In a lot of movies and television shows, you’ll see a “rolling credits” clip at the end of the production.  This is a stylistic choice that seems to be a standard for a lot of productions, and not an unreasonable one: when the credits are scrolling, the viewer has more time to read the credits without pausing or falling too far behind too quickly, reducing the number of times they will need to skip back to catch anything… provided you actually read the credits (I usually don’t.  I know, I’m a bad boy).

Now, there are programs that will show scrolling text, but sometimes, they are limited to text, or they simply are limited to what you can do with the presentation of the credits.  Or, maybe you’re like me, and you want more practice in using Blender for producing films, and the rolling credits just happen to be something you can do.  Or, perhaps you really want to get crazy on the credits design, and you need to use animation features, such as multi-way scrolling, perhaps even things like rotation and/or shaped text…

Regardless of your artistic style, Blender can help you realize your artistic goal with your end credits.  By placing plane objects in the environment with the appropriate credits textured on top of them, and then animating the camera to follow the credit planes, you can scroll your credits in any way you desire. Create the credits with a chroma key background, and you can integrate the credits into the scene using the Blender’s compositor feature.

However, before going crazy with inspiration, let’s cover the basic movie scroll.

This process will take place in two programs:

• Inkscape for credits page and artwork.
• Blender for animation and (maybe) compositing.

For this article, we will focus on creating the credits page that we will scroll on the next article.  For this, we will use the Inkscape graphics software, since this allows you to create blocks of text and images, group them, and align them as groups; this is very useful when attempting to line up the left column and the names on the right column, right- and left-justified, respectively.   It also allows you to create graphics that you can later scale to whatever resolutions you wish to render your videos at; this means that your credits pages can still be perfectly sharp, even on a Retina display (or related) or beyond.

I plan to give as much explanation as I can about the Inkscape features we’ll be directly using in this tutorial, but for more information about all the tools available in Inkscape, you can check out a much more in-depth Inkscape tutorial outlining and demonstrating each and every major tool in the program!  On the one hand, my ego wishes I made that first, and on the other hand, my sloth rejoices that that’s one less tutorial I have to write.

Now, keep in mind this is not the only way you can create credits; in fact, Inkscape is probably a pretty poor choice of program for fast credits, since you will need to create at least two text boxes for each row; one for the left column (role name) and one for the right (actor/crew name).  I prefer flexibility to quick “bang-em-out” solutions, though.  So, since this allows some amazing graphical play, and can include things like custom formatting and logo images in the rolling credits, I intend to use this.

And another thing to think about: this is not limited to credits; this method can also perform “flyby” views of desktops and walls, and can be used with video clips in place of images to make 3D scene transitions.

But, for now, Go ahead and open a blank Inkscape document.

Setting the Document Background

The first thing we want to do (after giving our file a name and making the first save) is set the document background.  To start, go to “File” and “Document Properties.”  You should see the properties pop up on a side panel in Inkscape, with several tabs.

While we plan to create a separate backdrop for the actual image, the first thing we need to do is set the background of the program to a similar mood as the credits backdrop; a light color for a bright backdrop, and a dark color for the dark backdrop.

The purpose of this change is that we don’t want to be constantly distracted by constantly resizing the backdrop every time our document has reached the end of the expected length.  We want to do all the alignment and resizing later, after the content itself is finished.  We do, however, want all our text and images to be colored in such a way that it will be clearly visible over the backdrop, so the best way to meet both requirements is to color the background to a similar level as the backdrop.

Make sure that the background isnot the exact same as the backdrop; you want to be able to see the backdrop against the background after the work is done to resize it to encompass the entire credits document!

The Credits Backdrop

Before we get to work creating the credits themselves, we first want to create the colored backdrop they will be positioned over.  I will recommend black for darker credit sequences, or light gray for brighter sequences, or even a picture of a clip you expect the text to be scrolling over.  This will change when you’re done with the credits, but it’s important to have it here first, even if you already changed the background color, because you want to be able to test how well your text can contrast with the final background it will be scrolling over, and having the backdrop as a reference image can help you make decisions on how you want your text to look.

