Martin's Weblog

New Forum

There is now a discussion group for Norrkross Movie

Use the forum to get support, report bugs, request features and for all kinds of discussions about Norrkross Movie. There isn't much there yet, but my hope is that all you users and me together can make this something useful. Please check it out and don't be afraid to contribute.

The forum is at groups.google.com/group/norrkross-movie.

22 May 2008 06:02, /Norrkross Movie, permanent link

Norrkross Movie 1.2.2

There's a new version of Norrkross Movie!

• Fixes a problem that might cause the application to crash after saving.
• Fixes a drawing problem that made some images striped.
• Fixes a video export problem that could result in missing or duplicated frames.
• Smoother interpolation for animated values.
• Improved support for letterbox/crop/fit export settings.
• Improved performance when using interpolation or having multiple documents open.

Download the new version.

21 May 2008 09:11, /Norrkross Movie, permanent link

Norrkross Movie 1.2

There's a new version of Norrkross Movie!

• Improved audio mixing. Volume can now be keyframed, allowing exact control over time including fade in and outs.
• French localization.
• Improved video export with new templates.
• QuickLook and Spotlight plugins on Leopard.
• The timeline now draws movie frames and audio levels.
• Online help improved.
• Improved stability.

Please download the new version, test it and email feedback to info@norrkross.com

Download the new version.

09 Apr 2008 13:17, /Norrkross Movie, permanent link

Screencast #3: Text

I made a new screencast that shows how to work with text in Norrkross Movie. The text functions are very powerfull and flexible and you'll also see how to add image filters such as a spot light effect to the text.

Watch the video at the Norrkross Movie Quick Tour and click on the Part 3:Text link on the page.

15 Dec 2007 13:00, /Norrkross Movie, permanent link

MacSanta promotion

On december 5 you can get Norrkross Movie with a 20% discount by using the coupon code MACSANTA07 on the order page and throughout december you get 10% discount by entering MACSANTA07TEN!

So Download the software, try it, and then buy it!

MacSanta has lots of other great deals as well.

15 Dec 2007 13:00, /Norrkross Movie, permanent link

Screencast #2: Greenscreening

I made a new screencast that shows how to use multiple tracks to replace the background of a video. For this video I used a greenscreen clip from an online video contest that Epic and Apple organized. I didn't make the deadline though so I won't win the contest...

Watch the video at the Norrkross Movie Quick Tour and click on the Part 2:Greenscreen link on the page.

15 Dec 2007 12:59, /Norrkross Movie, permanent link

Norrkross Movie 1.1

There's a new version of Norrkross Movie!

• New timeline!
• iPod and AppleTV export.
• Remembers last used export settings.
• Improved AppleScript support.
• Improved stability and performance.

Please download the new version, test it and email feedback to info@norrkross.com

Download the new version.

01 Dec 2007 01:01, /Norrkross Movie, permanent link

Norrkross Movie 1.0.5

There's a new version of Norrkross Movie!

• Improved stability in media browser and it's prettier too.
• Fixed problems with exporting sound from some videos
• Fixed problems with importing some videos.
• Improved text editing.

Download the new version.

05 Nov 2007 10:14, /Norrkross Movie, permanent link

Norrkross Movie 1.0.4

There's a new version of Norrkross Movie!

• Improved stability. Fixed a bug that could crash the app after when you had deleted images.
• Italian localization.
• Improved license installation.

Download the new version.

15 Aug 2007 13:11, /Norrkross Movie, permanent link

Norrkross Movie 1.0.3

There's a new version of Norrkross Movie!

• Improved stability. Fixes 2 crash bugs.
• Improved movie export. Internet fast start fixed.
• Improved online help. (eg Applying effects to parts of a graphic)

Download the new version.

13 Jun 2007 15:06, /Norrkross Movie, permanent link

Track transitions

Someone asked me about track transitions. Normally in Norrkross Movie you put transitions between clips similar to the way you do it in iMovie and use transparency to see through to other tracks. Basically each track is it's own layer and all are drawn on top of each other.

There are some other options however:

1. Use the "Visible" attribute of tracks to turn it on or off over time. This can be handy if you have a multi camera shot and want to switch between the different cameras.
2. Add an extra clip of transparent color after a clip and put a transition between them. The track under it will show through gradually during the transition and the top track will be invisible after the transition.
3. Similar to 2 but use filters and key frames instead of transitions. (Transitions are actually just a special kind of filter that takes 2 clips as arguments and has a time attribute.)

