.

 

Looks like I have a Alpha Magic problem. When I open Alpha Magic in S11 Ultimate the thumbnails appear in the album and the preview flashes ‘A’ ‘B’ in the preview window but does not show the transition.

 

When I add one of these ‘blank’ transitions between clips on the time line, the preview plays though as if the transition weren’t there at all.

 

I noticed this after making a Photoshop homemade transition  and the homemade transition didn’t show up in the album. So I found my transition in the Alpha Magic folder in Explorer and opened it, then did this with a couple of others. The graphic’s show up in Explorer.

 

My Question is: What do I need to do to make the album icons make a connection with the Alpha Magic folder. And what needs to done so Alpha Magic will show a new transition in the Album?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Dave M.

I had similar issues when installing some custom alpha magic transitions in S10 and had to resort to a bit of witchcraft to get it working. I posted a question on the web board a while back (here) but didn't get an answer. One thing in my post that may not be necessary is to delete the *.org files as these seem to be releted to HollywoodFX, not to other transitions/effects.

When I upgraded one system to S11 Ultimate I pre-loaded all my custom transitions into C:\Program Files\Pinnacle\Studio 11\Alpha magic before installing Studio and at install time when it built the XML files and cache files all my transitions showed up too.

HTH
Richard

Is there a tutorial on how to create our own transitions (not HFX) somewhere?

I don't think that we can create our own 2-D transitions (at least, not very easily).  But creating Alpha Magic transitions is (well...used to be) easy.

All an Alpha Magic transition is, is a 24-bit fullscreen greyscale image.   For example, take a look at the (NTSC, anyway) version of the WipeH transition (I've uploaded a copy of the S9 version here).

Pretty simple, isn't it?  Just a smooth gradient from black (right) to white (left).  And all that happens is, when and Alpha Magic transition starts, the "black" area is transparent.  And as the transition progresses, lighter and lighter areas of the transition become transparent, until finally the white areas are transparent as well.  So, this image wipes horizontally across the screen, from black to white (IIRC).

Want to have some fun?  Take a box-stock .jpg still file, and save it as a 24-bit greyscale .jpg in your favorite photo editor.  Add the greyscale .jpg to the Alpha Magic directory.  Fight with Studio 10/11 until it "sees" it (or use S9) Now, place the original still behind some video, and place this new Alpha Magic transition in-between.  When you preview the image, your photo will appear to "dissolve through" the video.  Pretty cool, eh?

BittMann 

Can't wait to try it tonight (and added this post as a favourite)> So, I guess the key question (as in this thread) is how to get S11 or soon S12 to recognize the alpha magic trasnitions.

I *think* that the only tricky bit (besides the tricky bit you mentioned ) is to get the photo resized to the "right size"...and here in NTSC-land, that seems to be 720x480.

But as we've seen  in other threads, sometimes an image works "differently" than you may expect, so this may take a little fiddling to get "just right".

Looks cool, though, when you get it figured out properly...I had a sample clip I'd made around here somewhere, but darned if I can find it now... 

BittMann 

I came up with a work around for the S11 Alpha Magic transitions not working.

 

I made a folder with maps A & B and the transition graphic in it then sent the folder to my old editing computer that has S9 on it. Copied my transition into S9 Alpha Magic then opened my map’s in S9 – then put the three pieces together on S9 timeline and made a .avi file then sent that back to a special folder within my project folder. Opened the .avi file in S11 and I’m good to go. There’s a little bit more to it but that’s the basic procedure.

 

I should go the uninstall – reinstall route with S11 but at least this way I can keep working on my project.

 

Then even if I did reinstall chances are, from I read is that S11 Alpha Magic won’t accept my home made transitions anyway.

 

Thanks for replies everyone – Very Much Appreciated

 

Dave M.

