Star Wars crawl on my PC; Can it be done?

[Valen]

Okay, its probably a longshot, but I hope somewhere here can help me.

I am starting a Star Wars rpg game soon. I have the sound track, I have toy blasters that I can fire during combat, I have the SW minis and a few micromachines... but its not enough.

I want to know if there is a way to create a crawling prologue to start my game, like the one in each film. Is there a computer program (ideally one that I already have that runs on 3-year-old laptops) that allows me to create a star field (or black background) and have any words I type scroll across the screen upon command in yellow, slowly narrowing to a point seemingly in the far distance?

Any thoughts? I know there must be other GMs out there who obsess about these types of things.

 

[Tinner]

MS Powerpoint was designed for just such uses.
There might be an Open Office/freeware version available if you hunt for it. Try searching Download.com

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

*Raises hand*

I've just started trying to figure out how to do the same thing myself.

I'm working with PP. I'll let you know how it goes.

I intend to preface each plot arc with something like that.

UPDATE: It CAN be done, pretty much, but it's a bit of a pain in the keister.

So far I've applied three animations: "Credits" entrance, "Shrink" emphasis, and "Fade" exit. By setting the timing and using each LINE as a seperate object and applying them in a cascade ... time consuming ... it looks pretty good. Unfortunately, it's not just a matter of entering a block of text and clicking "Star Wars Animation" ... which the software can obviously DO but isn't an option. Would have been great had they set a "shape path" or something like that so it flies off into the distance.

--fje

 

[Valen]

Thanks for the recommendations. Keep them coming!

I knew I could count on these boards. My wife just bought a new computer (which is why I inherited the 3-year-old lap top (which, if I am not mistaken, is 8,000,013 in computer years) and what programs it has (now that I have a starting place of programs to look for).

I am relatively computer illiterate, so if you've figured out how to do it on a particular program, I'd appreciate if you'd type a walkthrough - font settings, etc.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

EDIT:

If you're using WindowsXP you'll be able to get a piece of software that may work.

It's called Movie Maker. It's a standard part of ServicePack2 apparently.

Anyway, open it up (you can search the computer for it if you have XP and SP2 installed).

Movie Tasks should be open when you start.

Select "Edit Movie".

Select "Make Titles or Credits"

Select "Add Title On Selected Clip"

Type in your text, I'd suggest just starting with "STAR WARS".

Choose "Change the Title Animation"

Choose "Titles One Line - Scroll, Perspective"

Then go back change the text font and size, etc.

And there you go. By making it "on selected clip" you can move the clip around, set stuff over or under it, etc. Then you can make multiple versions of that sort of thing, with different texts on it. Right now I have one that says: "Star Wars" in a SW font (find one online). Then I have another one that's my title: "Knights of the Old Republic: Shadow of Doubt". Then another one that will have my actual intro text.

--fje

--fje

 

[bubbalin]

Just for your information, somebody on swrpgnetwork's holonet forums was speaking of a program for download that did just this a few years ago. Unfortunately I didn't download it or take notice oif the link, so I can't help you that way. I'm sure if you wandered over there, people would be happy to help with a link or jstu sending you a copy. I believe it was a freeware program that you could jstu type your text into and let it go.
That sounds like what you're all looking for.

Good luck.

PS. You can also get the star wars font there...

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

I used to have the official SW screensaver, and it had a scroll that you could put your own text into, but it was for Windows 3.1...

 

[Desdichado]

*Raises hand*

I've just started trying to figure out how to do the same thing myself.

I'm working with PP. I'll let you know how it goes.

I intend to preface each plot arc with something like that.

UPDATE: It CAN be done, pretty much, but it's a bit of a pain in the keister.

So far I've applied three animations: "Credits" entrance, "Shrink" emphasis, and "Fade" exit. By setting the timing and using each LINE as a seperate object and applying them in a cascade ... time consuming ... it looks pretty good. Unfortunately, it's not just a matter of entering a block of text and clicking "Star Wars Animation" ... which the software can obviously DO but isn't an option. Would have been great had they set a "shape path" or something like that so it flies off into the distance.

--fje

Any chance you can zip the ppt file and post it? Then we could all just replace your lines of text with ours...

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Any chance you can zip the ppt file and post it? Then we could all just replace your lines of text with ours...

Yes... .zip file please. I've been meaning to do something like this but have been far, far too lazy.

 

[SWBaxter]

MS Powerpoint was designed for just such uses.
There might be an Open Office/freeware version available if you hunt for it. Try searching Download.com

OpenOffice (available at http://www.openoffice.org) is an open source product that includes a powerpoint-style app. I haven't used the presentation app myself, but generally the functionality is similar to Microsoft's products.