Mike, you made the job very well even if I stay convinced as I said it to you that the colourmap is the most adapted for an object 2D as a paper sheet because it exempts you from the problem of field depth so, you are sure that all layers (pics & texts) stay in a same plan.
Glance and you will see that it is not more complicated than the container to be used
In my opinion container is better in case of you want to move at the same time an ensemble of objects which are not in the same plan (3D).
Good job anyway and thank for sharing.

vincent, 7 years ago

All test work is great !
I just saw today a great 2d animation in BluffTitler, very simple, but very interesting.
This work's okay, come see my art gallery animation, done with just 4 jpg images, but in the end is the result what counts.
Experimenting is very important.

Franco Aversa, 7 years ago

Well Done, Mike

About 3 years ago you posted your first question, and you mostly changed templates to use in your video's.

I believe you learned more by making this one show then you did by just changing all those templates, don't get me wrong templates are great and fast and easy to do but even with a million templates there might be something you need for a project that doesn't correspond with any of them.

The ability to make from an idea to a functional show gives you the power to make just that what you need and subsequently the knowledge to deconstruct existing templates and even watch a video and think "this could be done with BluffTitler and I have an idea how to recreate it"

I hope this trend continues, and that you had fun making this.

Tips on this show

Now that you have made this show, you have set the stage and now the fun begins by trying to improve on it and learn while doing it.

Start simple, like a neat way to introduce the concept like the classic newspaper spinning in to place.
Because of the format and the many texts you could zoom in/out move to an other article. To make it even more Dynamic you could use the writer property on an article. (a great exercise to time between the different layers)
Let the page be made out of the lose elements by letting it fly in from different angles and use different physics options like Damper.

Use the search option in the community, ask questions, look at templates and find that element that you like by holding CTRL + Shift and use the cursor up down to see each layer separately.

Good luck and have fun.

komies, 7 years ago

Franco,
I was just looking for your art gallery animation but couldn't find it. Where is it located? Maybe give me the title of your posting that it's in.

Vincent,
I am definitely looking into how to use ColourMap. I tried once but nothing showed up. I didn't realize you needed to add another Camera and Point Light layer to it also. I'll give that a try now.

MrGruntHunter, 7 years ago

Thanks komies,
I didn't know about the CTRL + Shift and cursor up/down combination. I think another thing I'll is to see if I can add a texture to the paper. I was able to find images of newspapers and was able to bring this one into my PhotoShop Elements 14 and 'paint' over where I wanted to add my own text. I'm not sure if that was the best way or if I should have cut holes in the image (mask) where I wanted to add things. I think I know what the Writer Property does but not sure yet how to corectly use it. 3 YEARS GO ....! ! ! WOW ! Didn't realize I've been playing around with this for that long trying to learn how to use BT ! I hate bothering all of you guys with my crazy questions, it's just that there is soooo much to learn about BT and my diminishing brain cells seem to have me lagging behind in my 'Golden Years' . :-)

MrGruntHunter, 7 years ago

@MrGruntHunter

I posted the video on my youtube channel: Franco Aversa
where I do small tutorials in Italian.

Franco Aversa, 7 years ago

Mike, a new camera inside colourmap is mandatory but not the light.
First you must create the colourmap, then you must use it as a texture to see it.

To create colourmap :
1) Create a new show
2) add a colourmap layer
3) select colourmap layer if it is not already selected. Once colourmap is selected, each time you add a layer BT will ask you
Would you like to attach new layer to the active colourmap layer ?
click yes to add
4) set resolution of the colourmap to 2560 x 2560 to increase quality
5) add camera layer (MANDATORY in colourmap)
6) add any other layer you want (text, pic, eps, model, particles etc....)

