Regarding Text Object ... am I missing something?

[mhwarner]

In order to avoid having to create some fancy beveled titles in Photoshop, I have been trying to create something similar in PtoE v. 5. I came up with something reasonably decent by stacking 3 different text objects with slightly different shades and offsetting one and lowering the opacity on another and playing with the shadows. Fine so far. But there doesn't seem to be any easy way to manage these multiple text objects. For instance, I want to be able to zoom them in from very small to large enough to cover the slide, while at the same time going from an opacity of 0 to 100. It does not seem possible to group these three text objects to manipulate them as one. I tried first adding an empty frame with 0 opacity and then zooming it, which seemed to work somewhat, but it still doesn't give me the control I would like. Even worse, if I try copying the frame and text objects to another slide to manipulate differently (or change the actual letters in the text), it gets really screwed up.

Is there any trick for dealing with multiple text objects on a slide, or is this something for a wish list in a future version.

I also tried rasterizing some text to a PNG file to stylize in Photoshop, but unlike an earlier version of 5 (one of the betas, I'm sure), instead of getting colored text on a transparent background, I simply get white text on a transparent background which is a PITA to colorize first.

For now, I just create the text in Photoshop, stylize it and save as a PNG. But I really prefer the flexibility of working with the text directly in PtoE. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Lin Evans]

Hi Mary,

What you need to do is make your first object the parent and make it a rectangle with zero opacity. Next make each text object a child of the rectangle so that the rectangle has three text objects indented under it and each in the same relative position so that these text objects are not children of each other, but rather all children of the rectangle.

Then you can manipulate the rectangle for position, rotation, size, etc., and each child text object will correspond. The children can have their own keypoints and individual opacities, their own shadows, colors, etc., but their motion can be controlled in unison by the parent rectangle.

Download this little zip and study the structure to see how it's done.

http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/textcontrol.zip

On the rasterize text to PNG - that's apparently a bug in 5.1 beta. Go back to 5.0 and it works correctly - I'll inform Igor.

Best regards,

Lin

In order to avoid having to create some fancy beveled titles in Photoshop, I have been trying to create something similar in PtoE v. 5. I came up with something reasonably decent by stacking 3 different text objects with slightly different shades and offsetting one and lowering the opacity on another and playing with the shadows. Fine so far. But there doesn't seem to be any easy way to manage these multiple text objects. For instance, I want to be able to zoom them in from very small to large enough to cover the slide, while at the same time going from an opacity of 0 to 100. It does not seem possible to group these three text objects to manipulate them as one. I tried first adding an empty frame with 0 opacity and then zooming it, which seemed to work somewhat, but it still doesn't give me the control I would like. Even worse, if I try copying the frame and text objects to another slide to manipulate differently (or change the actual letters in the text), it gets really screwed up.

Is there any trick for dealing with multiple text objects on a slide, or is this something for a wish list in a future version.

I also tried rasterizing some text to a PNG file to stylize in Photoshop, but unlike an earlier version of 5 (one of the betas, I'm sure), instead of getting colored text on a transparent background, I simply get white text on a transparent background which is a PITA to colorize first.

For now, I just create the text in Photoshop, stylize it and save as a PNG. But I really prefer the flexibility of working with the text directly in PtoE. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Igor]

Thanks,

We'll fix this problem with rasterized text objects in the next Beta 4 (probably already tomorrow).

[mhwarner]

Igor, thanks for fixing the bug on rasterizing the text. That will certainly help some.

Lin, thanks for your response. I had initially created my text as children of a frame object (all three at the same level) which I did use successfully to manipulate the size and motion. I tried it with a transparent rectangle as you suggested and it appears to work the same. Is there a difference in using the rectangle versus the frame for the parent object?

