Custom Text Backdrops with Boris Graffiti

Now select the Pen Tool in the tool Palette and draw a spline shape using the usual click and drag drawing technique. The backdrop will automatically scale to fit your text.

A wavy line at the top reminds me of Sonoma, surrounded by rolling hills crowding the horizon on both sides of the valley.

Once you finish drawing the spline you may want to adjust it’s position using the Backdrop tab of the Face track. I found that I’d like to change the Scale Y and Shift Y so that the backdrop is exactly where I want it to be relative to the text.

Now is the time to change the white fill into something more attractive. I’d like to see the image through the backdrop and preserve the impression of light present in the background footage. This can be accomplished with a gradient fill while adjusting the overall transparency. Make sure to keep Spline Object 1 track in the Timeline selected.

Let’s leave the gradient at the default two stop setting with black and white stops working as spotlight and shadow. Bring the Fill Opacity slider to about 50% to add air and lightness.

It already looks much better but to my taste a little incomplete. I want to define the edges with a light-reflecting stroke around the border of the spline. On to the next tab in the Control window: Stroke.

In this tab I started by turning on one of the five available strokes with the checkbox on the very left of the panel. A plain stroke tracing the edges of the spline appeared in the preview. I wanted the stroke to reflect the light from the scene so I used the Bevel option from the Edge Style popup box. Now my stroke has a built in light complete with a Highlight Angle parameter should I choose to adjust or even animate the direction of the light. Interesting effects can also be achieved by animating the Border Begin/End group but I decided to leave the backdrop static. The last touch is to pick the Edge Color matching the background video. I can do it directly from the video using the eye-dropper widget that is built into every color parameter group. I picked a shade of green right from the vine leaf.

One feature unique to Graffiti and RED backdrops is the ability to automatically scale and position with the changing text. If I decide to edit the text, add new lines, etc. the backdrop will adjust with vector precision.

As an added bonus all Graffiti static titles will play back in real time in Avid, Apple, Adobe, Sony, Media 100 and other supported systems. Time to finally open that bottle of wine… To your health!!!

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