Help with BluffTitler

Discuss which third party applications you use to help create your slide shows using ProShow Producer. This is not a forum to promote other slide show software programs.
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Help with BluffTitler

Postby Frankie » Sat Oct 11, 2008 6:05 pm

I read a post regarding BluffTitler on the forum, checked it out, and found it to be very promising for jazzing up my slideshows, so I bought the program. Now I'm having a tough time recreating some of the great effects it offers. Anyone know of some good tutorials for this program?

dnmilikan

Re: Help with BluffTitler

Postby dnmilikan » Tue Oct 14, 2008 11:31 pm

Bluff Titler has a tutorial in the help section. F1 on your keyboard will pull it up for you.

Good luck and have fun.

Best wishes
Don

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Re: Help with BluffTitler

Postby Frankie » Thu Oct 23, 2008 2:15 am

Thanks, Don. I love the F1 tip and watched the tutorial. It was helpful. I was hoping to find some similar ones - like we have with Producer. I guess I'll just have to practice with it more. I'm using it to make a title for a Producer show of some recent Autumn photos. The leaves were spectacular this year. Frankie

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Re: Help with BluffTitler

Postby MICHAELAUKNZ » Fri Oct 24, 2008 6:20 pm

Based on what I have read here on the Forum and being a new user to both Photodex and BluffTitler

I took the effort to trial BluffTitler DX9 --

After only a few hours I purchased it ..

And I am amazed at what it can do..so while still attempting to master the very basic processors I found a quick and dirty short cut to using it..which the trial version limits..

They have a great library set of very cool user templates and you just download them and use good old plug and play with your own text and images..This gives a big impact on your shows and produces Very Pro results..

Seriously any one here can work it out after watching their cool Tutorial Video may be 2 or three or four times as i did ..

Some of my skills sets required in Producer to use Key Frames were seriously downgraded instantly..

This is not a paid info commercial for BluffTitler and no animals were injured while writing this message..Ha ha

Mike

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Re: Help with BluffTitler

Postby heckydog » Fri Oct 24, 2008 7:14 pm

I've done a few tutorials on BluffTitler.

I just did one yesterday for a member here on how to make a sign swing back and forth. I also have one posted on a website on how to use the filmstrip feature. And I have a another tutorial posted on Photodex Presenter on making 3D objects for BT.

I can post links if you're interested. I've been using the program for a few years, since version 4 I think.
I'm always happy to help out and answer questions. The program is an amazing value as you have probably discovered. And it's a great partner for ProShow because it does the things that ProShow can't but people would like to see in ProShow. :D

Joe

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Re: Help with BluffTitler

Postby MICHAELAUKNZ » Fri Oct 24, 2008 9:05 pm

Joe,

Yes pleased

I am a little bit lost with some of the elements but it is very powerful i can see that ..

For output how do you hold the quality it produces and what settings are you using for the AVI to transfer to Producer..??

Mike

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Re: Help with BluffTitler

Postby maxste » Sat Oct 25, 2008 4:58 am

Joe;
Another "newbie" to BT who is strugling but having fun. If you could provide the links to your "TUT's" I believe it will help a few of the PS members. Thanks;
Steve
Photoshop CS3, Sony A-350, Sony A-100, Sony F707, Fuji F100FD, PSP, Blufftitler, Captions Alive Pro, One One Photo SUite 5

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Re: Help with BluffTitler

Postby heckydog » Sat Oct 25, 2008 9:09 am

This one shows how to create a png file and move the anchor point, or center of rotation, for use in BluffTitler. It then explains how to make a pub sign swing properly as a 3D video. It's pretty easy to do and a great effect to use in ProShow.

