Adding subtitles

K-type · Post by **K-type** » Mon Apr 14, 2003 3:09 am

When it comes to adding subtitles to an AMV like people have done in "The Baka Song" or "The Pirates who don't do anything", how would you go about creating an authentic-looking yellow subtitle frame?

Can you do it from Premiere or do you have to make something in Photoshop and import it?

What do you recommend?

RadicalEd0 · Post by **RadicalEd0** » Mon Apr 14, 2003 4:12 am

avisynth

Subtitle("subtitle text",x-pos,y-pos,start-frame,end-frame,"font",font-size,$halo-color,$body-color)

i.e.

Subtitle("1.",64,375,0,9999,"Smudger LET",36,$2B2567,$73789B)

K-type · Post by **K-type** » Sun Apr 20, 2003 3:49 pm

It's looking great! I'd like to make one adjustment though. Using the script you gave me, the subtitle itself is dark blue with a light blue border. If I could, I'd like to get yellow subtitles with a black border. Also, is there a master list of halo-color and body-color code I could look up?

RadicalEd0 · Post by **RadicalEd0** » Sun Apr 20, 2003 9:08 pm

eh, oh, I should've mentioned that those are just hex values for the colors, the same you'd use in html except with a $ instead of #

iserlohn · Post by **iserlohn** » Mon Apr 21, 2003 1:23 am

Those of us who don't use AVISynth (yes, we really do exist), you can also do it the way digisubbers do, which is to create a script in a subbing program like SubStation Alpha (google for the download URL), and then use Virtualdub's Subtitler plugin to do the overlay. Just export your scene to either uncompressed or HuffYUV (or top qual MJPEG) and run it through vdub at top settings. Pick a nice, easy to read font like Arial or Times New Roman, and make it a good size, like 32. You can set this by going to SSA's Styles->Define menu and editing default or creating new settings such as Karaoke or Dialogue and using them instead. To do timing, you can punch by hand or export a wav (convert to 22.05/8bit/mono) and time using that. Use the yellow line to set in point, red to set out point (left and right mouse buttons respectively), save, and overlay. Likewise, you can track timecode in virtualdub and manually punch in times as well.

This sounds like a lot of work, but if you're doing more than one sequence (like a whole 4 minute video), it's a LOT easier to make an SSA script, do all your settings at once, and overlay at the last minute than to keep changing things at the core level.

Of course, you could also use Premiere's title maker software to create a series of subtitles and then just alpha channel them over your video. Just make sure to use an NTSC safe colour (the yellow I use shouldn't be NTSC safe but it is - R255 G255 B128, NTSC white is R210 G210 B210) and you're good to go.

K-type · Post by **K-type** » Mon Apr 21, 2003 2:01 am

Thanks, Rad. And Iser, if I ever need to do more than one sequence I'll definitely look into SubStation Alpha 8)

AbsoluteDestiny · Post by **AbsoluteDestiny** » Mon Apr 21, 2003 2:15 am

Then once the script is made, the digisubbers put it into avisynth ;p