Compositing Tutorial for Glass Text

By John on March 2, 2008 8:19 PM | Permalink | Leave a Comment(1) | TrackBacks (0)

Here is a short tutorial on how to use basic compositing techniques to create a 'glass title' using Final Cut Pro and Boris - Title 3D.

Navigate to the Generators menu and select the Boris - Title 3D title tool. Type a title that is relatively large (i.e. 132 points). Make the title completely white, don't worry about adding any colors, edges or borders. When your finished click on the apply button.

Edit the title to V2 over top of some background video.

Hold down the (option + shift) keys and drag the title directly above itself. This will create an exact copy of the text onto V3.

Next, make an exact copy of the V1 background video, onto V4 using the same technique (option + shift) drag.

Your timeline should now look like this:

V4 Copy of Background Video
V3 Copy of Title 3D
V2 Title 3D
V1 Background Video

Double click on the V2 Title to load its contents into the Viewer window. Then click on the Controls tab and click on the 'Title 3D click for options' button. This will relaunch the Title 3D title tool. This time, select the text and add an outside beveled edge.

Now your timeline should be like this:

V4 Copy of Background Video
V3 Title 3D (no edge)
V2 Title 3D (with beveled edge)
V1 Background Video

Next, right click on the top most track V4 and set the composite mode to travel - matte - alpha. V4 is now composited inside V3.

You can apply filters to either V4 or V1 which will affect the color of the text or the background. In this case, V4 represents the media inside the text, and V1 represents the background video.

In this example I've applied a sepia filter to V4, and a desaturate filter to V1.