Pub Sign


This one is the filmstrip demo. It also requires some prep work in a graphics program. At the time I was using PSE 5 but I have since "graduated" to PS CS3. But any program should work fine as long as you're familiar with whatever one you like to use. It then takes your png file and shows how to animate it in BT. The difficult part here is the graphics prep, not BluffTilter.

http://www.romskye.com/Site/howtogb/howto.php Go here and look for #43. It's only a few numbers from the top. There's also a zip containing the pictures I used in the tutorial if you want to follow along that way. It's around 34MB, and I I don't remember how long it is, sorry. :oops:


This is the 3D object tutorial. I think the tutorial is pretty clear on how to do it but it might be best left until you have some experience under your belt. 68MB, I don't remember how long it is. more :oops:
http://www.photodex.com/sharing/viewsho ... 0844&alb=0

LIke I said, I'll answer any questions I can to the best of my ability,

Joe

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Re: Help with BluffTitler

Postby heckydog » Sat Oct 25, 2008 9:28 am

MICHAELAUKNZ wrote:Joe,

Yes pleased

I am a little bit lost with some of the elements but it is very powerful i can see that ..

For output how do you hold the quality it produces and what settings are you using for the AVI to transfer to Producer..??

Mike


I use either uncompressed avi or recently I've been using the xvid codec. PSP seems to accept it very well. It's high quality, and the file size is very small compared to other codecs. That's important because ProShow Presenter likes to take a loooooooooooong time to open shows with big avi's. The other reason I like to use compressed avi's is I prefer to make a complete sequence in BT.

For example, you might want to make a title in BT with a transparent background so you can add it to ProShow and put an avi or still behind it. I will make the title and add the background video in BT then output an avi that's completed when i import it to PSP.

I've also used the numbered transparent frames option quite a bit. But that is usually when the BT show is an intermediate show that I might then use in Particle Illusion for example. But I'm always open to using it if appropriate for other applications. Also, imho, PSP makes it hard to use avi's with alpha channels. It's easier for me to just add numbered transparent png files set to .033 seconds. I say again, that's my preference, others may be totally comfy using alpha channel avi's. :wink:

Joe

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Re: Help with BluffTitler

Postby MICHAELAUKNZ » Sat Oct 25, 2008 12:57 pm

Thank you for the support and yes it is needed information and sort of on target..

But my L Plate Learners License still has me trying to perfect the excellent AVI quality I am creating inside BluffTitler and then trying to recreate the same quality inside Photodex..it is currently about a 50% fall off by the look..I know I have made a stupid error where something is wrong somewhere and it will be a very basic setting that is for sure,

Can you guys indicated the Specific Settings for the actual preferred codec and the location source for that, the frame rate per second for pal setting or should i use the computer settings and what frame rate you prefer, the compression type and the image size..and the preferred file size and Antialiasing Quality

I am using a template from BluffTitler called "Carousal" as my test application and have created AVI files from 15mb up to 2.5gigs,

The shows sort of play in Photodex and are either poor quality or the do not flow and jam frequently..

Any more thoughts would be of great value ..

And as they say -

If all else fails read the manual -

I have tried that but it is expecting a higher level user type it seems...

Mike

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Re: Help with BluffTitler

Postby Frankie » Sat Oct 25, 2008 6:57 pm

Hi Joe,
I want to thank you for sending the links for your tutorials. I've been working on Blufftitler on my own and am sure they'll be a big help in the learning curve I'm going through now. I've taken a quick peak at them. I haven't had a chance to follow along with them yet but I plan to do that over the next few days.
Thanks again,
Frankie

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Re: Help with BluffTitler

Postby MICHAELAUKNZ » Sun Oct 26, 2008 10:32 am

Hi,

This is a Suggestion only but as an L Plate Learner User and for any new first time users try these setting First when using the BluffTitler application with Photodex..for a great output..

Do not give up..

And after some great feedback and playing with the settings I can now confirm that a quality workable range for the Export AVI setting "could be" as

A Compressed AVI (1.)
Show Size Computer 16/9 1024x576 (2.)
Frame Rate 20 computer 20 (3.)
Antialiasing :High Quality (4.)
Field Rendering . Not Interlaced (5.)

and perhaps the most important is to try the

Xvid MPEG-4 Codec..

Some combination's of other settings does not give a functional workable output!

Again Thanks for the Inputs as it sure shortened the learning experience and now produces a quality out put..

