How To Fade Text In Shotcut (In A Really Easy & Intuitive Fashion)

Help/How To
#1

I have been looking through the Shotcut form to find a way to consistently fade out text (and I’ve seen some remarkably unintuitive solutions, like going to Open Other – Color then choosing Transparency which I haven’t yet found a way to make work either well or consistently).

Though the method I stumbled upon not only works consistently, but makes a lot more sense.

When you’re adding Filters to an object on a video track you traditionally have things like Size, Position & Rotate, Text: Simple, Fade In Video, Fade Out Video, etc.

The key to making text fade is to organize it so that the text falls under the parameters of the ‘Fade Out Video’ command.

Which is to say, organizing your filters in a hierarchical fashion, with the ‘Fade Out Video’ command at the end results in the text fading out with whatever else it’s attached to.

I’ll post my next YouTube video on my channel showing the technique.

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#2

I look forward to your video, because I am not sure I understand what you are explaining (language barrier. Not your fault).
Fading text (or anything else) is one of the simplest thing to do in Shotcut.

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#3

It’s actually pretty easy if you isolate your text effects on its own track. Then it’s much more controllable

#4

I’m glad you mentioned that! What does that mean? In the sense that if a track is empty, you cannot just add a text effect to nothing (as far as I’m aware). In fact, that’s exactly the issue I’ve found with ‘Open Other- Color,’ namely there’s nothing in that space so when I tried it I could not keep track of the effect.

So, what are you adding text to?

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#5

Not if the people who have contributed to the forum have anything to say about it (type in “fading text” and look at the responses."

As far as the video goes, I’ll post it today. Look for the text effect fade at the opening of the video.

#6

Open Other is usually the easy way. If you don’t choose a color and just click OK, it automatically defaults to Transparent. To make it even easier, you can save that default setting as TRANSPARENT in the presets, so that you don’t have to remember that it defaults to that. You can then use the color block as a way to choose the length to show the text. Then apply the text filter to the transparent color.

An alternate and faster way is instead of choosing Color after choosing Open Other, go to the next one under that and choose Text. It essentially creates a transparent block with a text filter on it all in one fell swoop. Just drag that from the preview screen into the blank track and you have your text block

#7

That’s my entire point. “Open Other” – as far as I’ve seen – isn’t particularly easy to work with. I’ve tried it (obviously I don’t have my head around how it works) which is why I created the post in the first place.

“Open Other” isn’t intuitive, not even close. In fact, I’ll likely at some point figure out how to make it work as it should, but I’m not there.

And judging from the Forum I’m hardly the only one.

#8

I’ve always gotten open other to work as intended. I’m not able to replicate the issue you’re having. Maybe we’re using different versions or different operating systems. I’ve never had Open Other > Text fail on me, so I’m not understanding the issue.

#9

I don’t know what “fail” means in the context you’re using the term. As I said, when I use that command what confuses me is how you’re supposed to place an effect when it isn’t attached to an object. There’s nothing in the track but the transparency effect, yet if you move the pointer within that track, there’s no effect present (that I could find, which makes sense I guess when you take into account it’s not nested with any particular object).

It may be working exactly as intended (and I obviously can’t see how it’s effecting you) though I can’t see (or don’t know where to look. It’s entirely possible) where in the timeline that effect rests.

As I said, check the forums under 'fading text." My experience, or variations thereof, are hardly unique.

And I’m running an iMac and the latest version of Shotcut.

#10

I’ll just wait for the video

#11

@Philez I recommend this video by @jonray. In less than 5 minutes he explains all you need to know about using Text: Simple, including fades.

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#12

Open Other - Color - Transparent is like placing a transparent sheet on top.
In itself, it is already an object. You can add filters to it (like simple text, masks, etc).
When I want my wife to better understand the placement of her texts in her projects I encourage her to do that by opening another color-transparent, because she can stretch the transparent clip, move it position on the timeline, change track, etc, in a very intuitive way for her.
I would certainly add the text as a filter within a chain of effects with masks and so on, but that is less intuitive especially for beginners.

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#13

[significantly edited, later]

It is [redacted]capable of occasionally producing perplexing anomalies.

That was not what I expected to find.

I have almost never used Open Other (like many other Shotcut features I haven’t mastered yet), and I have never ever used Text: Simple before (I do all my titles - with fades -using PNG transparencies I make in the Gimp).

Fading text is really easy using PNGs.

So I went in to Shotcut an hour ago with the plain intention of proving someone wrong.
I was, instead, very, very surprised at what I found.

This will be easy…
Uh, uh, I don’t see any text…
Oh, that didn’t work…
Try this…
…no…

Number one, it is un-intuitive for me.

But, more important, Open Other: Text didn’t work.
Not completely.
I can make a color panel (OO:Color).
I can add Text: Simple to my panel.
I can do that with a transparent panel.
I can make a colored panel with text, using OO:Text.
I can make that panel transparent.
All of that works…
…but…

…if I use Open Other:Text to try to make a transparent panel with text, the text (which is in the filter box) never appears.

Now here is the kicker:
If I add another Text:Simple filter to my transparent OO:Text:transparent panel, that second block of text appears perfectly, even while the first Text:Simple is still there on the same panel, doing nothing.

When I started out by going straight in using Open Other:Text to create text over transparency, it didn’t work.

(Shotcut 21.03.21 on Ubuntu Linux 18.04)

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#14

Could it be a Linux version issue?

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#15

It works for me on all of my machines and operating systems.

Maybe the tip @Philez is missing is that Open Other always opens in the Source player. Then, you can add it to the timeline. I will not engage in a discussion about the intuitiveness. Shotcut does not require usage of the timeline, and it is consistent with what happens when you use File > Open to open a media file.

#16

Did you enter a text here?

Capture d’écran 2021-03-25 à 20.23.33
Capture d’écran 2021-03-25 à 20.23.33712×484 30.7 KB

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#17

Yes

#18

Fully understood.

I spent an hour trying to prove that it was my mistake or misunderstanding.

At that I failed.

But I am continuing to work at it, trying to find “what I did wrong”.

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#19

So as @bentacular said maybe a problem with Linux?

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#20

I would phrase that “a problem with Linux, or maybe how Shotcut works on Linux”.

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