Grid Pro Manual - Fontsynth
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| Grid Pro Manual |
|---|
| Getting Started |
| The Basics |
| Advanced Features |
| Optimizing Grid Pro |
Contents |
Activating the Fontsynth
To turn the Fontsynth on and off use the On and Off buttons in the Fontsynth interface. Video output from the Fontsynth can be incorporated into the final mix at any point in an FX chain, before or after mixing by using the Movie Tap FX. Different movie taps will apply the text differently to the incoming video stream. For example, to do a simple text overlay, use either the "r tap-blend" or "r tap composition" (there is also a dedicated Fontsynth FX for doing simple overlays without having to deal with video taps). To use text to mask out part of an image, use the "r tap-mask" FX. By using multiple Movie Taps, you can apply the text at as many places in the video chain as you want.
Display Queue
When text is entered into the Fontsynth, it is automatically placed at the end of the Display Queue. In the top section of the Fontsynth you can view a preview of the text in the queue waiting to be displayed on screen. Text at the very top of the queue is "on deck" and will be rendered on screen the next time the Fontsynth grabs from the queue.
Adding text to the Display Queue using Live Type
New text can be added to the queue at any time by simply clicking in the text entry box to the left of the words "Display Queue", typing the text you wish to display on screen, and pressing the return key.
Adding text to the Display Queue from a text file
When a line text is removed from the queue and displayed on screen, the Fontsynth can automatically add new lines of text from a .txt file into the queue.
At the top left of the Fontsynth interface is a list of all .txt documents the text_files folder located in the Applications/GridPro folder. To select a text file to read from, click on it's name in the list. The contents of the selected file will appear in text area to the right of the Text File picker labeled File Contents.
As text is read from the selected file into the queue, the File Contents browser will indicate which line of text will be added to the queue next. Clicking on any line of text in the File Contents browser will automatically make it the next line to be added to the queue.
Editing text in the queue
Even after text is added to the queue, it is possible to change it before it gets displayed on screen. To edit a line of text, click on it in the Display Queue window. The text will be copied into the Live Text entry box directly above the Display Queue, where it can be changed. Once you have finished making changes, press return to have them take effect.
Stepping through the Display Queue
The Fontsynth has five modes for controlling when to grab to the next line of text from the Display Queue to be displayed on screen. These can be accessed via the menu below the words "Trigger On" in the Fontsynth.
- Movie Loop - Advances the queue when the currently playing movies loop. Choose between Bus A, Bus B, or both Bus A and Bus B.
- Analysis - Advances the queue whenever the value of the provided Gesture Slider goes over a certain threshold. A new grab can not occur until the value of the slider drops below the Reset point. The provided Gesture Slider can be synced to a controller such as audio analysis, making it possible to use live music to drive the Fontsynth.
- Clock - Sets length between steps to a specific amount of time, either in terms of Clock divisions (Quantized) or in milliseconds (Un-Quantized).
- Manual - In this mode, the queue will advance only made when the "Trigger a line of txt" button is clicked in the When tab.
- Text Entry - Advances the queue whenever a new line of text is entered through Live Type.
Text Layout and Appearance
Font and Style selection
Using the Font list in the Fontsynth, you can browse a list of available fonts installed on your computer. To pick a font to use for rendering text in Grid Pro, click on it's name in the Font Picker.
To the right of the list of fonts are the standard style controls - bold, italic, underline, outline, shadow, condense, and expand. To activate a style behavior, click in the box to the left of the desired style.
Position, Size and Alignment
To select an area to display text in, click and drag on the Layout Grid in the Fontsynth. The size of the rendered text can be manually adjusted using the size slider, or automatically size itself to fill the selected region in the Layout Grid. Under the Alignment heading, you can also set whether the text should align itself to the left, center, or right of the selected region.
Offset
Once the text has been positioned, sized and aligned, you can offset it horizontally and vertically before it is applied to the final video output.
You can use the x.offset and y.offset Gesture Sliders to position the text with a MIDI device, or in wave mode to create a "scrolling text" effect.