12/26/2006 11:09:16 AM

This Christmas eve service, I was once again blown away with what I could do with the video layering in SongShowPlus V7.

I was able to take a main graphic and then pair it with some different loops to have some consistency, but still having variety within the song show. I did have to occasionally pull the graphic into Photoshop to tweak the pic to work with the loop a little better. But over all it was a real impactful song show.

12/27/2006 2:26:58 AM

I wish ours went like that....

12/27/2006 5:27:47 AM

I have an idea what you mean about the variety since I, too, use the SSP layering capabilities weekly. (Sometimes the video will be the main theme and the graphic will be an underlying sillouette such as a cross or person kneeling, and other thimes the graphic will be the main theme with an overlaying video of clouds or fog or the christmas lights or something.)

But what exactly is it you did with that graphic in Photoshop, and what are some other things you might do in Photoshop?

12/27/2006 8:15:23 AM

In this case, the graphic as a manger, with a crown in it and a star shining on it. You can see a thumbnail here.

One of the loops had a star in the upper left corner, shining down. For this one, I took the star out of the image, because otherwise there would be 2 stars, the one from the video and the on from the image.

Another loop was a candle burning on the left. So I flipped the image so the manger would be on the right and the candle would be in the blank space.

With other images, I will darken the background or increase the overall contrast.

12/27/2006 10:03:54 AM

I LOVE this capability with SSP and we use it quite a bit. I tend to use a loop as the base background and use a still to enhance based it upon the song, verse or filler theme.

I also do it in Pinnacle and make my own mpgs/avis.

12/27/2006 10:32:32 AM

I do that quite a bit, too. I've greated some watermarks, or silhouettes to help with these.

If you belong to the WorshipMultimediaExchange group, you can see a sample here.

Sometimes white on black works better. Sometimes black on white.

12/28/2006 7:34:15 AM

Is this layering capability something that all the other competing church song presentation software also does, or is this something that is unique to ssp and could be bragged about?

12/28/2006 9:32:03 AM

AFAIK, this is an SSP Exclusive.

12/28/2006 7:23:42 PM

Please explain how to use SSP layering.

Thanks,

Travis

12/28/2006 10:38:10 PM

Go into the display properties for the item you want to try layering on.

Select a background image and then a motion background, either a visualization or a loop.

On the Motion background control panel, there are two tabs, Selection and Effects. Click the Effects tab.

On the Effects tab, there are 2 radio buttons, None and Basic. Click the Basic button.

Adjust the opacity (bottom slider) down to allow the image to show through the motion background. Keep hitting Apply to see if you have the right mix. You can also use the other sliders to adjust to taste.

You can also go into the Background Effects in Display properties (in the column on the left) to tweak the brigthtness/contrast etc of the image.

Hope that helps.

12/28/2006 11:04:14 PM

That works for me. Thank you very much.

Travis

12/29/2006 8:16:55 AM

Also, for others out there that may be reading this, you do need SSP Version 7. This capability is not in V 5 or previous.