- New Text Caption...
Creates a new Text Caption
The Text Caption Edit Dialog
- At the top of the dialog is the text entry area.
Type the text that you wish to have in your caption here. Press the
return for a multi-line caption.
- Font
Specify the font you wish to use for the caption with the Font popup menu.
- Size
Allows you to change the size of the text. Click and drag the slider until
the text is the size that you wish.
- Leading
Allows you to change the space between lines of text. Click and drag the slider until
the space between the text is as much as you want. If you do not have multi-line caption,
this option will have no effect.
- Spacing
Allows you to change the spacing between characters of your caption. Dragging
the slider to the left to reduce the space between the letters, and drag to
the right to increase the space between the letters.
- Text Color
Allows you to change foreground color and opacity of the caption. With Outline
or Shadow styles, the forground color will be the outline. Click on the colored
square to show the color picker dialog. Click in the Opacity
area to change the transparency of the text.
- Back Color
Allows you to change background color and opacity of the caption. With Outline
or Shadow styles, the background color will be the area inside of the outline.
Click on the colored square to show the color picker dialog. Click in the Opacity
area to change the transparency of the text.
- Style
Allows you to adjust the style of the caption. Antialiased text will have smoother
edges. Choosing Solid Frame will display a box around the caption in the background
color.
- Alignment
The alignment options allow you to have your caption automatically pinned to
a corner or edge. Click in the area on the screen icon where want your caption.
The popup menu will allow you to pin the text to the left, right or center of
text box. For multi-line captions, this will align the text with respect to
each other.
- Time
Clicking this button adds the Time wildcard to the text input area.
- Date
Clicking this button adds the Date wildcard to the text input area.
- Other...
Use this popup to choose other wildcards to add to the text input area.
- New Picture Caption...
The Picture Caption dialog allows you to specify a picture file to draw
as a caption. Any QuickTime 3.0 compatible picture file (gif, jpeg, tiff,
png, PhotoShop, etc.) file can be used as a caption.
Pictures can be resized or skewed from the main document window by using
the controls on the edges of the selected picture.
Clicking on the center of the image and dragging the mouse will allow you
to rotate the image.
The Picture Caption Edit Dialog
- Caption name:
Type the name of the picture caption here. This name will be used to identify
the caption in the Captions window and from within AppleScript.
- Caption file:
Click the Select... button to choose a file to use. Any QuickTime 3.0 compatible
picture file (gif, jpeg, tiff, png, PhotoShop, etc.) can be used as a caption.
- Picture filter:
Click the Select... button to choose a QuickTime filter to apply to the image.
- Auto align:
The Auto align location allows you to specify an aligned location for
the caption. You can align pictures in any of the corners of the video, the middle of
the edges, or the center of the webcam image.
- Use Picture's Transparency
For images that have an Alpha value in them (such as those created with PhotoShop),
you can choose to have Oculus display them using the alpha value. This can allow you
to produce some nice blending effects between the image and your video.
- Opacity:
Use the Opacity slider to have the picture appear blended with the webcam image.
- Key color:
For pictures without transparency, you can also specify a color which will
be transparent in your image. Click the square and choose the color within
the image with the eyedropper.
- New Caption List...
Creates a new List Caption. A list caption allows you to group other captions
to be drawn either Randomly (one of the group), Sequentially (one of the group
in order), or all drawn together.
The List Caption Edit Dialog
- List name:
Type the name of the list caption here. This name will be used to identify
the caption in the Captions window and from within AppleScript.
- List type:
Choose the list type from the popup menu.
When the list is set to Rotate Sequentially, the next caption in the list
will be displayed when a picture is taken. When the list is set to Random,
one of the captions in the list will be displayed in no particular order.
If the list is set to Display All, the all of the captions in the list will
be displayed.
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Any new caption will be placed in the same list as the currently selected
caption. If no captions are selected, the caption will be placed in the
main list for that mode (online or offline).
You choose to put captions into a different list by using the Captions Window.