Let's try the 3 different ways on a slideshow. The reason I only use still images here is that distributing movie clips takes so much more bandwidth. There is no significant difference between a video clip and a still image in Norrkross Movie, so these examples works just as well for video.

Using the Visible attribute

Drag a clip to the time line to create the first track. Then add another one and drop it at the bottom of the time line to add it in a new track.

Select the first track and the Track tab in the attribute inspector. Select Visible in the Attribute list. You can see in the Time and Value list that you have one entry at time 0 and that it's value is Yes, meaning that it's indeed visible. Add a new timed value by clicking the + button and set it's value to No by clicking the Visible checkbox. Try playing the movie. You should see the first track for a second and then it will disappear. Add more timed values to make it apear again and to switch between the tracks repeatedly. Try changing the timing by entering a time in the Time column or by moving the time slider to a desired time before clicking the + button.

Here's a document that uses the technique: transition1.zip

Using transitions and transparent clips

Drag a clip to the time line to create the first track. Then go back to the media browser and select Photos, then Image Units in the source list and drag the image Constant Color to the time line and drop it just after the first clip. Select the new clip and change the Colorattribute of it to completely transparent.

Choose your transition in the media browser and drop it between the first clip and the constant color clip. Play the movie and see that you get a nice transition to nothing.

Now we add the other clip and drop it below the first one to create a new track. You might want to drag it a bit to the right in the time line to make it start just before the transition in track 1.

Here's a document that uses the technique: transition2.zip

Using filters and key frames

Drag 2 clips to the time line and drop them in 2 separate tracks. Move the clip in track 2 a bit to the right so that it starts during the second half of the clip in track 1.

Select the clip in the top track and then select a filter in the media browser that has some kind of transparency or hole effect. The Hole distortion or the Adjust transparency might be good choices. I'll use the hole distortion for this example. Drag it to the filter node view at the top left of the document window and drop it just below the node for the clip. This will add the filter and hook it up.

Select the new node for the hole distortion to see it's attributes. It has one attribute called Radius and we'll animate that to get the effect of a hole that gets larger and larger until the image disappears, finally showing only the track below.

The first timed value for the radius defaults to 150. Change it to 0 to make the hole disappear and uncheck the Smooth checkbox to prevent this value from being interpolated. Move the time slider to when you want the hole to start appear and create another timed value by clicking the + button, setting the new value to zero and unchecking the Smooth box. We now have a hole that constantly has a zero radius for a period of time. Very boring indeed...

Add a third timed value for the radius at the end of the clip and set it's value to something like 600 or however large the hole needs to be to be larger than the movie. Leave the Smooth checked for this value so we get a smooth transition from the previous value to this one. Play the movie and see the hole grow and the track below drawn in the hole.

Here's a document that uses the technique: transition3.zip

29 May 2007 01:01, /Norrkross Movie, permanent link

Norrkross Movie 1.0.2

There's a new version of Norrkross Movie!

• Replace transitions by dropping new on old.
• Improved speed of chroma key filter
• Media browser now remembers added folders
• Bugfixes

Download the new version.

25 May 2007 12:19, /Norrkross Movie, permanent link

First Screencast

I made a little movie that shows some very basic functions of Norrkross Movie. In it we create a simple slideshow track with transitions.

Although I use a nice screen cast recorder (iShowU) and of course a great editing software, I lack a nice actor voice and my english leaves much to desire (my native language is Swedish), but I hope you can understand me.

I plan to continue to build on this screen cast and add more tracks with some green screen video.

Check it out by clicking the link in the Screencasts section of the Quick Tour page

Feedback on the screencast, web and application are always welcome to movie@norrkross.com

24 May 2007 14:20, /Norrkross Movie, permanent link

Norrkross Movie 1.0.1

The initial launch of Norrkross Movie seems to have been well received. I've had lot's of traffic to this site and some major mac sites posted the news.

I've spent the last week or so with support and fixing a few issues in the 1.0 release. Now I plan to work on the documentation and make some tutorials and screen casts.

03 May 2007 09:32, /Norrkross Movie, permanent link