The main issue I have still exists, however. Say that I want to zoom the text (a title) onto the slide from nothing to full coverage of the slide. That works fine using the parent rectangle (or frame) object. But then I would like it to sit there for a second or so and then slowly just fade away. At that point, I cannot change the opacity of the parent because it is already 0. So I have to change the opacity of each of the separate text objects. But I cannot manipulate them as one. If I select all three text objects and click the "Create New Keyframe Here" button, nothing happens. I assume the program can't do that. So a suggestion would be that when I select all three text objects at once, the button should be grayed out. But anyway, at that point, I have to select the objects one at a time to create a separate keypoint for each one in the exact same spot. Then I have to go to each of those 3 stacked keypoints and change the opacity for each text object to set it to 0 (or whatever).

I'm guessing that want I want to do isn't possible currently. Obviously a better answer would be that we could somehow add "bevels" to our text, much as we can add shadows. Igor will have to comment on whether that is even remotely possible. Maybe even the ability to add a second shadow (maybe on top instead of underneath), say in a lighter color, to a single text object to simulate a bit of 3D. If so, I can add it to the "wish list" for next versions topic.

[Lin Evans]

Igor, thanks for fixing the bug on rasterizing the text. That will certainly help some.

Lin, thanks for your response. I had initially created my text as children of a frame object (all three at the same level) which I did use successfully to manipulate the size and motion. I tried it with a transparent rectangle as you suggested and it appears to work the same. Is there a difference in using the rectangle versus the frame for the parent object?

Hi Mary,

No difference between using rectangle or frame.

The main issue I have still exists, however. Say that I want to zoom the text (a title) onto the slide from nothing to full coverage of the slide. That works fine using the parent rectangle (or frame) object. But then I would like it to sit there for a second or so and then slowly just fade away. At that point, I cannot change the opacity of the parent because it is already 0. So I have to change the opacity of each of the separate text objects. But I cannot manipulate them as one. If I select all three text objects and click the "Create New Keyframe Here" button, nothing happens. I assume the program can't do that. So a suggestion would be that when I select all three text objects at once, the button should be grayed out. But anyway, at that point, I have to select the objects one at a time to create a separate keypoint for each one in the exact same spot. Then I have to go to each of those 3 stacked keypoints and change the opacity for each text object to set it to 0 (or whatever).

Opacity isn't inherited - it makes the feature much more powerful without having opacity inherited because children can have their own individual opacity separate from the parent. Yes, you do have to separately set keypoints for each child but there are good reasons for this because it makes the feature extremely versatile. What if you want to fade only one color and change the size of the other two text objects? If they were linked you wouldn't have this versatility.

One of the great features of PTE is the ability, for example, to assign a child relationship to a duplicate object, set the motion of the parent object say for a 360 degree rotation with the center of rotation set to the center of the screen. Make the parent object transparent, make the child 100% opaque, leave the center of rotation on the child at it's initial point and set it's rotation to negative 360 degrees. The effect then is to have the visible duplicate (child) rotate around the screen while staying in an upright position.

There are nearly an infinite number of other possibilities which this individual versatility of not having opacity inherited allow - it would be a shame to cripple it for only one or two situations where it would be more convenient to do with a single keypoint, especially since there are already other ways of preparing the text outside the program with graphic editing software.

I'm guessing that want I want to do isn't possible currently. Obviously a better answer would be that we could somehow add "bevels" to our text, much as we can add shadows. Igor will have to comment on whether that is even remotely possible. Maybe even the ability to add a second shadow (maybe on top instead of underneath), say in a lighter color, to a single text object to simulate a bit of 3D. If so, I can add it to the "wish list" for next versions topic.

Yes, having contour, bevel and other features presently found in Photoshop, etc., might be possible in later versions but it wouldn't be fruitful to cripple the great versatility of the present feature set to achieve this.

Best regards,

Lin

[mhwarner]

Hi Lin,

Thanks for the explanation. I just thought it would be nice to have a method to group multiple text objects to treat them as one (without breaking any of the other functionality that you describe). Someday maybe we'll get beveled text in PtoE. Until then, now that Igor has fixed the problem with the rasterized text, it will probably just be easier to go that route or maybe I'll just continue creating the PNG title files in Photoshop.

[Igor]

Mary,

In Beta 4 you can again modify rasterized PNG text in Photoshop.