Creating a Star Wars-Style Prologue
Step 3: Working in Poser

Open Poser. Open Poser. The default character appears.
Delete the default figure. Delete the figure so that you have a blank working window.
Set camera to Dolly Camera. Change the camera view from "Main Camera" to "Dolly Camera." We need the additional camera manipulation tools that Dolly mode offers in order to create a realistic scrolling prologue.
Open Props and insert single sided square. Open the libraries and select "Props." From the props library, select "one sided square."
Adjust square height to match the text graphic height.

A prop entitled "square_1" now appears in your scene. This prop will be used to hold our prologue text.

You'll recall that the height of the text block was twice the size of its width, so before we paste the text onto the square, we need to change its dimensions to match or the text will be distored. Change the "yScale" dial of the square_1 prop to 200%. Now the square is the same size as the text box.
Make the square as large as possible. Make the square_1 prop larger by changing the "Scale" dial. Here it's over 400% it's original size.
Change Dolly Camera Pitch so square is emerging from screen bottom.

The scrolling effect is actually an illusion. The text doesn't really move, the CAMERA moves. Change your active object from square_1 back to Dolly Camera. Notice the dials for Roll, Pitch, and Yaw. These change the camera angle along the X, Y, and Z axes.

Change the "Pitch" dial so that the square appears to be emerging from the bottom of the screen at an angle, like shown.
Change DollyZ position so that square seems to fill the screen. The default Dolly Z position is 1.500. Change this position with the dial until the top of the square almost fills the full width of the frame.
Set the materials for the square. At this point we want to paste the text onto the square. Make square_1 the active object and select "Materials" from the "Render" menu.
Select text graphic for the texture and the transparency.

Click "Load" under Texture Map and choose the text graphic you created in Paint Shop Pro. Mine was rocky2.jpg. Select the SAME graphic for the Transparency Map.

Lastly, set the Transparency Min and Transparency Max sliders to 100% each. Click OK.

Load background image.

The square becomes a dashed outline, but it's still there. Now would be a good time to load our background image. Select "File" - "Import" and then "Background Picture."

Note: The starfield image used in this tutorial was created with Glitterato, a starfield generator plugin compatible with Paint Shop/Photoshop. It's available for download from Flaming Pear.
Set total frames of the animation. Now let's set the frames for our animation. The prologue has to scroll slowly in order to be read, so we'll set a high number of frames. I chose 900. (We will also change the frame rate from 30 to 15 in a later step).
Set starting position of the scrolling with the DollyY dial.

Making the text scroll is actually the easiest part. We only have to set two keyframes and adjust one dial. We set keyframes at Frame 001 (the first) and Frame 900 (the last). The only dial we need to set is the "DollyY" dial.

Note the position of the DollyY dial on this image and the one that follows. Although they look the same, the image on the left is for the start position of the scroll and the image below is for the end position of the scroll. The camera has been dollied along the Y axis from a starting position of 0.405 to an ending position of -3.321.

 
Advance to last frame and set ending position of the scroll with the DollyY dial.

Here is the final frame of the scene, in this case the text is now above the frame, not below it as it was in the image above.

The frames that follow show the position of the text at different points of time in the animation. For demonstration purposes the transparency has been turned off so that you can see the position of the text box better. The values of the DollyY dial have been highlighted for your review.
Intermediate frame. Notice that the only value that's changing is the DollyY value.
Intermediate frame. For all of these frames, Poser is setting the DollyY positions automatically, based on the start frame at 001 and the end frame at 900. It's great!
Intermediate frame.
Intermediate frame.
Set lighting for the scene. Before we render the animation, it's a good idea to set the lighting to something bright. Ordinarily I like to use yellow lighting but if you don't have any light sets other than the ones that came with Poser, the "Twilight" setting works pretty well. Be sure to rewind your animation back to Frame 001 before you set the lighting!
Go to Animation Setup. We need to set the frame rate of the animation, so open the "Animation Setup" screen.
Set frame rate for the animation. Set the frame rate from the default of 30 to 15. This will make the prologue move slower, making it easier to read. Click OK when done.
Make the movie. Now we're ready to make the movie. Select "Make Movie" from the animation menu.
Select the movie's settings and click OK. Select your settings and click OK. For greater clarity, use Poser's render settings, not display settings, when making the animation.
Sample still from the animation. Here's what the finished animation looks like.

That's really all there is to it. You can experiment with different fonts, angles, and lighting to see which works best for you. Have fun!

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