Pinnacle DekoCast

Logos in a Crawl

Crawling Logos Screen Shot

In a single crawl, combine text of different colors, custom typefaces, and logos read on-the-fly from image files.

Run the Demo

  1. Extract the demo files from the .zip archive using their path names to create C:\DekoCast\samples\Logo Crawl and the Images sub-folder. Extract the redbanner.dv file (if present) to the E:\Logo Crawl folder on the clip drive.
  2. Copy the updnarrow.fac typeface file from this folder to Deko's custom typeface folder.
  3. Start DekoCast (version 3.5 or later) and open the LogoCrawl.dkc scene.
  4. Run the Start Crawl action to start the text crawling across the screen.
  5. Run the Simple Blue Bar action to show a static blue bar, or run the Animated Red Bar action to see a dv file used as a bar background (requires the DekoCast clip playback option)
  6. Run the Move Bar... actions to adjust the bars position.
  7. Run the Show Shadow action to display a shadow/hilite element over the crawl.

The crawl contents are contained in the CrawlData.txt file. The logo and its text are on separate lines in the file so that different width logos will automatically pack tightly with the text.

The crawl uses the <macro> tag in the text to read a new tga image into the logo element, and a <preset> tag to select different preset styles for the text, using different colors and a custom typeface for the up/down arrows.

The logoNtext.dko file contains two layers - a rectangle using an image file in its face shader, and a text layer.  Both layers are initially empty, and the <layer> tag and the layer_select macro command are used in the Deko object contents text file to select the layer to fill, either a logo or the text. The Deko object is set to display the Entire Document, rather than a single layer, so whichever layer is filled will be displayed.  When Entire Document is selected, the distance from the left edge of the frame to the start of the layer determines the spacing in the crawl, so both fields are positioned close to the left edge of the frame in the dko document.

To make the image rectangle layer appear empty, the dko file is saved with it referencing nothing.tga - a clear image.  Otherwise, it would appear as a black rectangle.

The tph_stocks.pst preset style file contains the 7 different styles used within the text field in this example - white, green, and red in narrow and bold styles, plus a custom typeface containing only an Up and Down arrow at the 'A' and 'B' characters.  To change the look of the text, modify this pst file. This pst file is opened by the Start Crawl action, which sends a "file_open" command to the "deko macro" scene parameter.

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