Effects control how graphical media and text slates are introduced into the show. They help to establish the tone of a show. For instance, the Dissolve and Cut effects lend a subtle, professional feel while wipes and shatters are showier. You can use effects to add visual interest, serving to keep viewers engaged.
Vlog It! comes with a wide variety of effects including but not limited to over the shoulders, double boxes, wipes, dissolves, flybys, slides, spins, and tumbles. The selection of effects in the free trial version is more limited. Describing all the effects would a) not do them justice, and b) risk boring you to tears, so instead we urge you double-click your way through the folders in the Video Effects Library to preview how each effect works. While we're not going to attempt a complete inventory, we would like to orient you to a few important distinctions between different types of effects.
Video effects work in one of two ways: they either replace one graphical source with another or display the second source for a limited period and then return to the first source. The first type is known as a Transitional Effect, the second as a Non-Transition Effect.
Before delving more deeply into the differences between these two types of effects, we need to understand the intimately related distinction between an A Source and a B Source. These two terms refer to the graphical inputs in a pair of trays. The concept is easiest to grasp if you start from the second tray in the pairing, which almost invariably contains the B Source. (The exception is a tray containing a Dissolve Src A to A effect, which is discussed in the following section). The A Source is the graphical input from the nearest tray above that contains a transitional effect. Yes, we know, our definitions are getting circular and perhaps a bit confusing, but that's the nature of the beast. Read on and all should become clear.
With Transition Effects, the B Source replaces the A Source. Simple enough, right? It is when you confine yourself to one pairing. When you proceed to the next pairing, however, there's a twist: the input that was the B Source in the previous transitional pairing is the A Source in the next pairing. This is important enough to bear repeatingin a Transition Effect, the B Source supplants the A Source, at which point it becomes the A Source. Incidentally, most effects in Vlog It! are transitional by default.
With Non-Transition Effects, the B Source appears for a specified period of time and then goes away, leaving the A Source unchanged. This category includes all Over-the-Shoulders, Non-Transition Double Boxes, and Non-Transition Flybys. All of these are dual display effects, displaying the A and B Sources simultaneously. If you want the B Source to appear full-screen before reverting to the A Source, then you can convert nearly any Transition Effect into a Non-Transition by entering a value in the Pause field on the Actions Tab. That causes that B Source to stay up for the specified pause time before the effect reverses itself. To learn more about the Pause Time setting, please consult Customizing Effects. (In case you were wondering, there's no way to turn a Non-Transition Effect into a Transition Effect.)
Several classes of effects display the A Source and B Source at the same time for a designated period of time in the middle of the effect (as opposed to those like a Dissolve that show both sources during the transition):
Over the Shoulders [OTS]: The B Source appears as a small inset, typically in the upper left corner. In most variations, you can enter two lines of caption text for the B Source. In a few variants, the A Source remains full frame; in the rest, it scales down by a third. All OTS effects are non-transitional.
Double Boxes: These are essentially the reverse of OTS effects in that the A Source shrinks down to a small inset, with the B Source filling about two-thirds of the frame. Unlike OTS effects, Double Boxes do not have built-in captions, but standard lower thirds can work well because the B Source is the more prominent of the two images. Double Boxes come in both transitional and non-transitional flavors, with the non-transitional ones kept in an appropriately named separate folder.
Non-Transitional Flybys: The A Source remains full-frame while the smaller B Source passes in front of it. As the name of this class of effects telegraphs, all of these effects are non-transitional. In most variants, the B Source transits in a straight path across the frame. With these, the Duration defines the total time that the B Source will be displayed, so you'll typically want to set a longer duration than for most other effects; you'll rarely want to set a Pause Time as that causes the B Source to fly back across the frame in the opposite direction after the specified period. In a few Flyby variants, the B Source holds position at the center and then dissolves out. With these, the Pause Time defines how long the B Source holds position.
Dynamic vs. Still Backgrounds: All Double Box effects and some Over-the-Shoulders have a background image behind the two sources. In the Trial Version, all backgrounds are still images. In the retail version, they're animated. The effects in shows created with the trial are not automatically updated, so when you purchase Vlog It!, be sure to re-apply effects with a background before republishing a show. To learn more, please see Updating an Effect with a Newer Version.
The
icons for most effects represent either the A or B Source as filling the frame.
Push Effects:
Since both sources move in this type of effect, neither symbol is full-screen. The position of the B Source
indicates which side it moves in on.
Over The Shoulder and Double Box effects: Icons for these two classes of effects show you the relative size of the two sources as well as the position of the one that's shown as an inset.
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Wipe Effects: This group breaks all the rules for effect icons because wipes do not lend themselves to incorporating the A and B Source images in a way that indicates the nature of the effect. Instead, these icons show a gradient. The wipe starts where the gradient is darkest and proceeds toward where it's lightest.
While Vlog It! has about a half dozen types of templates for adding text to a show, they can be boiled down to just two classes for purposes of discussing the effects that you can use with them. Those that have a 4:3 aspect ratio and are fully opaque are essentially no different from any graphical source, meaning that they will work with any effect from the Video Effects library.
Those
that have any transparency are added to the show on a special layer, which limits which effects they're compatible
with. Transparency is indicated in a template's thumbnail icon by a checkerboard background. Once such a template
is added to the Action Area, you'll also see a "T" in the upper right corner of its thumbnail.
Lower thirds, which are of course mostly transparent, tend to look best with a simple Dissolve or Cut effect, but you can also get interesting and effective results with many Wipe effects as well as Moves and Slides that have "in" or "on" in the title.
Two
other groups of text templates—Pop Ups and Text Effects—have transparency
and come with an assortment of effects designed specially for them. These effects are stored along with the text
templates in folders within the Graphics library. The effects in the Text Effects folder cause the text to move
across the frame. Some of them also dissolve the text as it moves out of frame. With those that dissolve, the yellow
content on the thumbnail icon is semi-transparent, and in most cases the effect's title specifies "with Dissolve."
Other than being designed to accommodate text templates with transparency, the effects in the Pop Ups and Text Effects folders are no different from standard effects, so the customization options available in the Actions Tab should be familiar. In fact, they work just fine with opaque text templates as well as all other graphical sources.
Here are a few things to keep in mind as you select the effects for your shows:
Hungry for More Effects? Eager to Customize Them? If so, then you might want to consider trying Visual Communicator. This related product family not only has a far more extensive selection of effects and media sources and offers advanced customization options for most types of effects but also includes a range of features beyond those found in Vlog It! A fully functional free trial version is available, but in the interest of keeping the download size manageable there aren't many more effects than you get in Vlog It!