I’m trying to use Glaxnimate for some simple text so I can get familar with the program, but I just end up making the text in Gimp after about 2 hours.
I’m simply trying to use the Glaxnimate animation filter on a transparent clip in Shotcut. That way I can add some text to it in Glaxnimate. Glaxnimate opens up with a pure white canvas instead of the checkered background. I tried to google how to change the canvas color to something else in Glaxnimate, but the only solution is to make a rectangle and pretend that rectangle is the canvas… So I made a black rectangle and sent it to back so I can see the white text I’m trying to make. At this point when I look back at Shotcut, it only shows white. So I restarted Glax and Shotcut, deleted the Glax animation filter in Shotcut, and started over. This time I’ll use a black clip in Shotcut and then add the Glax animation filter to it. Glaxnimate opens up and it shows the checkered pattern background. So now it’s transparent? Ok. Now I’m adding the white text in Glaxnimate and when I look back at Shotcut I see the text is black… Huh? Ok at this point I’m just going to use gimp. The Glaxnimate is so weird but the inconsistent stuff just makes it too frustrating. On top of that there’s no real Glaxnimate community to ask questions and Google is giving the wrong answers.
There is no Glanimate animation filter. The only filter is a Mask, which is special and not an overlay. I don’t have any of the problems you describe. New Glaxnimate animations are created within Shotcut using Open Other, or you can directly Open any compatible animation format. Either way, it as a clip or asset similar to any image or video, not a filter. There are video tutorials on our tutorial page.
Thanks for the info. I was only using “filter” as a shorthand. I’ll try to use Glax again but IDK where to ask questions. The tuts are super basic and the documentation is sparse. Is it possible to change the canvas color/opacity in Glaxnimate? Here is the entry on the canvas Canvas — Glaxnimate Manual 0.5.4 documentation
Answer to the title- I extremely do, first of all its a whole new different software, not even like mocha. Second, if you don’t want to see tutorials, it will take you months to find out how to pen mask videos. I just rather prefer what shotcut can do in itself.
The Glaxnimate canvas is always transparent. If you see all white it might be coming from the preview of the Shotcut video in the background, but I could not make it happen. First, you need to understand that in Shotcut you cannot see transparency without adding a special Alpha Channel: View filter to visualize it. A mistake a lot people make is to not provide a background on a lower video track. That means, for example, you put something to be the background on V1, and put the thing with transparency on V2.
Did you know that in Glaxnimate, when you stop typing, the shape object is not yet created? Because you might still be typing; it does not know. You need to click the Select tool (arrow icon) to end typing and make the object.
Now, if you did that, and Glaxnimate shows a white background there might have been a faulty preview of the Shotcut video within Glaxnimate. Sometimes you need to select the animation and click Properties > Edit again to reload the preview.
Months ??!! When Glaxnimate was first added to Shotcut, there was practically no tutorials available. It didn’t take me (and others) months to learn how to draw and animate masks. Even my 12 years old niece figured it out in a couple of hours.
Idk why it took me so much time (I only gave max 30 mins a day on glaxnimate), but when I tried, at first it didn’t show any frame of my video. And it continued to be so in every version, and once it showed up, I was not able to get it back in shotcut. It took me a lot of time to get used to it. So I just hate to use it now, it’s very hard to understand for me. I just go and use ae, rotobrush is just helpful.
Like some people probably don’t like shorts here, same with me, I didn’t get as used to with glaxnimate, it is my preference nos to just use shotcut and avoid glaxnimate.
You’re just used to using AE, and that’s why it seems easier to you. Glaxnimate has tens of times fewer functions than AE, it is logical to assume that it will also be easier to understand the functionality of Glaxnimate. For example, I practically don’t use it, since I don’t need its functions yet, but I see great potential in it for use in commercial projects where you need to advertise something, because here you can make good infographics.
I do think I have preference on ae, and I am also used to it, so that might be the reason I don’t like glax. Anyways, it’s my personal opinion and others are free to use however as they like, I am nobody to stop them. But yeh, I still hate glaxnimate personally.
I’d have to disagree here. If you have some prior knowledge in vector graphics, then you might find your way around Glaxnimate. Coincidentally I learned Inkscape just a few weeks before looking at Glaxnimate, but it’s still tough without tutorials. Sometimes when I get stuck I’m not sure if it’s because I don’t know enough about Glaxnimate or if it’s because Glaxnimate doesn’t have the feature yet.
