Custom Negative and Bloom Effects for Vista Movie Maker

Here's a couple new effects for the Vista version of Movie Maker. The first two effects are called 'Bloom In' and 'Bloom Out'. They create a bright glare to come from lighter items in the video. If you use Bloom Out at the end of a clip, and Bloom In at the beginning of the next, you can get a cool transition, that you've probably seen a lot on TV. The other effect is a Negative effect which reverses all the color values. Preview a video of the Bloom and Negative effects

To install: Click on the icon above which will download the custom negative and bloom effects. Save the installer, then run it to install the custom code you'll need for Vista Movie Maker.

After installing, you'll have the new effects the next time you start up Movie Maker.

If you have any questions on these effects, feel free to post in the forum topic on the Bloom and Negative Effects

Custom Resize Effects for Vista Movie Maker

When dealing with pictures and videos in different sizes, it's often useful to be able to stretch or squash the clips to fit within the screen. You might also want to crop the edges or add a border. The following package of 'Resize' effects lets you do all those things. Preview a video of the 'Resize' effects

To install: Click on the icon above which will download the custom resize effects. Save the installer, then run it to install the custom code you'll need for Vista Movie Maker.

After installing, you'll have a several new effects for adding borders, cropping, stretching, squashing and fitting to screen.

If you have any questions on these effects, feel free to post in the forum topic on the Resize Effects

Custom Contrast Effects For Movie Maker

Windows Movie Maker should have come with some standard effects to decrease/increase the contrast of your video. However, since it doesn't, I had to create some of my own.

Click on the icon above which will download the custom contrast effects. Run the installer and it will install the custom code and icons you'll need for Vista Movie Maker.

After installing, you'll have a couple new effects for decreasing contrast and a couple for increasing contrast. If you need a stronger effect, apply the effect several times. You can also customize the .xml if you want other contrast settings. Enjoy!

If you have any questions, feel free to post them in the original forum post that inspired these effects.

Compositing and Translucency now available for Vista Movie Maker

One of the most popular custom transitions in Windows Movie Maker (XP) is one called "Comp A add B" that allows you to composite two clips together. For example, if you had a clip of a firework or an explosion, you could composite that on top of another clip. Rather than explain it further, take a look at this sample compositing clip of an explosive bear

Until now, there was no easy way to have this same "Comp A add B" transition under Vista Movie Maker. It took a little bit of work, 2 DLLs, an .FX and .XML file, but I finally got it to work.

While I was at it, I added the translucency transitions that allow you to play two clips simultaneously, but blended together. There is also a *bonus* camera jiggle effect. If you watch to the end of the video, you'll see the whole image shake as the explosion hits. That was done with the 'Camera Jiggle' effect.

Note: These transitions reimplement existing custom transitions available for Windows Movie Maker for XP so if you have XP, instead go to the Windows Movie Makers forums and search for 'comp a add b' or 'translucency' When I get a chance, I might republish an XP version, just so you can get my pretty icons.

Instructions for installing:
If you don't already have the Visual Studio 2005 SP1 Redistributable Files installed, run that installer first.
You will also need to have the latest version of DirectX End User Runtimes (Aug 2007) installed.
Next, click on the icon above which will download the custom compositing and translucency transitions. Run the installer and it will install the custom code you'll need for Vista Movie Maker.

After installing, you'll have these new transitions:

Compositing (A add B) - for best results, one clip should be on a black background. Things like explosions, flames, snow fall, raindrops, etc. work best.

Show A, Show B - these just show clip A or clip B respectively. These are useful when you want to cut away to another clip without affecting the overall timing of your main clip.

Translucency 10% through 90% - these blend the two clips so you can see both at the same time.

You'll also have the bonus effect:

Camera Jiggle - causes the picture to shake slightly as if the camera was jostled.

If you have any questions, feel free to post them in the original forum post that inspired these transitions.

