Ulead GIF ANIMATOR 4.0 User Manual Download

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User Guide

Ulead Systems, Inc.

October 1999

Version 4.0

Summary of Contents for GIF ANIMATOR 4.0

Page 1: ...User Guide Ulead Systems Inc October 1999 Version 4 0 ...

Page 2: ...red and unregistered trademarks mentioned in this manual are used for identification purposes only and remain the exclusive property of their respective owners GoMotion c 1999 Ligos Corporation All rights reserved Ligos the Ligos Logo GoMotion and GoMotion logo are trademarks of Ligos Corporation Sample files Files provided as samples on the program CD can be used for personal demonstrations produ...

Page 3: ...e software onto your computer 8 The big picture An overview of the world of digital video and Ulead VideoStudio Check out What s New on p 7 4 Important stuff Licenses trademarks and title page 2 38 40 Voice Music Sound background music and voiceovers 44 Finish Finishing your movie and outputting a final cut Special sections on DV and MPEG movies 50 Storyboard Basic cutting pasting and arranging yo...

Page 4: ...e editing What s more with VideoStudio you have access to nearly a hundred transition effects professional titling capabilities and simple soundtrack creation tools Learn in seconds create in minutes Ulead VideoStudio Video Wizard is a complete digital video editing pro gram It is primarily a quick start application that simplifies the creation of movies Ulead VideoStudio itself is also amazingly ...

Page 5: ...roll through your movie as easily as you do a Web page in a browser With little effort you can edit frame by frame as well as change the order of scenes using the drag and drop method Getting video off of your camera and onto your PC s hard drive is the first step in creating digital video This process is known as captur ing video You will also need a capture card so your computer can receive and ...

Page 6: ...inal video file This process is called rendering Ulead VideoStudio breaks your movie up into separate tracks which gives you broad creative freedom While your video probably already has a sound track adding a voiceover narration brings clarity to your personal videos Better still add background music off of your favorite music CDs to set the mood in your movie These tracks are inde pendent so chan...

Page 7: ... Ulead VideoStudio also lets you record your final video back to your camcorder see page 58 so that you can play the movie on big screen television MPEG The other Big Story in recent developments is MPEG Ulead VideoStudio gives you the power to edit MPEG 1 and MPEG 2 movies with amazing frame accurate technology The wide avail ability of CD writing hardware or CD R allows anyone to create their ow...

Page 8: ... for the CD ROM drive When the CD ROM window opens double click the Setup icon The following applications are important in making digital video work well on your com puter The installation program will walk you through installing QuickTime 3 NetShow Tools To run Ulead VideoStudio Double click the Ulead VideoStudio or Video Wizard icon on your Windows desktop Or select the Ulead VideoStudio or Vide...

Page 9: ...ce control 1 Click the Global Options button and click Select Device Control 2 In the Device Control dialog box click the Current device list 3 Select your device This will vary depending on your hardware MS 1394 Device Control TI 1394 Device Control or Adaptec 1394 Device Control Setting up DV support With the advent of Digital Video DV it has never been easier to capture edit and record video on...

Page 10: ...posed of many separate elements In Ulead VideoStudio these elements are conveniently organized into a single project file or VSP Note Depending on the video source device digital camera camcorder VCR etc that is currently connected to your computer the output is displayed in the Preview Window To check your video source device s settings click the Video Source button Getting started 1 Enter a Proj...

Page 11: ...ing video 1 Turn on your video source device and check all the connections to your computer 2 Watch the Preview window for the output of your video source device e g For recorded tapes start playing the tape For cameras adjust the focus and point to the desired location When you see the part that you want to start capturing click the Begin button 3 To pause or end the capturing process click the S...

Page 12: ...k the thumbnail representing that clip to select it and then click the Remove button To add movie files that are already saved on your computer into your project click the Add Video button Arranging your movie 1 Click on the clip that you want to move from the sequence of clips Selected clips are highlighted in blue 2 Drag the clip to a new location This will auto matically change the order of the...

Page 13: ...to the main Video Wizard interface Play trimmed clip Plays the trimmed portion of your clip The Trim Video dialog box Trimming a clip 1 Select a clip and click the Trim button 2 In the Trim Video dialog box slide the Handle to the right until you see the exact point that you want to use as the starting point of the clip 3 Click the Start Trim button to mark it as the first frame of the trimmed cli...

