Rehan's ShaderTFX for Vista's Movie Maker 6

This thread about Rehan's ShaderTFX pack for Vista's Movie Maker 6 started on July 22. In the opening post Rehan said he was ready to have users do some beta testing .

Dozens of posts and two months later, after resolving installation and performance issues, Rehan issued the official version 1.

Vista coding is different enough from XP to separate real programmers from hackers like me. Rehan stands out in the forum, and is now on a pedestal getting some earned accolades. While he takes orders, I'll give it a once over, write this newsletter, and see where we can start hacking it.

I finished my 4 software reviews at the 11th hour of a tight schedule... thumbs up for Serif's Page Plus X2 and Ulead's PhotoImpact 12. Not so with IconCool Studio 5 and Fun Morph. You can read the reviews on BrightHub after they get through the editorial process.

Thanks to Brad Dahlquist and others in Microsoft who read the newsletter note about my frequent Outlook Express error messages. He sent some ideas and uninstalling Windows Desktop Search 3.01 resolved the issue. It was the indexing of my files, including email folders, going on in the background as I worked with Outlook Express, that resulted in the popups. Nice to have the help!! I'll probably go back to installing the beta of the Windows Live Photo Gallery again.

The first question I got in my YouTube inbox about one of the sample clips was 'what is ShaderTFX?'. I responded 'it's a pack of 116 transitions developed by Rehan'. Many on the forums at windowsmoviemakers.net have been drooling over it since the beta phase started.

The setup file is SetupShaderTFX.msi, version 1.0.30. Double-click it and it'll go through a usual windows installation. The installation adds 4 dll and 4 xml files to the Movie Maker\Shared\AddOnTFX folder, which make for some good study files for anyone wanting to dive into the making of custom items like these.

The new transitions will be there when you restart Movie Maker 6 after the installation.

When first clicking on any of the new transitions you'll get a popup notice that you have 14 days to try it before purchasing.

Use the 'Continue Unregistered' and it'll work fine without embedding a logo, big X, or whatever...

Transitions - ShaderTFX adds 116 new ones, which fall into four groups... starting with 10 blue and 10 green screen choices.

59 wipes that use .jpg and .png files in conjunction with a standard wipe transition.

For a chroma blue sample ( bluescreen), an aquarium tank provided a nice blue background for a couple jellyfish in the foreground...

I got myself pretty confused keeping track of this sample clip made with just 2 source files. The skiing clip is a standard aspect ratio one, and the jellyfish is a widescreen story.

I toggled the MM6 project settings between standard and widescreen. Then I saved them to custom profiles that I use when heading to YouTube, the standard project to the widescreen profile and the widesceen project to the standard profile. Got it?? No reason beyond testing to see what happened.

These two frame snapshots were taken in Movie Maker 6. The only difference is the setting being standard 4:3 for the above one and widescreen 16:9 for the below.

The skiing clip is full windowed above and with black left/right borders below, a bit hard to see with the overall black background.

Note how the text differs in each, adapting to the different amount of space available to stretch into.

The gradients and wipes use the .jpg and .png files mentioned above... making it so easy to swap them out with your own images... or add new XML files that do the same thing.

The package includes 6 electric color effects. I didn't make any sample clips with them.

The installation was easy, registration worked, and all the items performed well. I'm not the first to say it, as that's the feedback from forum users who have been following the development all the way through.

I look forward to comments and discussion about this and other newsletters on the forums at: 02f201c7fd9b$aa505ca0$6501a8c0@Hummer

I'm involved in anything and everything that supports the users of Movie Maker and Photo Story, and adding more regularly. Some are free and others reasonably priced.

TheDVShow is the only weekly Podcast having more useful information about desktop video editing and production than anywhere else on the Web. Digital video editing, nonlinear editing, streaming media, software releases, tutorials, business tips, technical help, download of the day and news on the latest products to make everything easier. It's where professional and consumer desktop video users go to stay on the cutting edge.

Call the phone mail machine to get your technical question answered on the air... call (206)-203-3516

The radio broadcast is from Boston, and the website has downloadable podcast files. The June 19th 2005 podcast was the first 'bi-weekly' show with a segment about Movie Maker 2. The frequency of radio Q&A sessions about Movie Maker has fallen off as submitted questions are minimal. Maybe Vista will perk it up a bit.

Movie Maker 2 - Do Amazing Things (with its online companion on www.papajohn.org ), published by Microsoft Press...

Movie Maker 2 - Zero to Hero - with support on the publisher's forum - Friends of Ed

Learning VirtualDub - published by Packt Publishing in April 2005, is the first book about VirtualDub software. I wrote the introductory chapter about downloading and setting up the software: VirtualDub, VDubMod and AVISynth.

A six page article Making Movies with Vista was in the Spring 2007 Special Edition (page 78). It covered the movie making process from camcorder tape to viewing it on a standard video DVD.

The 2006 Summer Special edition included a 7 page tutorial Create a Ken Burns-Style Slideshow with Photo Story 3.

The November 2005 edition had a well done reworked 6 page reprint of the article about Movie Maker, starting on page 42 after the Happy 20th Birthday article for Windows.