Custom Letterbox Effects for Vista Movie Maker

There have been lots of requests on the forums for a letterbox/widescreen effect which adds black bars to the top and bottom of your video. Well, I went one step farther and added a couple more effects that let you have the bars appear and disappear. Here's a sample video of the moving letterbox effect.

Note: These effects take advantage of the new effects architecture of Vista Movie Maker and therefore will not work in XP. It is a Vista-only effect. There are other solutions for XP such as a letterbox title.

Click on the icon above which will download the custom letterbox effects. Run the installer and it will install the custom code you'll need for Vista Movie Maker.

After installing, you'll have new effects called:

Letterbox

Letterbox (In)

Letterbox (Out)

Custom Bubble Warp Effect for Vista Movie Maker

I was playing around with Vista Movie Maker and came up with this custom "Bubble Warp" effect. It's rather subtle and looks best when applied to pictures with short durations. If you apply it to video or to longer duration photos, you may not even notice the effect.

Note: This effect takes advantage of the new effects architecture of Vista Movie Maker and therefore will not work in XP. It is a Vista-only effect.

Click on the icon above which will download the custom bubble warp effect. Run the installer and it will install the custom code you'll need for Vista Movie Maker.

After installing, you'll have a new effect called "Blaine's Bubble Warp". Enjoy!

Custom Color Fade Effects for Vista Movie Maker

Vista Movie Maker comes with standard effects to apply a grayscale or sepia tone effect to your pictures or video, but one thing it lacks is an easy way to have video gradually fade to or from grayscale or sepia to full color. I've created a package of custom effects that let you add this ability to Windows Movie Maker.

Click on the icon above which will download the custom color fade effects. Run the installer and it will install the custom code you'll need for Vista Movie Maker.

After installing, you'll have the following new color fade effects:

Grayscale (Color In)

Grayscale (Color Out)

Sepia (Color In)

Sepia (Color Out)

Note: These effects take advantage of the new effects architecture of Vista Movie Maker and therefore will not work in XP. They are Vista-only effects. For users of XP, you can achieve this same look manually: Fading between grayscale and color in XP Movie Maker

Custom Speed Effects for Movie Maker (XP & Vista)

Movie Maker comes with a couple standard effects to speed up or slow down your video. If you find that you need more control over the speed, you can download these custom Speed Effects with different incremental speeds.

Note: These effects have been designed to work with either the XP version or the Vista version of Movie Maker.

Click on the picture of the tortoise and the hare above which will download the custom speed effects. Run the installer (CustomSpeedEffects) and it will install the custom XML code you'll need.

After installing, you'll have new custom speed effects for

Slow Down in increments of 25%, 50%, 66%, x3, x4, x6, x8

Speed Up in increments of 25%, 50%, 66%, x3, x4, x6, x8

Windows Movie Maker - Effects Icons

If you are creating custom effects in Windows Movie Maker, you need to specify an icon number. Rather than guessing, you can use the following images to figure out which of the standard 36 icons (0 through 35) you want to use. Click on a thumbnail to see the full image.
Effects Icons 0-11
Effects Icons 12-23
Effects Icons 24-35

Jahshaka - Realtime Editing and Effects

Jahshaka is a touted as a realtime editing and effects program and is an open-source project at sourceforge.net. It appears to have some real promise, but at the moment they are hyping version 3.0 when they are still at 1.9 alpha. Having said that, I wonder if there aren't some things for which it might be useful... I'm going to have to download it and play with it a little bit.

Edit: Okay, I've tried out the Animator module and the Effects module. The Animator module allows you to bring in stills, texture maps, 3-D objects, text, etc. and then animate them. The Effects module allows you to modify your picture with various 3-D transformations (or 2-D effects like Blur, Mosaic, Inverse Color, etc.)

Edit: Check out my post on Jahshaka Revisited.

Want Hollywood special effects in your home movies?

I'm going to have to look further into this when I get a chance... who doesn't want to have a lightsaber duel on film?
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