Titler is a graphical text program for video editing. If you record your own home movies, or do simple editing for friends and family, Titler turns your Commodore Plus/4 (or Commodore 16 with 64k expansion) into a text generator.

This page will show you how Titler works, and step you through making some sample titles. Please note that this software has many options available, therefore you may be able to create effects different than pictured here.

Jump to: Graphic Resolution 1 - Graphic Resolution 2 - Saving My Work - Bug Reports

Hardware Requirements:

- Commodore Plus/4 (or Commodore 16 with 64k expansion), either PAL or NTSC

- Disk drive for star effect, or to save screens for later reuse

- Videocassette recorder (VCR) attached to computer and monitor or tv

Alternate requirements:

- Commodore Plus/4 emulator with 1541 emulation (YAPE 0.38+ supported for loads but cannot save screens)

- CD-R or DVD video recording software for Windows

YAPE is the preferred emulator for use with Titler. For users of YAPE between 0.38 and 0.42, be sure that 1541 emulation is ON as shown in the picture. Beginning with YAPE 0.43, 1551 emulation has been fixed so that you may use the faster 1551 emulation setting.

Upon starting Titler, you will be greeted with this screen. This is where you select the video mode and colors to be used within your screen. Please note that when asked for 'COLOR, LUMINANCE' the color must be in the range 1 to 16 and the luminance 0 to 7. The colors are the same as used in BASIC 3.5. GRAPHIC RESOLUTION is '1' for 320x200 high resolution or '2' for 160x200 multicolor. PERSPECTIVE EFFECT will be discussed shortly. VERTICAL CENTERING asks if you wish for the program to center your text from top to bottom on the screen.

Once you have confirmed the selections on the previous screen, you will come to this screen to enter your first line of text. HORIZONTAL CHARACTERS asks how many character spaces you wish to have on this line. If you use more than about 12 characters, they may be too small to read properly. Not all spaces have to be used; the program will use this value to adjust the width of each character so that each character uses 1/HC of the line. VERTICAL CHARACTERS refers to how tall you wish your characters to be, using the formula HEIGHT=200/VC. You may also enter zero for the horizontal and vertical characters, and the program will calculate these values for you. Only the alphabet, numbers, and the characters ! . ? ' - ; may be typed directly from the keyboard. The characters , (comma) and : (colon) must be entered using the Commodore X or Commodore B keypresses as shown at the bottom of the screen. DO NOT USE THE DOUBLE-QUOTE ( " )!!! If you wish for a blank line, press @. UNDERLINE character Commodore T does not underline on the same line as the text, but can be used on a line underneath text to create an underline under each letter. FILLING CHARACTERS instructs the program to fill the characters for a solid look. Turn this off for empty (hollow) letters. HORIZONTAL CENTERING will automatically center the text you enter from left to right, and space out the letters as necessary.

After completing the lines of text, you will reach this screen. This gives you an idea of where the software will place your text. The BLUE box indicates the viewing area of the screen. WHITE boxes indicate where text will be within the blue box (completely visible). RED boxes indicate that text will be partially off-screen. Press M to modify your lines, or the SPACEBAR to continue to drawing mode.

When you accept the layout of the screen, Titler will ask you if you wish for a starry background. If so, follow the prompts. If not, select 'N' and the system will go to the next screen. A blinking star background effect is available, and will be discussed under 'Screen Effects'.

This is a sample screen with starry background.

If your screen is satisfactory, make your video shot now. If not, press SPACEBAR to get this pop-up menu. All menu options are self-explained except for Effects, so we will go into more detail on that now.

The Effects menu helps you do special things with your screen. The items marked (MCLR) only work when graphic mode 2 is used (discussed below). MOSAIC will use blocks of color to progress toward a background-color screen. FLASHING will make the selected area rapidly change color, similar to the 'Pen 3 Rainbow' effect in Micro Illustrator. NOTE that some videocassette recorders will muck up the picture when recording this, as it fools the VCR into trying to balance out the colors. Experiment with your equipment before depending on this effect. STARS will load a custom machine language routine from the diskette to give you blinking stars. NOTE: Blinking Stars effect REQUIRES a true Plus/4 with disk drive, or an emulator with 100% emulated DOS. YAPE 0.38 or higher are suggested. Please verify that your settings match the settings shown at the beginning of this article. (Minus/4 was used for screenshots because the colors are more true on my particular monitor.) FLIP GRAPHIC MODE reverses the foreground color(s) for an interesting effect.

This is a sample Mosaic effect.

This is a sample Flip Graphic effect.

When using the Perspective Effect from the General Parameters menu, the default is left justification.

When using the Perspective Effect from the General Parameters menu, the default is left justification.

In order to change the perspective effect, one must make the change to 'Horizontal Centering' on each line of text.

By changing all lines to 'Horizontal Centering', the Star Wars-type look can be acheived.

Sample Star Wars-type effect.

For use with 3D or shading effects, select GRAPHIC RESOLUTION 2 and define colors.

Defining line 1 with 3D effect.

Defining line 2 without 3D effect.

Preview of where text will go.

Defining fixed stars.

This is how the screen comes out.

For blinking stars, press X for effects and select item 3. Once the machine language routine is loaded, you will be prompted for the blink rate. 0 is fastest, 255 is slowest.

Once you have created your masterpiece, press S to save your work. Input a filename of 10 characters or less. Your screen will be saved to the disk in the disk drive with a "CxxLxx" suffix. This suffix is used to determine what 3rd color you have defined, as the system does not save 3rd color in the bitmap screen.

You can reuse your screen by LOADing it to memory and then issuing a GRAPHIC1,0 or GRAPHIC3,0 command. You will have to set your background, border, and 3rd color manually if you do this.

Please note that emualtors cannot save screens... yet. ;)