At this point we see nothing and we need to use the colourmap

7) select the layer #1 (camera) just to deselect colourmap
7) add a picture
8) press F8 and click on SELECT COLOURMAP LAYER buttton on slot 1 (Texture 1)
Here you can see the colourmap content because it is used as texture
9) because now it is visible you can adjust sizes, positions, cfx of each layer Inside colourmap

of course you can use colourmap to texture EPS, model, sketch etc.....

vincent, 7 years ago

Vincent, What am I doing wrong? I've done the following steps:
1: Created a New Show
2: Deleted the BluffTitler text layer
3: Created a ColourMap Layer
4: Added another Camera Layer
5: Added another Point Light Layer
6: Added my Picture Layer and selected my newspaper background (*.jpg file)
but my screen is still blank. I've tried moving the layers in and out but still nothing. I think I might understand what the ColourMap layer will do for me. Am I correct it thinking it's like 'painting' on a sheet of paper. If I add multiple Picture Layers can thay all be *.jpg format or do they need to be *.png files, or does it even matter?

Ha ha ... you beat me to my posting. I'll follow your instructions and see how I do. THANKS !

MrGruntHunter, 7 years ago

Vincent,
So in your step #7 "add a picture" ... I did that as you instructed and now the Picture Layer (my newspaper image) now appears. So the Picture Layer you add in the step #7 can be of ANYTHING?. I notice that it doesn't show up anywhere in view. Interesting .... and very confusing ... but it worked, I don't know why but it worked. I changed the intensity of the Light layer up to 2.5 to brighten it up and position to -2000 so it will cover everything.

MrGruntHunter, 7 years ago

The Colourmap layer is a powerful tool, but I would rate it as a mid to high level knowledge to use it properly.

I believe for learning purposes it is wise to learn to walk before attempting to do a Marathon.

To Keep It Simple (KIS)

Yes use a (news) paper texture preferably a seamless texture, and make the headlines background (layout) also in BluffTitler by using the White .png texture and use size, colour and transparency or use the same paper texture and use size and color.

The writer property you can set to 0 so no text appears and set to 1 to make it seam the whole article it is being written. in the timeline set the point to begin 0 and where it should end 1.

Have fun,

komies, 7 years ago

komies: OK, so you 'Key Frame' with the Writer Property to make the text show up. I tried adding a texture onto my picture layer of the newspaper background but then realized it is already a texture so it just made a mess of things. I thought I could add it and adjust the transparency but that's not the case. Unless I'm missing something it looks like the proper way would be to start from scratch and create a newspaper background in PhotoShop and then bring it into BT and add my text and picture layers there.

MrGruntHunter, 7 years ago

Good job sir....thank you.

Dani, 7 years ago

@MrGruntHunter

You don't have to start from scratch, altho practice makes perfect.

Just replace the newspaper layout with another picture (texture). And make the layout with blufftitler.

komies, 7 years ago

Yes Mike, 7 add any picture it just to select replace it by the colourmap.
Here another example.
You must consider colourmap as a super texture which can contains several layers.
you build your colourmap and then you use this supertexture to replace a simple picture (picture layer, or texture of layer)

vv.matalot.fr...

vincent, 7 years ago

Oh man Vincent! ... my head is really spinning now. I thought all of the movements were done with the top camera layer. That's where I was just creating my motion (position key frames). I thought that was the only way to keep all layers moving together. Now I see you have your position key frames on the picture layer about the ColourMap layer, which I thought was invisible when you changed the texture to a colourmap. Sorry I'm such a poor student here :-(

MrGruntHunter, 7 years ago

Mike, my example is to show the power of colourmap, as in a container you can apply different effect to each embedded layers but here you can also a global effect to the layer using colourmap (here TurkishMap.cfx on layer 3).
I am sorry if I caused you a certain confusion, it was not my purpose. Vincent.

vincent, 7 years ago

Vincent, Not to worry about causing me confusion. I greatly appreciate everything you guys do to try and teach me something. It's not your fault my ancient brain cells are slow to function. LOL
I'm still trying to adsorb the concept of using ColourMay Layers. What got me confused was seeing position key frames for the individual layers under the ColourMap layer and yet everything was synced together for the motions. I know now it's not but I keep thinking of the ColourMap layer like a Container Layer and I've got to get that out of my head. I'm deeply indebted to you guys for all of your patience with me 'newbee' questions. I don't know of anyone stateside that uses BT , but I'm sure there must be some somewhere.

MrGruntHunter, 7 years ago

I'm on the left side of the Atlantic....LOL
Sarge

SMSgtRod, 7 years ago

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