Mike

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Re: Help with BluffTitler

Postby Frankie » Mon Oct 27, 2008 8:06 am

Hey Joe,
I hope this isn't off-topic too much but I noticed that you also have some programs titled Nature Illusion and Particle Illusion. Do you use them much with Producer? Are they complicated?
Also, I tried ending a Producer Autumn show I'm working on with an animated slide saying "See You In the Spring" with snow piling up on it from Blufftitler. There's a similar one for download that says "Merry Christmas." I can replace the text, etc., but once the snow starts piling up I can't get rid of it so I can't make an AVI of it showing the clean text at the beginning and then the pile-up. I feel like a Blufftitler clutz. That being said I'm going to walk through the tutorials today that you linked in your earlier post. (And thanks Mike for your info on the avi files)
Frankie

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Re: Help with BluffTitler

Postby heckydog » Mon Oct 27, 2008 9:48 am

Frankie wrote:Hey Joe,
I hope this isn't off-topic too much but I noticed that you also have some programs titled Nature Illusion and Particle Illusion. Do you use them much with Producer? Are they complicated?
Also, I tried ending a Producer Autumn show I'm working on with an animated slide saying "See You In the Spring" with snow piling up on it from Blufftitler. There's a similar one for download that says "Merry Christmas." I can replace the text, etc., but once the snow starts piling up I can't get rid of it so I can't make an AVI of it showing the clean text at the beginning and then the pile-up. I feel like a Blufftitler clutz. That being said I'm going to walk through the tutorials today that you linked in your earlier post. (And thanks Mike for your info on the avi files)
Frankie


Nature Illusion I use occasionally. It does water ripples pretty good. Particle Illusion is an amazing program!! But it's not cheap :( but oh what it can do! I'm at the point with it now where I can modify an existing effect to suit my needs. For example, I was helping a friend who was making a dvd for missionaries in Africa. It was about genocide and he wanted to do a section on dictators in general but the Holocaust especially. And he wanted to have pictures of Hitler, etc dissolve as if turning to dust and blowing away in the wind. Well, he didn't have any idea how to do it but I was able to pull it off using Particle Illusion. The dvd ended up being very powerful and it's being shown in many countries as we speak. But to be more specific to your question, Nature Illusion is easy to learn. Particle Illusion is not too easy but it has hundreds and hundreds of ready made effects that you can use while you're learning. It's like BT, lots of freebies to get you started. My advice is to learn BT first. Because Particle Illusion is so expensive you want to be sure you have some experience under your belt before you tackle it or decide to buy it.

About the snow effect. I don't recall that one in particular but it's no doubt done with a particle effect, maybe two. You can have it start after the text shows because the particle is attached to the text and has it's own layer and therefore it's own keyframes. The transparency option should work to turn it on and off without affecting the text. The .bt files are usually small. If you want to, PM me and I'll give you an email address to send me the .bt show file. I can make changes, if needed, and send it back to you so you can see how it's done.

Joe

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Re: Help with BluffTitler

Postby Frankie » Wed Oct 29, 2008 4:35 am

Joe,
I just watched the tutorials you posted above. I highly recommend them for someone like myself whose new to Blufftitler. Just watching someone going through the motions of using the program was very helpful. I have a couple of questions from them. You use png instead of jpg files. Are png better with the Blufftitler program? Also, I noticed that you said to set the show to normal, not high, with the eps tutorial. Is that true for all shows? One more question regarding exporting as an avi file. I tried saving to compressed with transparency in hopes that I could then put something behind my show, but no dice. I think I can get around that by masking in Producer, but what does the transparency feature give me when creating an avi? I know you touched on it in your earlier post regarding making a title with a transparent background. How do you do that? Forgive me for being so dense but could you elaborate a bit on alpha channels and your use of transparent frames. Also, when you save as compressed does it effect the smooth rendering of your avi on playback? If not, why would I ever want to use the uncompressed feature?(I guess that was a bit more than one more question.)
Thanks again. As always, you're really great to share your knowledge with those of us muddling through the technological jungle and quite often becoming stuck in the murk and mire (or should I say the eps and the avi).
Frankie

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