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- New Caption
This menu item brings up the Caption Plugins menu. Choose a plugin caption
from this menu. All of the plug in captions can be named, can be aligned to the
corners or edges of the webcam, can be positioned by dragging in the
main window, and can be resized by dragging the resize corners of the
selected caption.
The Caption Plugins Menu
- Clock
Clock Caption
The Clock Caption provides a number of styles of analog clocks. They
are usually transparent around the edges, and sometimes in the center, which
allows you to place a more interesting looking timepiece on your webcam.
- Gauge
Gauge Caption
The gauge plug in provides a number of analog gauges and dials. They
have a value which can be changed by entering a value in this dialog, or can be
read and set via AppleScript. This can be used, for example, to provide
live temperature updates by connecting an external thermometer to your
computer and changing this guage with AppleScript.
- Effect
Effect Caption
The effect plug in allows you to apply any of the QuickTime Filter
effects to a portion of your webcam image. The most common usage is
to blur a section of the window that you wish to be obscured.
Note that like all captions, you can control the order of the
effect captions, which allows you to apply them either below, or on top
of any of your other captions. You can also layer or apply multiple
filters to the image, either to the entire image or portions of it.
The following is a list of Filters that are built into QuickTime that
can be used with Oculus:
- Blur
- Brightness and Contrast
- Color Style (which includes Solarize and Posterize)
- Color Tint (including Sepia, black and white, and custom tints)
- ColorSync (for color matching)
- Edge Detection
- Embossing
- Film Noise (hair, scratch, and dust addition)
- General Convolution
- HSL Balance and color adjust
- Lens Flare
- RGB Balance and color adjust
- Sharpen
Note that each of these filter effects has a large number of options, so
you can customize the filters to your liking. Oculus also works with third
party QuickTime filters, such as those from Buena
Software.
- Weather
Weather Caption
The Weather plug in allows you to display an image (with optional temperature)
that shows the weather in your current area. Like the Gauge and Clock captions,
the Weather caption provides several display styles, and also allows you to have
a transparent or solid background, as well as allowing you to select the font and
size of the temperature display. You may select current conditions from the popup menu
to the right of the dialog, or you may select a site from which to download the
current conditions.
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The Weather Plug in downloads the current weather in METAR format from the NOAA data base.
You may also set the current conditions yourself, using METAR format encoding. The Weather Plug in
supports download from any of the observation sites available from NOAA. If you'd like to find
a new site not in the popup list, you can search directly on the NOAA site
http://weather.noaa.gov/weather/metar.shtml
for the 4 letter code for the site you wish to use. You then can enter the site into the
edit text box of the Weather plug in, using the form "ftp://weather.noaa.gov/data/observations/metar/stations/XXXX.TXT", where you replace XXXX with
the four letter code for the station. If you have a favorite site, and are using the Weather plug in for your webcam, please let us know, and we'll
add that site to the popup menu in future releases of Oculus.
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- Captions...
This menu item opens the Captions window. The Captions Window is used to
order captions and to put captions into different lists. It can also be
used to select or delete captions.
The Captions Window while reordering
Selecting a captions by clicking on the name.
Edit a caption by double clicking on it. This will bring up the caption
edit dialog for that caption. Alternately, you can select a caption and
press the return key.
You can delete selected captions by pressing the delete key.
You can drag captions into or out of list caption groups or into
the inactive captions area by clicking and dragging the caption.
The inactive captions are captions that are to be used when the camera is offline.
- Show QuickCaption
This menu item opens the QuickCaption window. This menu item is enabled if
you have a QuickCaption wildcard in your document (%Q).
QuickCaption Window
The QuickCaption substitution allows you to have a portion of your text
caption easily changed from a floating window in Oculus. QuickCaptions can be entered
in the text area and will be applied when
the return key is pressed.
The QuickCaption window can also save up to 10
of your favorite sayings and allow them to be selected from the popup menu
on the right of the QuickCaption window. In addition, QuickCaptions can
be set from AppleScript.