Creating the Backdrop

Now, this will need to be the same width as the video’s display, so you need to first determine what the width of your final video will be.  Height isn’t as important, because, remember, we will be scrolling this, so height is completely arbitrary from the perspective of the length of the document; it will become necessary later, but that will be once you’ve finished the credits and actually have an accurate height to give.

To make the backdrop, simply draw a rectangle in Inkscape.  Once drawn, go ahead and choose a fill color.  For this example, I’m going to use black, since that is the traditional color over which credits scrolled (and it looks pretty cool).

Resizing the Backdrop

Once you have the backdrop, you want to adjust its width to match your video’s final form factor.  I’m going to use 1080p HD video, so I want the width of the backdrop to be 1920.

Making sure the backdrop is selected, and the rectangle tool is still selected, look at the options box along the top edge of the document.  You’ll see “Change: W: xxx H: xxx Rx: xxx Ry: xxx“, and then a drop-down with something like “in” or “px”.  These indicate the width, height, X origin and Y origin of the rectangle, respectively.

We want the drop-down to be changed to “px” and the value of “W” to be our video width (in my case, 1920).  This will instantly change the shape of the box to match the width desired.  This will also calibrate the image against the monitor’s actual resolution, so that all the filters will work as expected.

That last part should be explained.

In Inkscape, there are a number of filters that can affect the appearance of objects in Inkscape.  This includes such features as “shadows and glows,” “bump mapping,” and “overlays.”  Some of the filters, however, depend on raster items, and so the scale of the image can have a profound effect on the appearance of the filter.  For example, I found out the hard way that if the text is scaled down too far, then there is no way to make the “Chalk and Sponge” filter work well enough to make text on a chalkboard  (Which I used on the film clapboards for the podcast episodes), even if the text is otherwise just as sharp as in any other resolution.  Similarly, if the text is scaled out too much, then any changes are minimal at best for the very same reason.

Explanation aside, we should now have the beginnings of a backdrop at the correct width.

Credits

At this point, we can begin typing our credits.

You can make your credits as simple or as complex as you want.  It will take time and some work, since aligning text both horizontally and vertically will require some doing.  However, it’s not extremely hard, but it will require you understand Inkscape’s alignment and distribution controls.

Align and Distribute

To see the align and distribute panel, go to the “Object” menu and select “Align and Distribute…”.  The following panel will open on the right:

If you hold the mouse button over each of those buttons, they will explain what they do, but let’s cover some basics.  The “Relative to” option determines where the anchor is (the red line in the images); by default, it’s set to “selection,” meaning that the selection of all objects will have a right, top, bottom, and left edge, as well as a center in both x and y axes, and the objects will align to those points, depending on the align type you choose.

Other anchors can also be chosen, and are important for those alignment selections with the yellow box, which is useful when choosing to have an anchor object.  Let’s use the following for an example:

It’s pretty dumb, but it gives a perfect example of what we want to do.

Now, lets change “Relative to” and set the anchor to “Last selected.”  Then hold down shift and click “One,” “Two,” and “Pony,” in that order.  Pony will become the anchor for the alignment commands.  Then, if you click the first button (“Align right edges of objects with left edge of anchor”), the text will then be realigned as follows:

In this example, “One” and “Two” are now right-aligned against the left edge of “Pony,” meaning that Pony begins on the next column after the last pixel of “One” and “Two” end.

You might also note that it does not change their vertical positions; “Pony” is still well down there, while “One” and “Two” are grouped together at the top.  There are vertical alignment items as well, but keep in mind that unless you pick “One” as an anchor, and choose one of the vertical anchored alignments, “One” and “Two” will just be placed overtop one another:

However, if we choose “One” as the anchor, and pick the fifth item on the second row (“Align top edges of objects to the bottom edge of anchor”), we get the following, instead:

This actually looks like a good band name, the way it’s presented here.  I’d probably use it if my musical skill wasn’t weaponized… and if I had any interest in “alternative” music (what does that mean, anyway?).