Page 14: ...dio file entry box Adding music to your movie makes it more interesting to watch and helps to set the mood You can use any Windows audio file e g WAV or try the samples that are included on your Ulead VideoStudio CD The final section allows you to add a Title to your movie As with the other two parts the Wizard s incredibly simple method gets a quick working title into your movie You can en hance ...

Page 15: ...file In the Audio file entry box specify the path and name of the audio file WAV that you want to use in your movie You can click the Browse button to find the file yourself Adding a transition effect 1 Click the Transition effect drop down menu 2 From the drop down list select the method of transition to use between your clips Selecting a transition effect Browsing for a music file Adding an open...

Page 16: ...luded in the project the duration of each clip any effects you have added and your hardware s capabilities So far you have only been collecting the parts of your movie The information about these parts has been stored in a Project file VSP The project file contains all of the information necessary to make your movie but it is not the movie itself Note If you want to use more powerful editing tools...

Page 17: ...izard is not a required part of making a video project or creating a movie you may find it convenient to use in setting up all of your new projects Later you can use the main program to fine tune and perfect your movie That s what the rest of this manual is about Playing back a video file Click the Play button to run the movie you have just created in the Preview window While in the Play step you ...

Page 18: ...y to move around your entire project Track buttons Each activates a track to edit Clicking a button changes the Preview window and available options accordingly Ulead VideoStudio 4 0 interface Map of Ulead VideoStudio Map of Ulead VideoStudio The Ulead VideoStudio interface has been designed to make the sometimes complicated task of editing movies on your PC intuitive and enjoyable The illustratio...

Page 19: ...ected range These color bars represent the trimmed or selected part of a clip or project Trim handle Click and drag to trim a clip Zoom controls Change the view to zoom in out or fit the entire project on the screen Switch mode Changes the view from Storyboard to Timeline view see page 28 Add media Displays a menu allowing you to place video audio or image clips directly on the Timeline Project sc...

Page 20: ...t Click this button to render create your project This can take some time but is an important feature see page 31 Global commands button This button accesses a menu that contains many useful tools to give you a hand when using Ulead VideoStudio One example is the item Ulead VideoStudio 4 0 Help Important program attributes can be found under the Preferences item and you can create and organize you...

Page 21: ...ndows Explorer into the Library panel Adding media clips to the Library 1 Click the Load clip button to open a dialog box for locating the media clip to insert in the Library 2 Select the desired file 3 Click Open when you are finished Note Deleting source files from your hard disk permanently removes them from your computer You may not be able to recover them again Please make sure that those sou...

Page 22: ...ject file is NOT the same as a movie and changes made to it do not affect your media clips It is possible to have a number of different projects using the same clips Start Capture The Start step is for creating new project files or opening existing ones Once a project is opened in the program new video can be recorded onto your computer s hard drive in the Capture step See page 24 Storyboard The S...

Page 23: ...ge 40 Voice Music Background music is probably one of the most important factors determining the mood or feel of your movie Add ambiance with tunes off of your favorite CDs or record a voiceover narration to effec tively clarify important parts of your video See page 44 Finish The final cuts have been made and the music has been syn chronized with care Now it s time to put it all together and make...

Page 24: ...n extremely important part of your project and should not be overlooked More information about template options can be found starting on page 54 Start Capture Start Capture Creating a new template 1 Click the Global commands button 2 Select Template from the menu 3 Click New and enter a name for your template then click OK 4 Set up the details of the template and click OK Creating a new project 1 ...

Page 25: ...re to library Keep this option selected to automati cally take advantage of the organiza tional features of the video library Video menu Displays a menu allowing you to modify your capture settings Note If the Capture menu item is grayed out or unavailable your video capture hardware may not be correctly installed Please follow your hardware manual s instructions carefully Capturing video 1 Hook u...

Page 26: ... because of the high data rate is difficult for your hard disk to handle Here are a few things you can do to ensure success Shut down ALL other programs that are running Use CTRL ALT DEL select an item and click End Task to make sure nothing is running except Explorer and Ulead VideoStudio Best results can be achieved by using a dedicated video hard drive This doesn t have to be an expensive AV ha...

