Google Sketchup for Text Animation

[Khaver]

Here's a quick clip using Google Sketchup for the text animation.

[ame="http://www.vimeo.com/9072734"]Sketchup Text on Vimeo[/ame]

In sketchup, turn off the sky and ground and set the background to green. Create your "Scenes" for camera animation and export to an image sequence. In your NLE, use greenscreen for compositing the text over your scene.

Best of all, Sketchup is free.

[racer-x]

Nice find.........great for someone who's video editor doesn't support Track Motion. Good job cleaning up the green screen, you can't tell. I suppose Sketchup doesn't support export to 32-bit TGA or PNG with alpha channel?

Pretty good for free just the same.

[Khaver]

I tried using an alpha channel mask but it didn't work. It outputs 32bit files but the alpha channel is just the full frame, no object mask.

The greenscreen works very well, even with a semi-transparent object you can get it to show the background through it.

I used the video track transparency settings in Premiere 6.5 so I'm sure they must be even better in the newer NLE's.

It's nothing fancy, but for quick and dirty 3D text it's easy to use and wont break the bank.

[Khaver]

Here's another example of using Google Sketchup for text animation.

[ame="http://www.vimeo.com/9193003"]More Sketchup Text on Vimeo[/ame]

I'd need to fiddle a bit more with it in my editor to reduce the shimmering.

[racer-x]

If i remember correctly, you can do those text effects in Premiere 6.5 with track motion.

You can also do those track effects and much, much more in Wax2 which is also free. It's been years since I've used Wax, but it is pretty powerful. You just have to learn how to use it. You also have to save often because it is sometime unstable. It also imports avisynth scripts directly, so in theory it can edit virtually any video scource known to man..........

[Khaver]

You're right about that last example being easily done in Premiere. I was just experimenting. And like you said, Wax can be very unstable, especially as a Premiere plugin.

The main thing about using Sketchup is the ease of creating 3D text and other objects and its quick camera animation setup.

Here's one showing some 3D text with some transparency using greenscreen in Premiere 6.5.

[ame="http://www.vimeo.com/9213547"]Another Title Animation on Vimeo[/ame]