Let’s go back to where we used “Pony” as an anchor.  Suppose we don’t want to change the positions of “One” and “Pony,” but want to move “Two” to a center spot between them.  This is job for the distribution controls.  First, using the selection tool (F1), highlight all three items.

Now, let’s press the second button on the fourth row (“Distribute Centers Equidistantly Vertically”).  Notice that “Two” now jumped to an equal distance between “One” and “Pony.”  It centered by moving its center to a location based on the center between the “One” and “Pony” centers.  Yup.  It’s really that central.

Something to keep in mind, this will calculate based on the number of items between “One” and “Pony.”  If there are two items, or twelve items, they will all be evenly spaced between “One” and “Pony,” even if they have to scrunch up to do it.  What this means is that you can create evenly-spaced anything (not just text) by creating a blob of objects, put one at the desired top position, and one at the desired bottom position, and then distribute evenly between them, which can help make patterns much easier, since you won’t have to eyeball anything.

The poor pony is still being kept out of the party, by being on the right, so let’s get everything nice and lined up.   Since this is text, left-alignment will do just fine.  Just press the second button on the first row of buttons(“Align Left Edges”).

Credits Layout

With this in mind, let’s begin our credits.

There does not seem to be a lot of rules where the order of credits are concerned.  The only generally solid assumption is that cast and film crew are first, and you’ll usually see the production company, copyrights, and disclaimers last, and usually the different categories are grouped together.  Sometimes you will see headings.

For this example, I’m going to just create a cast list of some fictional production with fictional actors.  I will also include credits for the director, three cameramen, and musical score… maybe we’ll call them OneTwoPony Express.  Then I will include the credits for the software used, plus their logos, and then close out with a copyright notice and a Penguin Producer logo.

Outline

Create an outline, first.  This way, when you create the text blocks for the different names and roles, as well as the categories to create headings for, you can simply copy and paste as needed.  The outline should be clear and in an appropriate order, so that you can add to, or remove from, the outline as needed.

Something like this should suffice:

• Credits
  • Cast
    • Thomas Sirillo
      • David Chas
    • Camille
      • Jennifer Morrow
    • Deacon Mareaux
      • Dominic Foster
    • David Mackey
      • Paul Nadeau
    • Subway Passengers
      • Sarah Laughton
      • Jennifer Morrow
      • Doug Weaton
      • Charles Mack
      • Thomas Mack
      • Sarah Wilton
      • Mark Withers
      • Paul Doyle
    • Subway Conductor
      • Jacob Rumar
  • Film Crew
    • Cameras
      • Peter Frasier
      • Serendipity Jones
      • Kyle Remis
    • Director
      • Charles Dobman
    • Assistant Producer
      • Mark Larosse
    • Executive Producer
      • Lampros Liontos
  • Music
    • “Ain’t Nothin’ Much” by OneTwoPony Express
    • “Something Weird” by OneTwoPony Express
    • “The World’s on Fire” by OneTwoPony Express
  • Software used in the production of this film:
    • Inkscape
      • Version 0.48
      • Inkscape is a free vector graphics program that is capable of high-quality, scalable graphics.  This can be used on many segments of the video where text or still images are needed.
    • Blender
      • Version 2.63
      • Blender is a free 3D rendering and animation package that includes compositing and non-linear video editing features.  This can allow Blender to perform similar results to more expensive programs, such as Maya, Premiere, or After Effects.
  • This video is released under the Creative Commons Zero license; you are free to use this video in any way, shape, or form without any need for permission.  Feel free to use it in your own works as you wish.
  • This has been a(n) <fill in your production company> Production.

Transcribing

Now that you’ve got the outline, go ahead and create the credits in Inkscape.  You don’t need to be perfect; as long as the names and the roles are in the correct order on each side, the next parts will take care of alignment and appearance.

