"Fade-in/out" Effect in C64 Style

[Ancalagon]

I should find some program (or filter/plugin) with which I could apply a C64-style "old/retro" fade in/out effect to my AVI-video. Please take a look at the Commodore 64 game loader videos by clicking on the links below to see what kind of "fade-in/out effect" I'm talking about. (Some video game developers/publishers made different "loaders" which they put out with some of their cassette-based C64 games which would then display a loading picture and play a tune whilst the game was loading up.)

Do you have any idea whether there are any filters or plugins capable of that sort of effect in the first place? If there aren't any such filters, could it be possible to create that effect with the help of some script (like with Avisynth oslt)? Of course I'm no expert at this but my rough guess is that the effect is so simple that it should be feasible with little effort for most skillful coders familiar with video editing and processing.

It'd be great if you know the sort of filter which I described for either VirtualDub or Avidemux, which I use, but you can also point me to some other video processing utilities as long as they're freeware. As for my operating systems, I've got both Win XP (Media Center Edition) and Ubuntu installed on separate partitions of my HD so you can also recommend some Ubuntu-based software to me.

I've already started a thread on this at http://keskustelu.suomi24.fi/node/8829309 (in Finnish) but since they don't necessarily know a great deal about editing videos there, I decided to submit roughly the same to this forum as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VDm1nE5ViI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO5frjbKqLM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VU1ijkOXDwM ----> watch from 2:04
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGf34KzKhCE

edit: While I wrote this, I happened to come across this YouTube video which isn't any original C64 game loader so at least someone has managed to use just the kind of C64-style "fade-in" effect which I described ---->
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRykbypOyEE

By the way, just to let you know, I've tried to google this filter to little avail (all that I found were three VirtualDub "fade-in/out" plugins incapable of producing the needed effect) but perhaps there is still a filter/plugin for the C64-style "fade-in/out" effect somewhere out there… It just might be less known and exceptionally hard to find!

[Ancalagon]

What I forgot to mention is that this effect isn't necessarily called "fade-in/out"... (I'm a bit unsure!) Basically there are just thick horizontal lines revealing the picture as they slowly scroll from left to right, starting from the top of the screen.

[racer-x]

You can do it manually with motion track masks. There might be a filter like it somewhere. It's probably hard to find because few people would probably want to use it............

Look up track masks + motion in your NLE manual.

[poisondeathray]

After Effects has presets for different types of "wipe" transitions , and its very easy to do, even without presets

To do it with freeware, you might be able to use avisynth and transall plugin (probably transwipe) with some masks and overlays. Not very fun or easy to do, but possible

You might be able to do this in wax, with layered wipes

[Ancalagon]

First of all, thanks for all the answers! I tried DebugMode Wax and I was able to get some help on DebugMode Wax UserForums and Lemon64 (a C64 forum). I'll copy/paste my message directly from Lemon64 (a C64 forum), see below:

http://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=33056

Not that anyone would be into this, but I managed to produce this effect with some help and by trial and error. With DebugMode Wax, this effect can be done by choosing "Transition Presets", "VL Covering" and "Covering from Left". Thereafter, you have to apply the effect to your media files which must be about 25 pictures @ 640x480 drawn so that the first picture is pitch black whereas the rest of the pictures have the image shown 640x20, 640x40, 640x60 etcetera against a black background. Naturally, this method is exceptionally silly and cumbrous but it works.

Perhaps the real way to produce this effect could be to make a black & white video where the lines are scrolling just like in those YouTube C64 videos and then use a video effect which will put the video on top of another video so that it'd be possible to select what color should be transparent in the first video. However, the problem with this method is that I don't know how to implement it with the help of DebugMode Wax or any other video processing utility.

Another way, which I copy almost directly from DebugMode Wax UserForums, goes as follows:

Save this as XML file in "C:\Program Files\Movie Maker\Shared\AddOnTFX"

<TransitionsAndEffects Version="1.0">
<Transitions>
<TransitionDLL guid="{DE75D012-7A65-11D2-8CEA-00A0C9441E20}">
<Transition name="Water Hor 352" iconid="52">
<Param name="MaskNum" value="352" />
<Param name="BorderWidth" value="1" />
<Param name="BorderSoftness" value="5" />
<Param name="BorderColor" value="0xFFFFA4"/>
</Transition>
</TransitionDLL>
</Transitions>
</TransitionsAndEffects>

The XML file works at least in Windows Movie Maker 2.6 but for some reason not in the newest Windows Live Movie Maker (as of April 2010).

The problem with this method is that the lines are scrolling way too fast and I don't know how to adjust the speed and "smoothness" of the effect. Those who are a bit more "tech/computer savvy" might, however, understand how that XML code works.