Page 27: ... capture please see the manual for your capture card Once you have configured your hardware and software as detailed above you can capture video using the standard procedures described on the preceding pages The Video Menu Setting up MPEG capture 1 Connect your camcorder to your capture card 2 Turn on your camcorder and set it to Play mode or VTR mode See your camcorder s manual for specific instr...

Page 28: ...ode some people prefer to switch to Timeline mode to fine tune their effects and perform frame accurate trimming and editing of individual clips Switching to the Timeline mode Ulead VideoStudio show exactly when and where events in your story occur and you can see at a glance the contents of various media clips A clip can be a video file an audio file a transition a colored background or a title I...

Page 29: ... 32 for more informa tion on trimming Timelinemode When Ulead VideoStudio is in Timeline mode clips are placed on the workspace as short sequences The length of these clips accurately represents the duration of the clip in your project The ruler units can be adjusted for your convenience Setting the ruler units to fractions of a second gives you precise control over trimming and editing while long...

Page 30: ... of editing you want to do first Duration Sets the length of time of the clip Mark in out Displays the exact time of trimming Volume controls Use to adjust amplification and fade in and out Export plug ins Special features used to share your movie with others Clip properties Click to examine specific information about a clip Trim to video file Applies any trimming modifica tions to a clip and save...

Page 31: ...ering the parts of the project that have not changed Ulead VideoStudio performs this magic with heavy use of temporary files These files are stored in a location that you can set in the Preferences Preview tab found on the Global commands button menu By efficiently allocating disk space for temporary files you don t need to worry about Out of Memory error messages The Preview Files Manager also on...

Page 32: ... clip by clicking on it in the Library 2 Click and drag a Trim handle to set the trim position 3 When you have selected the area you want to trim click the Apply button 4 You can selectively play only the trimmed portion of the clip by holding the Shift key and clicking the Play button Notes The green bar beneath the Preview window represents the selected portion of the clip If the clip has not be...

Page 33: ...e Preferences dialog box Trimming a video clip that has been inserted onto the Timeline The key to making highly accurate cuts and edits is controlling the ruler scale in the Timeline When each unit represents one second you can get pretty close in estimating your edits Trim handles Scroll bar Zoom buttons Trimming a clip from the Timeline 1 Select a clip by clicking it on the Timeline 2 The yello...

Page 34: ...se to fine tune your trimming Mark in out Displays the points in the original clip where the trimming takes place Apply button Click to apply changes made in the Options panel to the selected clip Trimming a clip with the Options panel 1 Select a clip on the Timeline or in the Library 2 Click the time in the Duration box For example click on the seconds The numbers begin blinking 3 Enter a length ...

Page 35: ...ips are highlighted in blue Breaking a clip into multiple files 1 Select a clip from the Library or Timeline 2 Grab and drag a Trim handle to set the trim position 3 Click the Trim to video file button 4 You now have two different physical video files on your hard disk the original file SOURCE AVI and a trimmed copy SOURCE 1 AVI Trash can Trim to video file button This clip is a trimmed version of...

Page 36: ...tor or have Ulead VideoStudio do it for you when your movie is created Usingimageclips While Ulead VideoStudio by definition is primarily used to put together motion pictures you shouldn t underestimate the value of still pictures in your video productions You can use images or pictures from any source and even use individual frames from a video file Library selection menu Information about an ima...

Page 37: ...he color visually Load color button Inserting a color clip 1 Switch to the Color Library by clicking the drop down list and selecting Color 2 Click the Load color button 3 Choose a color Click the color box and select Ulead Color Picker to visually select a color 4 Set a Duration and click OK Using color clips Color clips are simply solid colored backgrounds that are useful for titles and transiti...

Page 38: ...e starts immediately Ulead VideoStudio on the other hand has tons of styles of transitions you can use from cross fades to explosions We ll deal with the details of these effects later but for now you just need a project with two video clips in it Note You may find it easier to work on transition effects when you re in the Storyboard mode Effects Effects Adding a transition 1 From the Effects step...

Page 39: ...cts specifically the Barn door In this effect s settings displayed in the Options panel you can change many parameters that will allow you to control exactly how the effect is going to be used in your movie Duration Sets the length of time for the transition You can also modify the duration by using the yellow Trim handles on the Timeline Border Select a size for the border in pixels on the left a...