Once you reach the end of the “Cast” portion of the credits, go ahead and stop.  You should have something that looks like this:

Now, you can experiment with typography, making the role names bold, or a different color, or even adding in pictures and things.  We’ll add some pictures later, but for now, let’s just stick with vanilla.  I did add a large Credits heading, and a somewhat larger Cast subheading, although we are going to completely ignore them for now.

Alignment

Yeah, not very well lined up, is it?    Except for those subway passengers; while all the others got text boxes to themselves, since a group of people played in a single category, I simply typed all their names in the same text box; this helps with the alignment process, because all those names are now grouped into a single object, which can be aligned with the single role name.

Now, what we want to do first is align the columns; this needs to be done first so we don’t have to select rows multiple times for later steps.

So, first, let’s select the first column, which includes everyone from Thomas Sirillo to Subway Conductor.  Now, since these will be matched up with names on the right, we will probably want to right-justify this column.  So, once selected, choose the “Align Right Sides” alignment button (fourth button on the first row).  Now the roles should be flush on the right.

Now, we do the same on the left column, except we will use the Left align button (second button, top row).

So, the columns are now aligned properly, but everything seems to be so far apart.  This can be good; it’s just another stylistic choice, but I prefer to keep the space between the role and actor small, so the eye can more easily line up the names.  So, select one of the columns, and simply drag it to the right.  Like before, don’t worry if you don’t get the (horizontal) alignment right; the vertical alignment is good enough now.

Yes, I intentionally misaligned the rows, to make a point; you don’t need to align stuff by hand.

Now, the next step is to hold down shift and click on both the role, and its associated actor/crewman:

Now, this is important: If you intend to move this up or down, then hold the CTRL key while dragging it.  This will move the item either horizontally, or vertically, but not both.  Because we can use the CTRL key to constrain the movement, we can move it safely without ruining the column alignment we just finished.

Now that we got the warning out of the way, perform a “Align Top Edges” align operation (second button on the second row).  This will only move the objects so that they are perfectly aligned.

Or, you can use “Center on Horizontal Axis” (third button on second row), but this won’t look as good once we get to our subway passengers.  Compare:

…with the results if you were to use a “Center on Horizontal Axis” option:

Well… maybe it will.  Like I said, it’s a stylistic choice.  I tend to prefer the top-aligned, myself.

Back to Thomas.  While we still have the row highlighted, go to “Object” and “Group” (or just hit Ctrl-G).  This will link the name and role together into a single object.  This will be important for the distribution step, which comes later.

Now, the first thing you probably noticed is that there’s only one dotted box now; that’s because the two text fields have been “glued” together; from now on, when they move, they’re moved together.

Repeat the alignment and grouping process for the other five rows.  Once that’s done, you should have something like this:

As long as you didn’t move anything horizontally, then this should now be perfectly aligned, both horizontally, and vertically.

Distribution

Thomas, Camille, Deacon, and David are  relatively close, while our subway folk are off in the boonies, even from one another.  So, what we want to do is rework them so that they have an even distance from one another.

Now that every row is grouped, we can distribute the entries.  So, select all the rows from Thomas to the Subway Conductor, and choose the “Make Vertical Gaps Between Objects Equal” distribution (Second row in Distribution, fourth button).

Now, everything is nice and even, but wow, that’s a lot of space between them!  We need to fix that!

No problem.

While holding down CTRL, go ahead and bunch the names in the middle, closer to the top name.  Make sure that Thomas doesn’t move, and save our friendly conductor for last.

Now, you’ll notice that everyone is much closer to one another than is comfortable, but the conductor is still a pretty good distance down?  This is important; distribution always keeps the top and bottom objects in a group in their exact locations, and everything between them is evenly spread between them.  This extra space above the conductor will be what is evenly spread between all the other names in the middle when we repeat the “Make Vertical Gaps Between Objects Equal” distribution, like this:

That’s so much better, don’t you think?

