here is a link to another post in which I showed some examples of how to use VPX/MEP with Xara.

Coming up next, hopefully before Monday, is a neat one in which I add a photo, clip it to a circle, and give it circular transparency. The only way to do this is to make a copy of the Xar object, make the image white, and give it alpha chromakey in VPX.