Page 40: ...a new line You can move around the text with the arrow keys If you want to change the attributes of text that has already been entered you need to highlight the text by selecting it with your mouse Title track button Title button on the Options panel Title Title Adding text 1 From the Title step use the Clip navigation button on the Trim bar to scroll through your movie 2 When you see the frame wh...

Page 41: ...diting Reset Reverts to original settings Apply Applies changes to Title clip Color Sets the color of the selected text Once the title clip has been inserted onto the Storyboard you can adjust its duration by clicking and dragging on the handles and you can see what your title looks like in the Preview window using the Preview bar handles The Library can also be used to store your title clips To a...

Page 42: ...that starts off screen on top scrolls down and ends in the middle of the screen If you hold your mouse over a Title motion icon a short pop up message briefly describing the motion appears But the best way to figure out what these really do is to select the effect and use the Preview window to see the results As usual you can see the results of your changes by grabbing and dragging the Preview han...

Page 43: ...ading in out Another incredibly useful easy and effective method of displaying your titles is to fade your text in from invisible to crisp and clear and then back to invisible again This works especially well for opening credits with a slow fade or as captions with a quicker fade Cross fade title animation options Fading titles 1 Start by creating a new Title or click on an existing one 2 Click on...

Page 44: ...n even use music from your favorites CDs Detail of the Timeline showing the two audio tracks with WAV file clips If you already have some audio files including MP3 files ready to be used in your movie it is just a matter of clicking the Add media button and inserting the clip onto the Timeline The Library can also be used to store your audio clips and dragging and dropping to and from the Timeline...

Page 45: ...the section of the video you want to narrate Remember that you cannot record over an existing clip so make sure none is selected by clicking on a blank section of the Voice track 2 Select the Record with preview option and then click the Record button A small lever meter appears 3 When you speak into your microphone the meter should light up Use the Windows audio mixer to adjust the level of the m...

Page 46: ...serted clip As with other types of media clips you can now trim the inserted music file to better fit your movie The Record button turns red when recording The Play button changes to the Stop button when playing a CD Detail from Options panel showing CD track information the Record button and the Play button WAV file trim information Recording music from a CD 1 Insert the CD in your CD ROM 2 On th...

Page 47: ... about the clip Fade in out Gradually fades the beginning and or ending volume of a clip Info Click to display detail information about the clip Volume control Sets the volume for the entire clip Apply Click to apply trimming and volume changes to the selected clip Play button Trimming an audio clip 1 Select a clip by clicking on it in the Library or the Timeline 2 Click and drag a Trim handle to ...

Page 48: ... is actually from a video clip but you will notice that it is the same as the audio clip Options panel The first control is the volume control expressed as a percentage of the original Click the control to select from a range of audio amplifica tion options 0 to 500 where 100 is no change and 0 will completely silence the clip If you want a completely silent part it is probably easiest to just del...

Page 49: ...c track to the Voice track you first need to drag the clip to the Library 2 Delete the clip you have just copied from the Music track 3 Switch to the Voice track by double clicking on it 4 Drag the clip from the Library to the Voice track Volume control Sets the volume for the entire length of a clip Use this control to lower the volume of the audio on a video clip so that your voiceover narration...

Page 50: ... nesses The speed at which your computer renders or creates a movie can vary greatly depending on how complicated your project is but it can take some time Be patient and let your computer do its thing You may even want to let your computer render really big projects overnight or while you re at work Rendering a movie 1 Click the Finish step to display the Options panel for making your actual movi...

Page 51: ...Partial Rendering 1 Make sure that no clips are selected a selected clip has a broken line around it You can unselect a clip by clicking on the ruler at the top of the Timeline 2 The green bar and Trim handles now act on the entire project Use the handles to select a Preview range You can tell that the Preview range is working on the entire project because a red line appears on the Timelime This r...

Page 52: ...e to your Web server you need to change one line of code to reflect the relative links to the associated movie file PARAM NAME FileName VALUE C My Project my_movie avi In this example of an ActiveMovie object this line points to a local hard drive so you need to point it to its location on your Web site You ll also need to change the link if you don t use the ActiveMovie control ActiveMovie is a s...

Page 53: ...y packages the movie into an executable exe file that automatically plays the video when the user runs it In addition the video is displayed in an appealing frame complete with a message This procedure only works on finished or rendered movies and not on projects You can select individual clips or render your movie to include the whole thing in a card The templates that are provided with Ulead Vid...

