In this tutorial I'll teach you how to create the classic Star Wars intro
scrolling text crawl for your video projects in Pinnacle Studio, using your
own text. Before we get started, if you're watching this video on YouTube you'll
find a link in the description below that will take you to our tutorial page
on the Discovery Center. Here you can download a written copy of this tutorial
to follow along. Let's get started. I have Pinnacle Studio opened up under
the Edit tab. I'm going to drag the background image I want to use onto A/V
Track 2 on my timeline. Now I'll select A/V Track 1 because that is where I want
to place my text, and then I'll click on the Create Title icon here. You can type
in the text you want to use in this box on the right side of the screen under
Text Settings. I recommend typing out the text you want
to use in advance in a simple text editor like Notepad, so that you can
easily copy and paste it into this section. I'm going to open up the text
I've already typed out in Notepad then click Edit > Select All, then right-click
on my text and select Copy. Now I'll go back to Pinnacle Studio and go over to
the text box then click and drag to highlight all the pre-existing text and
then click the Delete key on your keyboard to erase it. Now hold down Ctrl
on your keyboard and press V to paste your text into the box. Now I'll
press Ctrl + A on my keyboard to highlight all the text in the text box.
I'm going to change the font type to Franklin Gothic Medium, which
more closely matches the original Star Wars intro font. I'm also going to adjust
my font size to 48.
I can also click and drag on the grab points at the edge of the text box on
the preview pane to resize the text layer. Now we can click on the Align
Center button to align our text into the middle of the window or select Justify
Text, depending on your style preference. Under Look Settings, click on Face
then click on the Fill Color icon and choose a darker shade of yellow to match
the color from the original Star Wars movie. Click Apply and now we're
ready to add some motion. Let's click on the Motions tab at the top then click on
Emphasis and from here we're going to select Roll Up.
Now let's click OK.
If we preview this you'll see the text scrolls way too fast. So what we're going
to do is hover our mouse over the edge of the title on A/V Track 1 until the
arrow icon pops up, then click and drag to extend the length of the title to
around 25 or 30 seconds. You can adjust the duration length to be shorter or
longer depending on the length of your text. We'll follow the same steps to
adjust the length of our background image on A/V Track 2. I'm going to
preview this again and now I'm happy with the speed of the text scroll. So now
we need to customize the perspective of the text crawl so it has the same style
as the Star Wars intro. To do this we'll click on the title track on A/V Track 1
then click on the Editor tab.
Now select Effect > 2D/3D and then 3D Editor CPU.
First make sure to select No Preset and then drag your playhead to a point on
the timeline where you can see your text. Also make sure to unlock the lock icon
under Size so that we can adjust the height to around 160. Then we'll go down
to Rotation and change the Tilt level to minus 60. From here you might be happy
with the effect as it is, or you can play around with the Y and Z positions. I'm going
to adjust position Z to 120 to decrease the size of the title layer just a bit
so the text fits better on the screen. You might also want to decrease or
increase position Y to change where the text disappears as it crawls up. I'll
adjust mine to 5 and if we preview our video you'll see we have created a cool
scrolling text crawl that looks just like the intros in the Star Wars films.
If you're watching this video on YouTube you'll find a link in the description
below that will take you to our tutorial page on the Discovery Center. Here you
can download a written copy of this tutorial to follow along and find other
helpful tutorials for Pinnacle Studio.