Oculus How To Create Captions

Oculus 2.5.5
How To Create Captions

A WebCam image that shows a picture is interesting in and of itself, but at times, you may want to spice up your image with a note as to what's currently happening, the time or date, or a bit of graphical pizzaz that makes your WebCam so much more interesting than anyone else's. Oculus offers both text and picture captions and allows you to do some interesting tricks with them.

To create a text caption, select the New Text Caption menu item. This will bring up the Text Caption dialog and allow you to type in a caption, select size, style, colors, opacity and alignment of the caption. As well, there buttons to allow you to create a QuickCaption or time and date captions. By pressing the Time, Date, Short or Abbrev. buttons in the captions dialog, you can create a dynamic text caption that changes with the time or date.

When a QuickCaption is created for your WebCam, the menu option Show QuickCaption is enabled. You can show the QuickCaption window which allows you select one of nine saved QuickCaptions, or type in a new one instantly. The QuickCaption will then change to what you have chosen or typed. By using the QuickCaption you can carry on a dialog with your visitors.

When a text caption just wont do, a Picture Caption might. You can create images with transparent backgrounds and apply them over your WebCam image for special effects. Oculus can use many different picture formats such as PICT, JPEG, Photoshop and gif. If you have a picture that does not have transparency, you can choose a "Key color" to act as the transparent color. The key color will be made transparent and any part of your picture that contains that color, will now be invisible. You can also apply a QuickTime filter to the picture caption.

Oculus also allows you to rotate through a set of captions, or randomly choose one of a set of captions. To do this, you must first create a List Caption to contain the group of captions you want to use. When creating the List Caption, you can choose whether you would like the captions to rotate sequentially (in order) or randomly, or view them all at once. You can change this setting at a future time by opening the Caption Window and double-clicking on the name of the List Caption.

After you create a new List Caption, bring up the Caption Window and select the new list that you just created. Now create however many text or picture captions you want in this group. You can select some text from another program or a Stickies window and drag it onto your WebCam window, or select a group of pictures from the Finder and drag it onto your WebCam window. These text or picture captions will then be inside of your List Caption. You can twist the triangle in the Captions Window to see what your list contains. You can then add more by selecting the List Caption itself or any of it's members and creating new captions. You can remove items from that List by selecting the ones you wish to delete and pressing the delete key.

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Oculus 2.5.5		How To Create Captions



		A WebCam image that shows a picture is interesting in and of itself, but at times, you may want to spice up your image with a note as to what's currently happening, the time or date, or a bit of graphical pizzaz that makes your WebCam so much more interesting than anyone else's. Oculus offers both text and picture captions and allows you to do some interesting tricks with them. To create a text caption, select the New Text Caption menu item. This will bring up the Text Caption dialog and allow you to type in a caption, select size, style, colors, opacity and alignment of the caption. As well, there buttons to allow you to create a QuickCaption or time and date captions. By pressing the Time, Date, Short or Abbrev. buttons in the captions dialog, you can create a dynamic text caption that changes with the time or date. When a QuickCaption is created for your WebCam, the menu option Show QuickCaption is enabled. You can show the QuickCaption window which allows you select one of nine saved QuickCaptions, or type in a new one instantly. The QuickCaption will then change to what you have chosen or typed. By using the QuickCaption you can carry on a dialog with your visitors. When a text caption just wont do, a Picture Caption might. You can create images with transparent backgrounds and apply them over your WebCam image for special effects. Oculus can use many different picture formats such as PICT, JPEG, Photoshop and gif. If you have a picture that does not have transparency, you can choose a "Key color" to act as the transparent color. The key color will be made transparent and any part of your picture that contains that color, will now be invisible. You can also apply a QuickTime filter to the picture caption. Oculus also allows you to rotate through a set of captions, or randomly choose one of a set of captions. To do this, you must first create a List Caption to contain the group of captions you want to use. When creating the List Caption, you can choose whether you would like the captions to rotate sequentially (in order) or randomly, or view them all at once. You can change this setting at a future time by opening the Caption Window and double-clicking on the name of the List Caption. After you create a new List Caption, bring up the Caption Window and select the new list that you just created. Now create however many text or picture captions you want in this group. You can select some text from another program or a Stickies window and drag it onto your WebCam window, or select a group of pictures from the Finder and drag it onto your WebCam window. These text or picture captions will then be inside of your List Caption. You can twist the triangle in the Captions Window to see what your list contains. You can then add more by selecting the List Caption itself or any of it's members and creating new captions. You can remove items from that List by selecting the ones you wish to delete and pressing the delete key.

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