Letter Box

[RonNageotte]

How can I make a letter box with opacity?

[TimKennelly]

Well, you could use the Rectangle with the Color Black and manually set the opacity of the color to your desired degree.

This would require a two step Scene layering process, but is easily do-able.

The rendering will take some time depending on Scene duration and your platform's efficiency.

[chetdavis]

Hello Ron,

It sounds like you are looking to create what we call a 'Text Box with Background' (in Casablanca titling lingo) --- here is the process pulled from one of my Casablanca event handouts:

Adding a transparent background to your text or title box creates a professional looking title,
especially useful when adding lower thirds titles - identifying onscreen interviews, etc.
1. First type your title and adjust the Title Box to the size you wish to have a shaded box
appear. For example, when I am adding lower 3rds titles - I size the box to stretch
screen left to screen right and just a little taller (top and bottom) than the letters. This sizing capability is found by clicking on the 'Boxes' button in the titler menu.'

2. Click again on 'Box Options' and click on 'Box-Background'. The default setting has the
transparent box checked. This means no background/shading on the title box.

3. Click in the 'Transparent' box and you will see a pattern applied to the preview window.
You can add either a color or a pattern to the box background. We will add a color here.

4. Click on 'Color' and then adjust the color requester to the hue you prefer. I recommend
adjusting for a high degree of transparency - something like 30-40%

5. Click 'ok' twice and you will see that you have added a colored background to your title
box. Play a bit with the pattern choices and see what you can now create!

Hope that helps!

Regards,
Chet