SpiceFX 6 AccentFX Wizard = Great Video Accents & Highlight Effects!

Use the AccentFX™ Wizard to highlight any part of your still-image or video scene in Windows Movie Maker with attractive borders, frames, and visual accents using brightness, darkness, color changes, blurs and more. Choose from hundreds of possibilities to create a custom effect that will uniquely emphasize your subject or action. Then drag the effect in the Wizard preview image to position it where desired within your scene, or even have it follow your subject or action in a video clip over time. Never before have Movie Maker users had this power! This Wizard is a great addition for birthday videos, wedding videos, celebration videos, music videos, family videos, sports action videos (such as football) and other special clips in your Movie Maker project. New in Version 6: Easier keyframing for highlight motion, more accent shapes, reference image choosing directly from your source video, and more new features.

A Few Examples Video Effects -- Hundreds Are Possible, All Customizable

Tutorial: 6 Easy Steps to Using the AccentFX Wizard

Double-click the Wizards for Movie Maker icon on your desktop (installed by our demo or purchased version). Or choose it in your Start > Program Files > Pixelan menu. Then the Wizards window will appear. If necessary, choose AccentFX effects from the top submenu to see the below.

1. Optionally, click the Reference Clip button to load a still-image of the background video (.wmv, .avi, or .mpg format) or photo (.bmp, .jpg, .png, .tif, .tga, or .pct format) you will use in your movie segment, for reference to better choose and position the accent.

TIP: Reference images are ONLY for reference in a Wizard. They are NOT part of your custom effect. The Movie Maker TIMELINE is where you will apply your exported effect to any image.

2. In the preview, drag the blue frame to scale the accent larger/smaller. Drag the frame’s center cursor to move the accent. Or right-click in the accent to enter its position precisely, if desired.

3. Click the Shape, Softness, Texture, Border, and Accent buttons to alter the look. Click the triangle in Border and Accent buttons to change their color.

4. Click the blue Play button under to preview the accent’s fade in/out. Fine-tune with the Timing button. Adjust the preview's duration by clicking the blue duration indicator under the preview (to match your clip's intended duration).

5. To create more than one custom AccentFX effect, click the Bin button to select another bin, then repeat steps 1-4 above. Forty bins are available.

6. When you are done creating accents, click the Click here to export button to send your custom AccentFX effects into Movie Maker. Re-start Movie Maker, then they will appear in Movie Maker’s Effects list (at the TOP of the list) as "AccentFX 01" "AccentFX 02" etc., ready to be dragged onto any video or still-image clip in the Movie Maker timeline.

AccentFX Effects -- Tips and Tricks

Note: All of these tips are also in the built-in Help panel that appears with AccentFX.

• To revise a previously exported AccentFX effect in Movie Maker: 1. Revise the effect in this Wizard. 2. Click the Click here to export button. 3. Re-start Movie Maker. 4. Drag the SAME effect onto your clip to replace the prior version. Important Tip: Revisions will NOT affect any other project. Each Movie Maker project file retains the Wizards information that was active at the time of applying it, no matter what Wizards changes occur later.

• To show an accent for the entire duration of a clip, instead of fading, click the Timing button and choose the “horizontal line” preset from its palette.

• To apply an accent to only part of a clip’s duration, split the clip into a couple of pieces in the Movie Maker timeline (use Movie Maker’s Clip > Split command) where you want the effect to start/end, then apply the exported AccentFX effect only to the desired piece.

• To overlay multiple accents to the same clip... since Movie Maker allows up to six effects per clip, you can overlay multiple accents. A great way to make multi-color frames and highlights, for example! Just create your accents, each saved in a Bin, then export and apply several to the same clip in the Movie Maker timeline. Play with the order of effects, as needed.

• To move an AccentFX highlight linearly during a clip, click the triangle in the lower corner of the Timing button to access the Keyframing window. Then: (1) Click the '+' button in that window to add an End keyframe. (2) In the Preview window, drag the blue (and red) frames to a desired start (and end) look. For precise positioning, right-click within either frame in the Preview window.

• To keyframe a more complex movement of an accent, follow the above steps, then: (3) Click the Add Keyframe '+' button (shown at right) to add an intermediate keyframe, labeled as "1". Slide that keyframe left or right in the Keyframing window to move it earlier or later in the clip's duration. (4) In the Preview, drag the center cursor to move the (green) intermediate frame to a desired position. (Changing your Reference Clip may be handy as a guide for the position.) To add more keyframes, repeat these steps. Seven are the maximum.

• To add more than seven intermediate keyframes, split your clip in the timeline into a few pieces (use MM's Clip > Split command). Then apply AccentFX to each piece. Right-click to see numerical values of the End keyframe of the first clip piece. Enter those same values for the Start keyframe of the next clip piece. Continue as desired.

• To load a Reference Clip image that has a different format than the Wizard can show (thus a clip that is not in .wmv, .avi, .mpg, .bmp, .jpg, .png, .tif, .tga, or .pct. format), place the video clip or still-image in your Movie Maker timeline, display a desired frame in the Movie Maker preview window, then choose Tools > Take Picture from Preview. This will save a separate image file on your drive. Then load that image into a Wizard by clicking its Reference Clip button.

• To copy/paste a Bin's effect to another Bin in the same Wizard, right-click the Bin. This is handy to organize your effects and to create several variations of a complex effect.

• To undo/redo, click the small buttons at the window's top right corner (if active). Up to 100 undo/redo levels are possible -- great for experimenting with different looks.

• To optionally append up to 16 characters to an effect’s name to help you remember its intent when viewing Movie Maker’s list of effects, use the Add to Name text box.

• To change the Wizard’s preferences, such as preview duration, video format (NTSC or PAL), aspect ratio (4:3 or 16:9), and more, click the white Preferences button at the bottom of the window. For best preview accuracy in the Wizard, match the video format and aspect ratio to your Movie Maker project. These values will not alter your exported effect; they are only for the Wizard’s preview.

• To save a favorite AccentFX effect (or a set of effects), click the Save Favorites (disk) button. To load it later, click the adjacent Load Favorites (folder) button. Note there is no need to save a favorite unless you intend to use the same effect in a future project, because each Movie Maker project file holds all Wizards info applied in that project. That remains true even if you later use the same Bin to make a new custom item for a different project.

• To clear only the currently displayed effect, or all effects in this Wizard, or all exported items in Movie Maker from this Wizard, click the yellow Clear (minus) button at the window’s bottom. Clearing all exported items is how you can create a fresh set of custom AccentFX effects for each new project. Note that existing projects will still retain their earlier AccentFX effects unchanged.

• To exit the Wizards, click the green Save and Exit (check mark) button in the lower corner of the window. Although you must re-start Movie Maker each time you export items from a Wizard, you can keep the Wizards window open for reference or further changes.