Description
Windows Movie Maker supports a large variety of titles, effects and transitions.
Titles are animated text screens, normally placed at the beginning or end of the movie, but can also be placed over video clips. Titles and credits can be added as stand alone titles or overlaying them on the clip by adding them onto the selected clip. Titles range from static (non-animated) titles to fly in, fading, news banner, or spinning newspaper animations. They can also be placed on video clips to create sub-titles.
Transitions affect how one video clips flows into another. Example include fade and dissolve, but many more spectacular transitions are available.
Effects alter how a video clip appears. Example include allowing control of brightness, contrast or hue, but other more dramatic effects are available, such as giving an 'old time' flickering black and white feel.
Versions 2.x included in Windows XP includes 60 transitions, 37 effects, 34 title and 9 credits animations. The Windows Vista version includes a different set of transitions, effects and title/credits animations while dropping a few older ones. There are in all 49 effects and 63 transitions. They are applied by using a drag and drop interface from the effects or transitions folders.
Early versions (V2 onwards) of Windows Movie Maker had a flexible interface so programming custom effects and other content were possible via XML. The Windows Vista version supports Direct3D-based effects. Microsoft also provides SDK documentation for custom effects and transitions.[16] Since the effects are XML based, users could create and add custom effects and transitions of their own with XML knowledge.
Many custom transitions were commercially available and created additional features such as picture-in-picture.
Windows Movie Maker V6 did not support customisations to effects and transitions in the same way as V2.x and so many customisations had to be re-written. Versions after V6 do not support custom transitions and effects at all.