The Winter 2005 quarterly special had a 7 page tutorial Make a Killer Home Movie with Maker 2. The special edition of the video made for it is on my website as a file download.

Movie Maker and Photo Story - www.papajohn.org - the site's goals are: doing amazing things, providing a detailed tutorial for PhotoStory 3, and helping you solve Movie Maker problems.

It's been expanded to include the version 6 of Movie Maker in Vista, along with the new Photo Gallery and DVD Maker apps.

PhotoStory 2 - www.papajohn.org/photostory2/PS2.html - a detailed tutorial about using the earlier version. It's been a long time since I've updated anything on it, but it still gets pretty good viewer traffic.

I'm a regular or moderator on many online forums and newsgroups, the key ones being:

Forums are open to all for viewing, but require registration of those who want to post. Moderators actively participate to ensure the forum discussions move forward and stay on track.

SimplyDV - for camcorder hardware and Apple, Windows, and any other video editing software. Include pictures in your posts to help explain them.

Newsgroups are wide open for all to view and post... moderation is collective by the participants.

Movie Maker/Photo Story newsletter. The subscription is $20 for 52 issues, and a link to subscribe is on the main page of www.papajohn.org or the Products and Services page.

Newsletters issued more than 6 weeks ago are posted by Rob Morris to an Archive Site on his Windows Movie Makers' website. Links from my website pages to specific newsletters make it easier for viewers to see the content of both while browsing a topic.

Transition Maker 2 (TM2) is a utility for the ultimate in making your own personal and custom transitions for Movie Maker 2. It's a joint product from Patrick Leabo, the programmer, and myself.

I've beta tested some of the Pixelan packages , including the new packages for Vista, and think very highly of their people and products.

ProDAD's Adorage packages for Movie Maker 2 are additional sources of very professionally developed transitions and effects. Here are links

I use lots of professional background music for movies and stories created by Randon Myles, and act as his agent selling tunes.

There are 62 tunes available from 4 of his many albums... at 99 cents per tune (MP3 or WMA format). Here's a Sample - 45 seconds from 'Groove 2'. The 4 albums are: In the Fields of the on-Feretin , Music for Film Volume III, the Emerald Way, and the Fourth Door.

I don't have a full set of online samples yet, but if you hear something you like in one of my videos, there's a good chance it was done by Randon. Send an email if you are interested.

My personal database has been an ongoing project over many years, and is now available to others. A tutorial about using it is on the Managing > Personal Database page of my site, and more info is in the database package itself.

It's free for the asking to regular newsletter subscribers... send an email request and I'll return it with the zipped file, which is less than 1 MB.

To others it's $10. To order, use the button on the top of the Managing > Personal Database page.

neptune Mediashare is the preferred file download service for XP's Movie Maker users... there's a 'PapaJohn Expert Zone' where I keep many of my samples and personal videos.

Check it at N eptune and the Distributing > Neptune page of the website, where there's a developing tutorial about how to use the service.

... and mydeo is the preferred video streaming service for XP. Many of the video samples for newsletter are on it.

In conjunction with the Portage, Michigan library , I offer free training sessions about Movie Maker and Photo Story, an intro. session and a workshop.

Classes will resume at the end of summer, when schools re-open. We'll be re-inventing the topics offered, as the subject of Movie Maker doesn't draw very many... maybe topics such as making and uploading videos to YouTube, and vacation videos to Trip Advisor... using Movie Maker as the tool rather than the primary subject.

If you can't save a movie because your project has become too complex, e-mail a copy and I'll divide it into manageable sub-projects, and provide detailed instructions about how to render the parts and assemble them into your final movie. $49.95 (no cost if it's not the right solution or doesn't work) - for details, see the sidebar on the Problem Solving > Can't Save a Movie page of www.papajohn.org

Movie Maker 2/Photo Story training and support services start at $75 per hour - send an email - PapaJohn@CharterMi.net and I'll help you determine your needs, and work with you to plan and implement them.

Support Space - Catch me when I'm online and available at www.supportspace.com for a fully subsidized support session, at least during the 'closed beta' phase.

Wedding combo website/video packages - check the Living Projects section of the website for samples of what you can expect for the online portion of a package.

About John 'PapaJohn' Buechler from Microsoft.com

John "PapaJohn" Buechler, of Kalamazoo, Mich., goes by PapaJohn online. An avid user of Movie Maker since its first release, and a regular supporter of the community of Movie Maker users, John received a 2003 MVP award from Microsoft for that support. In March 2003, he started a comprehensive website about Movie Maker 2 at www.PapaJohn.org. He maintains the website, writes books and articles, teaches, and provides support services - all for the community of Movie Maker 2 users. An engineer by formal education, John is a computer database and multimedia expert by business and personal experience. He co-authored the first book about Movie Maker 2 and is actively working on a second one. You can find his advice in the Windows XP Movie Maker newsgroup and in the Windows Movie Makers Forums.

This newsletter is republished with permission of John "PapaJohn" Buechler.
Please note that this is an archive of newsletters and some information may become outdated. PapaJohn, and the webmaster of this site, provides this information "AS IS" with no warranties.

Visit - PapaJohn's Movie Maker 2 and Photo Story 2 Newsletter Index

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Rehan's ShaderTFX for Vista's Movie Maker 6