Advanced Interactive Media/LiveType

LiveType

Apple LiveType is text creator in the following paragraphs the basics of this program will be explained. Start out by typing in the Inspector window in the upper left hand box. After typing in a word, it appears on the Canvas. The Blue Bar under the text moves the text around, or by just clicking on a letter that letter will move by itself. The start and end points on blue bar moves the text vertically. A person can create a control point on the blue bar to skew the text by holding down control then click on the blue bar and choose ‘add control point’. To curve the text hold control then click on the control point and choose add a curve point. Attributes and text settings are similar to that in Photoshop. There is two different font types Regular and LiveFonts. In the media browser window on the far right choose the font tab and choose a font and click apply to change it. To style the regular font a viewer can go back to the inspector window and change the text in any way that they wish with attributes, effects, style and text. Under the style tab there are four ways to style the text shadow, outline, glow and extrude. LiveFonts are pre made animated texts that a user can choose from in the media browser under Livefonts. To change the color of the Livefont the user can simply go to attributes in the inspector window and change the color where it says color.

The texture tab in the media browser allows the user to put an animated background to the text. When adding textures the texture gets put onto the timeline below the separated bar, this is so that the user can choose whether or not they want to include it in final render. The viewer can drag the background on the timeline above the separation bar and that would make the background automatically render out in final output with the text. The timeline in LiveType isn’t like a normal editing system timeline. This is because when an animated text or background is dragged out or shortened it makes it faster and longer in speed. In the inspector window under the tab timing it displays the speed of the layer and the user can notice as they shorten or lengthen the speed changes. But, this doesn’t apply to anything static. The user can also slide the layer up and down the timeline horizontally to make it appear earlier or later in the animation. One very good feature about LifeType is that the preset textures can loop seamlessly. Another cool feature about LiveFont is that it can have multiple projects open at a time and be able to switch between them with tabs right above the timeline. The user can also hold down control and click on a track to copy and then paste it on another project. One more handy feature is that the user can hold down control and click on a track and choose reveal media browser to find the original source of that track quickly. Some really good free tutorials on LiveType can be found at: http://www.livetypecentral.com/cgi-bin/livetypecentral.cgi/tutorials.html

Product Link: http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro2/livetype.html