Alpha Magic Fix (at least in Windows Vista and Studio 11:

Bsed on fix found in this forum and summarized on Declic Video for HFX

1. Make greyscale jpeg file in 720x480 (for standard NTSC video) - this creates the alpha magic transition

2. Drop into C:\Program Files\Pinnacle\Studio 11\Alpha Magic

3. Delete Editorcache files in C:\Users\Public\Documents\Pinnacle\Program Files\Pinnacle\Studio 11\programs\PlugIns\RTFx

4. Delete contents in C:\Program Files\Pinnacle\Studio 11\Plugins\RTFx\AlphaMagicXML (do not delete folder)

Startup Studio - usually it seems to recreate the xml files at 13-15% loading.

Yes, S11 will accept home-made transitions!

 

Thanks for the information Mark. I printed this out for future use.

 

Actually I’m getting by just fine  networking to my old editing computer and S9. Takes a little more planning but it’s a easy way to get the job done without reinstalling then tweaking S11 just to be able to do something that I have done since S3.

 

The travel documentary I am working on now will probably be my last one, so I’ll have plenty of time to ‘experiment’ when it’s finished. I have been making a variety of documentaries, mostly travel documentaries since 1992 – it’s time to stay at home - set on the porch in a old rocking chair and watch the weeds grow.

 

Thanks again – very much appreciated

 

Dave M.  

thanks markk655 its just the solution that i needed.

i remember that i saw this tutorial somewere.

worked fine thanks again.

Just noticed today but my alpha magic transitions do not work now, they used to work, but I dont know what ive done to make them not work, ive followed the fix shown at declic video ( done this more than once ), still alpha magic doesnt work, ive uninstalled PS 11 ultimate and even that doesnt make alpha magic transitions to work, any other suggestions ?, ps ie I also downloaded and run the lastest patch again, my system is running under windows xp

Pugmahone:

Just noticed today but my alpha magic transitions do not work now, they used to work, but I dont know what ive done to make them not work, ive followed the fix shown at declic video ( done this more than once ), still alpha magic doesnt work, ive uninstalled PS 11 ultimate and even that doesnt make alpha magic transitions to work, any other suggestions ?, ps ie I also downloaded and run the lastest patch again, my system is running under windows xp

My stab at it, have you checked for any driver updates for your video card? or maybe doing a clean boot?

Marc P.:

Pugmahone:

Just noticed today but my alpha magic transitions do not work now, they used to work, but I dont know what ive done to make them not work, ive followed the fix shown at declic video ( done this more than once ), still alpha magic doesnt work, ive uninstalled PS 11 ultimate and even that doesnt make alpha magic transitions to work, any other suggestions ?, ps ie I also downloaded and run the lastest patch again, my system is running under windows xp

My stab at it, have you checked for any driver updates for your video card? or maybe doing a clean boot?

I have the latest gfx card drivers, I have a sneaky feeling when media player asked me to upgrade to version 9, this may have been the cause of the problem.

Any work around or fix other than the declic one ??

I'll look around and post whatever I can find, in the meantime the work around from Declic Video should be your solution. Anyone else?

I've tried the declic workaround at least 10 times now, still no joy

I'm sorry to hear that, I'm well out of tricks in this subject. Lets wait for others to reply while I seek for more answers.

I've had the exact same problem and found several other solutions. If above tricks don't work the most probable cause is your graphicscard. Pinnacle uses the hardware of your graphicscard even for the preview of the transistions.

 One possible solution can be found here:

 http://pinnacle.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/pinnacle.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=17149&p_created=1205440370

 For me however this didn't help either. The one thing that did solve the problem in the end was disabling Hardware Accelation in the Options menu. *Sigh*

Thank you for sharing your experience Bakkei. We are taking notes of all results.

No prob. To complete your notes the following information may be useful:

The PC is a brandnew system based on a MSI NEO-P43 Motherboard with a clean Vista 32 bit and all drivers were up-to-date.

The graphicscard is an Asus EAH3450 PCI-E card with 256 MB. This is an ATI RADEON HD3450PRO GPU. 

Both Catalyst 10.12 (most recent) and 8.2 (Suggested by Pinnacle) were tested, both versions produced the same problems.

Would be nice if Pinnacle managed to solve this nasty problem. It's rather anoying no to be able to used harware accelaration on a recent graphicscard.