Transitions

If you’ve followed the advice in this book thus far, then your recordings have yielded a number of clips that you have then managed to slap together in Camtasia Studio and edit to your liking. As mentioned earlier in the text, trying to record everything in one take is not only a waste of time, it yields a boring result. Films and television programs are made up of multiple shots, organized into scenes, and your videos should be as well. When putting your scenes together, sometimes the best method of introducing the new scene is simply by “cutting over” to it abruptly. Sometimes not. As with film and TV, Camtasia Studio offers fades, wipes, and even more complex ways of moving from the end of one scene to the beginning of another. These gaps are called transitions, and the stylistic effects you can insert during transitions can help bring your production to a new level of professionalism, provided you limit yourself to a few such effects per video (this is another one of those features that’s notoriously easy to overdo).

To get started with transitions, simply do the following:

• In the Task List under Edit, choose Transitions….

  or

• Choose Transitions… from the Edit menu.

Notice that you’re now in Storyboard view. This is the default view for adding transitions. If you started in Timeline view, you’ll be taken back there upon conclusion of your “transitioning duties.” You only need two things in order to add a transition: the clip you’re transitioning from and the clip you’re transitioning to. So, if you don’t have at least two clips present in Ye Olde Storyboarde, head on back to your Clip Bin and import some more.

Adding a Transition

Okay, now let’s take a look at the available transitions. You’ve got a library of 18 of them at your disposal - they’re listed in alphabetical order in the Transitions pane. To see what a given transition will look like in action, just double-click it. The Video Preview will show one still image transitioning into another. In order to see how the given transition will work with the actual content, you’ll need to add that transition to your Storyboard.

Here’s how to go about adding a transition effect:

1. Make sure you have at least two transitions on your Storyboard.

2. Select a transition from the Transitions pane list.

3. Click and drag the chosen transition effect from the list to the small transition box that rests between your two clips. This box represents the transition between these clips, and it looks like this:

   

   A small plus sign (+) will appear next to your mouse cursor when you drag a transition effect onto a transition box.

   Release the mouse button to assign the transition effect to those clips.

   or

   Right-click the desired transition effect. You will receive a context menu asking where you’d like the transition effect placed:

   

   Select your desired location by left-clicking it. The transition effect will appear in the appropriate transition box.

4. A graphical representation of the transition effect is now visible within the transition box. You can now preview the effect by clicking the Play button in your Video Preview. You can go back and preview your effect at any time by clicking the effect in your transition box, and then playing back the preview.

5. How was the timing of the transition? Too fast? Too slow? You can adjust the timing of your transition by right-clicking the transition effect inside the transition box and choosing a duration for the effect, from one second (quickest) to five seconds (slowest).

6. Repeat this process for other pairs of clips as desired.

Tip 

If you want to adjust the default timing of your transitions, you can easily do so by choosing Tools > Options… and entering a new value into the Transitions default duration field on the Program tab. Any integer from 1 to 5 will work; 3 is the factory default.

Changing Your Mind

Obviously, you are not stuck with your first choice if you decide it doesn’t work with the content. To replace the transition effect, simply add a new one to the same spot, and it will replace the first one. Another option you have for replacing a transition is to right-click the transition box, and then select a new transition effect from the Change Transition submenu.

Of course, if you’d rather delete the transition effect entirely, you’ve got a couple of options for doing so:

• Select the transition effect by clicking inside the transition box. Press the Delete key.

  or

• Right-click inside the transition box, and then choose Remove from Storyboard.

A Few Parting Words about Using Transitions

Transition effects place a professional piece of eye candy between your clips, and people really seem to like them due to their “Wow!” factor.

As such, the temptation may be strong to place a transition between each and every pair of clips, preferably different ones to show off all the cool effects you have at your disposal. This is a bad idea. Transitions should be used sparingly. I personally only use them when doing so communicates meaning. For example, the Radial Wipe effect is one of my personal favorites because it’s reminiscent of the hands of a clock. As such, I’ll often employ it between two “before and after” clips to convey the passage of time. I could give you other examples, but the bottom line is this: Never use a transition effect just because you can. Make sure there’s stylistic and/or communicative intent behind your choice.

Of course, sometimes the motivation for adding a transition effect is the simple desire to cover up a mistake. Hey, it happens to me, too. I’ve often had multiple clips that were supposed to flow seamlessly into one another, only to discover that the beginning of my new clip placed the mouse cursor completely on the other side of the screen. Or, I forgot to reset the location of a window or other screen object correctly, and now there’s a disconcerting “jump” between clips. In cases like these, a well-placed transition effect can sometimes really come to your rescue. Other times, it’s even more conspicuous than simply cutting over to the new clip and hoping people don’t notice. It’s always worth a try as a last resort prior to rerecording.

Keep in mind that most transitions only work well when the end of the first clip and the beginning of the second have radically different content. For transitioning between two nearly identical screens, the Pixelate transition is particularly effective. Another technique for effectively transitioning like content is to place a short blank title clip between your clips and attach a transition effect or two to that. Take a look at the following example:

If the blank title screen weren’t present, one clip would simply fade into the other, and the similarity between the screens would make the transition quite difficult to detect. By adding the title screen and applying a Gradient Wipe transition on either side, you’re “fading to black” when one clip ends, and then fading back up at the beginning of the next.

Of course, do understand that all this fading can take a serious toll on your file size, depending on the output format you’ve chosen. For those formats that are very forgiving of high-motion video, such as Flash FLV and QuickTime H.264, you can add a flurry of transitions without it having too large an impact on your hard drive space. For most other formats, you’ll need to be a little more conservative: Go for fewer effects of shorter duration. Some transitions compress better than others, so feel free to experiment.