Does the text tool get any love at all?
Ive been asked to do some cards and a roller. They want to change the colour and font on the left column, is there an simple way to do this in the text tool? I cant seem to figure it out at all.
Highlight the text you want to change, click on the colour box next to Fill and choose the colour. In the font box, click it and navigate to the font you want.
I use layers in Text which makes things like this much easier to change. I have a layer for the left field, then a layer for the right field. So I can just select the left field and change the font/colour/whatever.
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Is that still possible with a roller though? As if i separate them they wont line up properly if i change the font on the left.
If you change the font size or style on one side to the other you may need to adjust the leading to match.
I add the new layer, add the roll to that layer. Position the x on the scrollbar for each layer to have the correct spacing, then link the Y channel of the scroll bar to one of the layers that acts like the master for the roll.
Keep in mind though, you can’t use the fit best speed button or else it will screw your roll up.
also theres an annoying feature where the curser function automatticllay (it seems), changes from EDIT to MOVE. if it on move you wont be able to change colours… change back to edit
The escape key puts it back to edit.
I wouldn’t waste the time and energy doing a roller. I would build everything on pages and then move them in action. With the right kind of cascading of your axis’s and maybe an expression or two you can quickly make adjustments to the timing or pull up the spacing between pages. You can smooth out the stop at the end, etc. No matter which method you use, changing colours, fonts kerning, ledding, etc. will always be a pain. The Text module is so old, particles calls it grand-pa.
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It might also be worth checking out https://endcrawl.com/
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@Ben I know we are looking for Text suggestions here but if you have access to other software I can recommend doing the end credits in Photoshop. As @ytf said, making up cards is the best plan because you will find that Flame has an upper limit to what size it can import. I think the maximum height you can bring into Flame is 16383 pixels.
I end up doing three or four cards complete with production logos like this. Then a slow scroll in action making sure you add a tiny fraction of motion blur. The last thing you want is strobing. Someone did come up with some calculations of the speed they thought you could move to avoid this stuttering effect but I can’t remember it and I just eyeball it. Subtle motion blur. Not so you notice it but so that is softens the move.
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Or a 1 or 2 pixel vertical blur on the type to save on Motion Blur rendering.
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One of the Jon Trussler tricks (if I remember rightly) is to make sure the move in y is no more than 4 or 5 pixels per frame. I think it also helps the render having the integer a whole number.
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Some of these ideas sound a whole lot more painful than using the text menu in Flame to me.
Sadly the text tool has no great way of interpolating pixels. Translating images with sub pixels without great filtering is always a bad time.
Hence, moving images in Action or 2D Transform.
Or, for the love of all things holy in your world, pay https://endcrawl.com/. Seriously. I used them for a 2 hour credit roll (yes, you heard that correctly) and I’m never not using them ever again.
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