Hello there, welcome to this video! Let's see in a short time everything
you need to know to make basic and professional 2D static text with Vegas
Pro 15!
Leave us comments about this video to help us improve our next guides for
Vegas Pro!
To add text and titles, you can use the ready templates collected inside
the Media Generators window. If you don't see it, you can open it by going
to View, Window, and then to Media Generators.
This window collects everything that is generated without using any source
or media, such as color gradients, backgrounds, noise and text templates.
To import text, choose the kind of text template on the left, and browse
for your favorite one, checking any animation by hovering on it for a
while. Then, just drag and drop it on the timeline. This creates a new text
clip and opens a window called Video Media Generators, used to edit your
title. You can open it anytime by clicking on Generated Media...
All text clips are contained inside Video Tracks and can be moved and
edited as seen for standard visual clips. Make sure to place text always
on a higher Track in respect to other visual clips, or the text will get
covered.
The text clip is mainly composed by two parts: the text content itself, and
its background. By default, its background is shown as checkerboard on
the clip thumbnail, indicating that it is transparent. Through the Video
Media Generators window, you can change the background transparency level
and make it visible. This will get the same Frame Size of the text clip
itself, indicated at the very top of the Media Generators window.
Let's see the several text templates inside Vegas Pro!
From the list on Media Generators you can see four main kinds of templates:
(Legacy) Text, Titles & Text and ProType Titler to add pieces of text, and
Credit Roll to add credit rolls.
In this video we will see how to add pieces of text. If you want to know
more about Credit Rolls, check out our video link in the video description.
(Legacy) Text is the simplest text template you can use to add 2D text in
a short time. Its Video Media Generators is divided in several tabs.
Under the Edit tab, type the text content and fix its font family, size
and paragraph distribution. These affect the whole text, unless you select
any part of it.
Under Placement, click and drag the text within the region to move it, or
type the X and Y Coordinates to place it precisely. To check the effect of
your modifications, take a look at the Video Preview. Just make sure to
have the timeline marker placed on the text clip you're interested in or you
won't see any changes.
Under Properties adjust the basic appearance, such as Text Color to set
the text fill color; the Background Color for the background fill, and
adjust advanced Text Properties, such as the character distance with
Tracking, the general size with Scaling, and the line distance with Leading.
For both the Text and the Background Color you can set the color by
changing any color channel or picking the color directly from the full
gradient graph. On the left side adjust the amount of transparency, and use
the two buttons below to change the Color Space to use, or pick the right
color to use directly from your screen.
Under Effects, add any Outline, Shadow or Deformation, choosing color,
settings, and kind of deformation. You can enable or disable each effect by
using the square on top.
Titles & text templates create more advanced text clips that can welcome
cool animations ready-to-use.
For this kind of text clip, the Video Media Generators looks different,
but collects the same options screen for the (Legacy) Text. At the top, type
inside and set the text font, style and distribution. Under Text color,
pick your favorite color, regulating its transparency level if needed.
Below, size the text with Scale, and place it with Location.
At the bottom, use Advanced to set any background; Outline to add any glow
effect; and Shadow to add any shadow.
In respect to the (Legacy) Text, you also have the Animation section, where
you can pick a ready-made animation to apply your text.
The animation will get a standard duration of ten seconds, which does not
change even if you stretch or shorten the text clip. To change its
duration, you can act on its speed by stretching and shortening the clip
while holding CTRL down. You can also reverse the animation by
right-clicking on the text clip and going to Reverse. Consider that you
will have to disable this effect before changing the text properties.
The ProType Titler is a text template used to create titles completely
customized in their appearance, including each of their words and
characters.
In this case, the Video Media Generator is divided in two parts: on the
left everything to set the text appearance and properties, and on the
right a quick Preview on the text, which is also used to supply basic
editing.
For example, you can move text by clicking and dragging it. You can also
size it by using the nodes you see, locking or unlocking the aspect ratio
with Lock Aspect above. You can rotate text by clicking and dragging from
the circle you see, fixing the anchor point through its center.
All these modifications will affect the whole Text Block by default. But,
if you click on the Navigate to Child, you will be able to move, scale and
rotate each single word. If you click once again, you will start editing
each single character. You can return to words or the whole text block by
using Navigate to Parent.
On the left you can change the text appearance and apply several effects
on either the Text Block, Word or Character you have selected from the
Preview.
Under the Transform tab, fix the text position with Offset; its size with
Scale; and the skew level with Shear, through the horizontal (X) or the
vertical (Y) direction.
Under the Effects tab, apply any transparency with Opacity, any color
gradient with Gradient fill, and any blur, glow or shadow with Effects.
The Layout tab acts on the whole Text Block only, adjusting line and
character distances.
Moreover, if you double-click on the text on the Preview, you can type
inside, and use the Span Properties on the left to adjust the text font,
style and size under the Text tab, and everything regarding the text color
under Style. In particular, you can apply a basic fill color and any border
color with Stroke color. Enable Background to apply any colored background,
and use Strikethrough or Underline if you need.
To apply all modifications, just use the Escape key to come back to the
Text Block.
You can also personalize text in order to make its properties change in
time by using markers called keyframes.
If you apply two or more keyframes to a property, this will change in time
according to them. In fact, each keyframe saves a static setup for the text
property, that must be shown right where the keyframe is placed in time. In
this way, when you place two keyframes with two different states saved, you
will create a transition that goes from the first state saved to the second
one following.
The way to create keyframes may vary according to the kind of text you have.
When using the Titles & Text template, you can add keyframes by clicking on
the Animate button. This allows you to add keyframes on each single
property independently. Same with ProType Titler, where the Animate button
is called Toggle Automation.
(Legacy) Text is different. This kind of template is the oldest one, and
does not allow to have independent keyframes on each property. When you
click on Animate below, each keyframe saves all the properties of the text.
When you enable keyframing, you will have keyframes by default, which save
the actual setup of the text you have. If you choose another instant of
time with the playhead, and change the text property, a new keyframe is
added automatically. At this point, check the result of the transition made
through the Preview.
The distance between two keyframes sets the transition duration. The closer
two keyframes are, the faster the transition will be. You can move a
keyframe by clicking and dragging it directly.
In case you do not like the transition, you can change the state of a
keyframe by clicking on it and changing the text property for it. To delete
a keyframe, just right-click on it and go to Delete.
Thanks for watching this tutorial! Take a look at our full and complete
guide to learn more about Vegas Pro 15!!