Once the cast credits are just the way you want them, you can then move on to the crew, and then the music, and so on until you have all the text.  Or, you could have done every category first, and then did the alignment and distribution, and followed up with the headers; this would have made everything line up perfectly.

Centering Headings

What?  We didn’t get to the headers?  Unforgiveable!  I oughtta… uh… get right to it!

But first, we need to group the entire cast list, so it’s all one object.  This is essential, because this is what allows us to center the cast list with the headers, and prevent a loss of vertical alignment.  So, we will highlight everyone from Thomas Sirillo to Jacob Rumar, and press Ctrl-G to turn it all into one, single, movable object.

Now that we have our group, go ahead and select the cast list, the cast title, the credits title, and our backdrop.  Then use the “center on vertical axis” alignment (top row, third button) to line everything up.

You can (vertically) resize and move the backdrop down so that you can see how the credits interact with the final coloring:

Not a bad start, don’t you think?

Now, go ahead and repeat this process for the other items.  For now, repeat the above process until all the text is in place.

Making Paragraph Objects

When making paragraphs, such as the above descriptions for our software products, you want to click and drag when making your text object, instead of just clicking and typing.  This makes a text frame that will automatically wrap your text, which can be resized if you find the paragraph object to be too large to fit over the backdrop.  By resizing the box, the paragraph will be re-wrapped to fit in the new space.

It is important that you make the box first; if you click and just start typing, you will not be able to resize the text area later; it has to be drawn first to be resizable.  Once drawn, you can come back to it later and resize it as needed.  If you find that there’s not enough room while typing, you can expand it, although it’s helpful to make it larger than necessary first, and then scale the box down until the text is wrapped the way you want it.  If there is text that is outside the bounds of the box, then the box will change color to notify you that not all the text can be shown in its confines.

If this happens, just use the box handles to adjust the size of the box, and the text will re-wrap accordingly.

Multiple Text Fields for the Same Role

You might have noticed that the version number and the description of the program each has their own text box.  This will make horizontal alignment difficult, right?  Nope.  You see, If you align the role with the version number, the description will be its own object, and therefore, it will be considered a row for the purpose of distribution.

Adding Images

Images can be drawn in Inkscape, or they can be imported from other sources.  It is recommended that you find and import vector art where you can, because vector images can scale infinitely, just as the text can.  You can also use the drawing tools in Inkscape to produce the imagery needed in many situations.  For our example, vector images exist for both programs’ logos, and they are licensed to allow their use.

The Logos

Blender

The Blender Logo and its license information can be found on the Blender website; you can download the encapsulated postscript image (the .eps file), as Inkscape is capable of importing that format, and it is a vector graphics format.  For those who are interested in the original image, they can instead download the .blend file, and check it out in Blender.

Pay careful attention to the commercial requirement; if you plan to use this commercially, you have to ask permission.  Since the next article will cover the use of Blender specifically, and as I plan to have the Penguin Producer logo prominently placed at the end, this is sufficient for permission.

Inkscape

You will find the Inkscape logo and tagline in their Subversion repository.  You can also find a logo with gradients in the Inkscape Launchpad Library site.  Note that if you just click the link, you will actually see the SVG files contents.  This can be pretty educational in its own right (it is essentially an XML file with instructions on how to draw the picture), but what you’ll need to do for both is simply save the “page” as an SVG file.  The resulting files can then be imported into Inkscape and scaled accordingly.  The details regarding the branding can also be found on their website. These are both “official” images for the project.

I have been unable to locate any official licensing details on the logo, but it seems to be generally-accepted that the logo is released under the GNU General Public License; you can modify the image however you want, but if you distribute the modified version, you must make the modified SVG “source” available for others to learn from.  This is supported by the logo being in the source code package with the rest of the program; in fact, the black-and-white logo links themselves are in the source code repository for the software itself.

