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TECHNIQUE: Move and animate titles and other objects anywhere on your 360 video or photo

You can move titles and other objects around your 360 video while preserving their correct proportions using Magix Movie Edit Pro Plus (or Premium) 2017.  Here’s a demo and a tutorial.

One of the challenges for editing 360 videos is adding titles, graphics, and other objects.  If you place the title near the middle band of the 360 video, it will look relatively normal.  But as you move it farther up or down, it becomes distorted.

There are several software for transforming titles or graphics to warp them correctly in order to maintain their proportions as you move them around in a 360 video.  A popular free software alternative is Hugin, which works but has limited functions and requires you to go back and forth between Hugin and your video editor.  For professionals, there are plugins such as Mettle Skybox for Adobe Premiere Pro or After Effects.  Skybox ($189) works very well but not everyone can afford the cost of Adobe Premiere Pro ($240 per year).

One alternative is Magix Movie Edit Pro Plus 2017 ($99), which has several 360 editing features including the ability to move 2D objects around the 360 video while preserving their proportions.

Here’s a video showing this capability and how it’s done:

Here’s a larger version of the video.

Notably, this feature is missing from Cyberlink PowerDirector 15 (Cyberlink just tells users to keep titles and other objects near the middle band to avoid distortion).

Magix Movie Edit Pro Plus 2017 has other 360 video editing features such as converting a 360 video into 2D video with the ability to choose the view to be shown (a feature that is also in Cyberlink PowerDirector 15 and Insta360 Studio).  You saw a little bit of its capability from the demo/tutorial video when I showed the end result.

There’s a 30-day free trial if you want to check out Magix Movie Edit Pro Plus 2017.  Please note that the end video for the trial version will be limited to 3 minutes.

If you found this tutorial helpful, please like 360 Rumors on Facebook and subscribe to the 360 Rumors channel on YouTube!  Thank you very much!

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Mic Ty

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  • Thanks Rich! Magix is more powerful than other video editors I've tried but because it has a lot of customization options, it also makes it potentially overwhelming to a new user. For example, I didn't demo it, but when you animate the text or PIP video, you can actually adjust the speed so that it accelerates or decelerates, exactly according to how you want. It has a lot of tweaking options like that, so I think it's very good for power users.
    Personally, I learned it by starting with the most basic features, then learning the new features only as I needed them. 🙂

    Best regards,
    Mic

  • Sounds promising. I'll take a look at the trial and, if all works out, likely purchase it.
    The ability to properly place 2D object in a 360 world is the biggest plus for my workflow, ATM.

  • One questions I do have, maybe you can answer. Can the program correct color, brightness and exposure differences between lenses, of cameras like the Gear 360 and others?

  • Hi Rich. Out of the box, I'm not aware of a feature that can do that automatically. It is actually one of the suggestions I will make to Magix. However, it is possible to create a second copy of the video on a separate track, with an alpha channel for one of the lenses. Then you will be able to make adjustments to each lens separately and it will seem as if they are part of the same video.

    Best regards,
    Mic

  • Understood, Mic.

    To others considering trying out this application, it does REQUIRE that one register with MAGIX in order to use the Trial Version of the program.

  • Yes I believe registration is required because they want to make sure you don't keep downloading the trial version to avoid buying it 😀

    Best regards,
    Mic

  • In this case, I suspect it is being used to farm email addresses to notify potential customers of deals, discounts and new products.

    On the plus side, Good News. By registering a $15 dollar coupon is provided, which can be used towards purchase of the software.

  • This application can also be used to edit photos, adding text and inserting other items (Nadir) as well. This application makes it pretty simple to add Nadir Logos into either a video, or photo. One can save a project as a template too. So, after setting your Nadir Logo properly, you can remove the video, or photo, and save the project with just the Nadir Logo and then the next time you can just drop the video in, having the logo properly placed at the Nadir point. Works for me very well.

  • Good stuff. I’ve been using Magix Movie Edit Pro Plus as my 3D editor for a while. (I use Sony Vegas Pro for “normal” videos.) It does seem powerful and versatile. At a decent price, too. But I had not yet stumbled onto the techniques that you described. I’m simply positioning my titles in the center to keep them from becoming distorted. Will have to check that technique out. Thanks.

  • Thanks Mic! This is a super useful tool.

    Do you know if it can edit static 360 pano images – instead of video??

    Thanks
    Peter