Page 54: ...th America As with Frame rate a larger Frame size yields a larger file size It s best to try to render your video with the same frame rate and frame size as you captured This results in the highest quality video and the quickest rendering times In the Storyboard mode select a clip and click the Info button to find these settings Ulead VideoStudio If you only want to render a small portion of your ...

Page 55: ...ile by targeting a specific medium for play back Data rate is calculated in kilobytes per second Kb Sec of data that needs to move from your source disk drive CD ROM modem etc through your computer If you have a Target playback device in mind right now select it from the list You can set the Tolerance to let the data vary a little otherwise Ulead VideoStudio will stop and warn you if the data rate...

Page 56: ...om the Media type list select NTSC VCD or PAL VCD depending on your TV standard 6 Click OK Enter a name and click OK to render your movie MPEG 1 is a highly compressed format that maintains very good quality Once the file is created you have to use a special VCD creation program to write burn the CD on your CD writer Simply follow the instructions for those programs to write your movie to the corr...

Page 57: ...t is not currently feasible Secondly because MPEG 2 is so powerful it requires a fast CPU or a dedicated MPEG 2 video card not only to create the video files but also to view them a 450MHz CPU is a recommended minimum With that in mind MPEG 2 is an excellent choice for any type of movie Ulead VideoStudio lets you capture directly from your camcorder to the MPEG 2 format perform frame accurate edit...

Page 58: ...dio supported even the very first DV products on the market this latest version now offers comprehensive support for DV in all of its manifestations This includes but is not limited to Type 1 Type 2 PAL NTSC and even the device control of your camcorder Recording a movie to your DV camcorder 1 Turn on your camcorder and set it to Play mode or VTR mode See you camcorder s manual for specific instru...

Page 59: ...gain you have to consider that these videos are going to be played on someone else s computer so you need to use a popular codec found on many computers MPEG 1 Moving Picture Coding Experts Group is becoming the de facto format for video and audio on the Web It is currently used in millions of commercial Video CDs around the world and provides high compression ratios without loss of quality This i...

Page 60: ... information with analog Effect In Ulead VideoStudio an effect is a special computer generated transition between two video clips Frame A single image in a movie Frame Rate The number of frames per second in a video NTSC video is commonly 29 97 frames per second fps but smaller video files can be created on the computer by using lower frame rates like 15fps Library Ulead VideoStudio The Library is...

Page 61: ...eo Timecodes can be used to make very accurate edits Timeline The timeline is a graphic representation of your movie in chronological order The relative size of clips on the timeline gives you an accurate idea of the length of your media clips Title A title can be a movie title a caption or credit Any text overlays in your movie can be referred to as titles Transition effect A transition is a meth...

Page 62: ... CD 44 Clip navigation buttons 31 closing credits 40 42 codec 55 Color clips 37 color library 37 Compression 55 Create step 16 Creating a Greeting Card 53 56 57 Creating a movie file 16 Creating a new project 24 Creating a new template 24 Creating a Web page 52 Creating MPEG movies 57 Creating multiple versions of a clip 34 Creating opening credits 15 Cross fade 43 Ctrl Z 33 D Data rate 55 Deletin...

Page 63: ... 48 modes 28 Modifying a title 41 Moving audio clips between tracks 49 MP3 44 46 MP3 audio files 7 MPEG 7 27 MPEG 1 56 MPEG 2 7 57 Music Voice 44 Music track 44 46 N Narrating a movie 45 narration 44 New 7 O opening and closing credits 40 Options panel 30 Out of Memory 31 P Partial Rendering 51 play only the trimmed 32 47 Play project 31 Play step 17 Playing back a video file 17 Preview files mana...

Page 64: ...e Library 21 tiles 5 timeline 28 Timeline mode 29 Title 14 40 Title motion button 42 43 Title safe area 40 Tracks 6 30 Transition effects 14 38 Trim 13 32 trim handle 33 36 Trimming a clip 13 Trimming a clip from the Timeline 33 34 Trimming a clip using the Trim bar 32 47 Trimming a clip with the Options panel 34 Trimming an audio clip 47 U Ulead VideoStudio project 31 Ulead VideoStudio 4 7 Ulead ...

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