CREATING TRACKS & PANS

Tracking and panning effects can be created using individual selected levels or using merged levels. The main requirement for good results is that the scene has been created using High Resolution bitmaps. This must be set at the very start of the process before any scans or drawings have been done because if one set of drawings in a scene is High Resolution then they all must be.

If you create a scene using normal resolution bitmaps and then make a track-in shot the pixels of the bitmap will soon become rather obvious giving a jagged look to the lines of a drawing or scan. If you don`t mind this effect, then it doesn`t matter because, after all, it`s your movie!

 

Keep in mind that High Resolution bitmaps use up a lot of hard drive space and consume plenty of system resources.

 

To start the process you need to click on the frame where you want the track in or out to begin. To create a track and pan for a selected level use the Main Scanning And Editing Form > Level Action > Track and Pan menu option.

To create a Track and Pan for a Finished Scene go to the Main Scanning And Editing Form > Scene menu. (A Finished Scene must have already been created, of course)

Select Create Track And Pan moves and you will be shown the Track and Pan Form.

Select the frame on which you wish to start the track using the slider on the bottom left of the form. The label beneath will indicate which frame you are currently looking at. A good camera move will normally accelerate from rest to its normal speed and slow down again to the rest position at the end of the track (unless you want the move to be sudden, for deliberate effect, of course) and this can be done by checking the Cushion Start and Cushion Stop checkboxes.

If the movement is very slow it may not be possible to have a cushion effect because the difference between the created frames is too small.

If you want to start the shot with a close shot of the object or character (as shown in the example above) first use the Track In or Out slider to adjust the size of the blue rectangle. The rectangle can be positioned using the Frame Left To Right and Frame Up or Down sliders. Then left click the Set Start Frame button. If you want to start the shot with the view set at full frame then you need only to left click the Set Start Frame button to record the current position. This button`s caption will now change to 'Set Stop Frame'.

You now need to move the Frame Positioning slider to the frame on which you want the track in to end. When you`ve done that you need to adjust the size of the frame to the size you want and position the frame using the sliders. Then left-click on the newly named Set Stop Frame button.

You can have multiple moves within a scene. To activate the Set Start Position button you need to move the Frame slider along one frame by clicking on the arrow on the right hand side of the slider. If you want to hold the position of the rectangle left-click the Set Start Position button, move the frame slider to the frame where the hold position needs to finish and click the same button again.

To set up a new move follow the same procedure as with the first move. When you`ve completed all the moves you need you are ready to make the images. If the move is for a specific level or merged level you can just left-click the Create Sequence button. If you want to produced a Finished Scene using any already created background (moving or static) then you need to check the Create Finished Scene button. If you want the background to become progressively blurred on a track in or become less blurred on a track out the check the Blur Background button.

The Blur Background bitmap function will only work if there are at least 17 frames in a sequence.

The programme will now produce the new bitmaps required. This may take a bit of time if there are backgrounds to blur.

If transparent levels have been designated for the scene these will also be processed for a Finished Scene and this also makes the whole process somewhat longer.

If you make a mistake or just want to change the sequence, use the Cancel Last Setting or Remove All Settings buttons as required.

 

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