"First of all, there's this black splotch at the beginning of the film. It really doesn't do anything. Take it out."
"Second, lets make the beginning of the film a little bit more exciting. Put in some kind of exciting color that turns into another exciting color. Try using our corporate colors."
"Orange and Aqua?" You ask in disbelief.
Your boss nods. "Yeah, I think the stockholders will like that," he says.
"If they're colorblind," you mutter to yourself.
Your boss doesn't hear you. He's already left to play golf.
MainActor comes with many different effects that can be applied to animation tracks that will alter their default appearance. This scenario will show you how to apply special effects to your project.
RESULT: the Profile Window appears.
RESULT: Profile Window closes.
RESULT: The Select file(s)... dialog appears.
RESULT: The Select file(s)... dialog closes.
RESULT: Your mouse pointer will change shape -- it will have a tiny film clip at the end of it. Also, a large gray rectangle will follow it (the gray rectangle represents the file you have just opened.)
RESULT: The picture (or your animation) is inserted into the Va track starting at 0:00:01.00.
RESULT: The is inserted into the Va track starting at 0:00:01.00 and ending at 0:00:05.
RESULT: The Color Plate appears.
RESULT: the Color Selection Dialog closes. The start color in the Color Plate is orange.
RESULT: the Color Selection Dialog appears.
RESULT: the Color Selection Dialog closes. The end color in the Color Plate is aqua.
RESULT: Your mouse pointer will change shape and it will have a tiny film clip at the end of it. Also, a gray rectangle will follow it (the gray rectangle represents the color fade you have just created.)
RESULT: The animation is inserted into the V1 track at 0:00:00.00.
RESULT: when the Preview Window starts to play, the orange to aqua fade will be completely solid, and will obscure the video clip from view.
NOTE:the MainActor Browser Window is a general-purpose toolbox that can perform a variety of tasks. The MainActor Browser Toolbar will allow you to access seven different functions: Video Transitions, Video Effects, Video Paths, Audio Effects, Import/Export Modules, Browse Your Computer, and Library.
Objects in the MainActor Browser Window can be dragged and dropped into a project. Depending on the object you select, you will sometimes add it to the Fx track (if it is an effect that transitions from one track to the next,) and you will sometimes add it to an object itself (if, for example, it is an effect that will turn a video clip from a color video into a greyscale video).
Video Transitions. Video transitions enable you to create elaborate transitions from the Va track to the Vb track (or vice versa).
Video Effects. Video effects allow you to perform various manipulations on a clip such as warping, fading, solarizing and so on.
Video Paths. With video paths you can cause a clip to appear to follow a 2D or 3D path.
Audio Effects. The audio equivalent of Video Effects, you can take various options from this area and use them to modify any audio tracks you may have in your project.
Import/Export Modules. This part of the MainActor Browser Window gives you access to the various import and export modules for MainActor Sequencer to use. These modules control how multimedia files are loaded into MainActor Sequencer (importing) and saved to files from MainActor Sequencer (exporting).
Browse Your Computer. This section of the MainActor Browse Window gives you access to the drives on your system as well as any network drives. This enables you to access files and drop them onto the MainActor Sequencer Timeline.
Library. An alternate means of storing media, this allows you to keep a repository of clip-art-like pictures for easy accessibility.