Personal Logo

For this project, I will be using my own logo, a circular “Penguin Producer” logo including a work-in-progress replacement for the current penguin image, so you get to see the direction I’m going in.  You can use it if you want, but it’s still pretty basic right now; I want to get these articles written first.

Importing Images

If you have a vector image you want to bring into the project, simply go to “File” and “Import…” at which you will be presented with the classic file prompt.  Just navigate to the proper location, select the image you want to import, and then click “Open.”  Nothing you probably haven’t already done twenty or thirty times already in the last week!

Tracing Raster Images

You don’t have to use just vector images; raster (also known as “bitmap”) images can be used, and you can actually convert them to a vector-based format.  All you need to do is import the bitmap, select it, and go to “Path” and “Trace Bitmap…”

This will bring up the following box:

There are 6 different methods of bitmap tracing done by this tool:

The first three create a single-path vector image, which uses a single stroke-and-fill object to create a black-and-white tracing that you can then apply color to using the normal Inkscape tools:

• Brightness Cutoff: Using the top “Threshold” on the right, anything darker than the brightness value will be treated as a “filled space” in the object.  Everything else is ignored.
• Edge Detection: Typically a contrast detection method, this attempts to find the lines in an image based on where there is a lot of difference between two pixels; a difference above the second threshold on the right will be considered a line, and the line will be drawn through that point.
• Color quantization: This is an “even/odd” style trace; first, you have an outlined transparent outer image.  Then details inside that outer image are filled in.  Inside those filled-in spaces are empty spaces, and so forth.  This is not very useful as a classic trace, but can be very useful when attempting to produce cutouts for other images.  I don’t use this much, but I add it here for completeness.

The other three are multi-path scans; they will trace once for each level or color in the image to a maximum determined by the number of scans you select on the right.

• Brightness Steps: For each scan, a new object is created that creates filled regions for each brightness level of the image based on the scan value on the right, resulting in a grayscale
• Colors: The image’s colors are reduced to the number of colors in the scan value on the right, and then the object is created with those specific colors outlined and filled.
• Grays: Same as the colors trace, but then transforms the colors to grayscale versions of themselves.  This can have a similar effect to Brightness Steps, but the difference is that the colors don’t need to have an even distribution of brightness; bright red and bright green have the same brightness, but would be rendered as two separate scans of the same gray color.

Below the multi-step modes are three options:

• Smooth: Blurs the image before tracing, which helps produce smoother curves in the resulting trace, which in turn simplifies the actual vertex count (making the file smaller and the editing faster).
• Stack Scans: When a color has a complex shape in a scan, it can either be traced into a complex shape, or a simpler shape that can be covered by other colors.  Since a picture says a thousand words:

  
  As you can see, a stacked image will simply draw the circle up to the point where the color is used, while the non-stacked image will simply show the sliver of color that shows in the above traced image.  Stacked images can help avoid issues where any adjustments run the risk of showing whitespace in the seams, since the seams will simply be the color underneath the current one.

• Remove Background: For multiple-step scans, this will prevent the background color from being factored in during processing, resulting in a transparent background.

On the second tab of the tracing window, you have three more options:

• Suppress speckles reduces the complexity of the image by only tracing dots larger than a size indicated on the right.
• Smooth corners are for smoothing jagged edges in the original drawing.
• Optimize paths will use bezier curves to show curved areas, rather than higher node count.  This simplifies the image, which will make it much easier to edit later.

Editing Images

Did you know you can actually edit the images further?  Every vector image imported into Inkscape, whether it’s loaded into the program or traced using the above tracing tool, can be ungrouped (using Ctrl-U) and their component pieces changed as you wish.

Now, remember that we are not permitted to do that with the Blender logo, but the Inkscape logo seems to be editable, so long as you make the resulting SVG file available to others upon request.  As for the traced image… well, that depends on the image’s source.  I don’t recommend making changes to someone else’s work and claiming it as your own; it’s pretty rude, and it can land you in trouble if the original creator sees the derivative you’ve made and protests its usage.

Final Alignment of Dual-Column Credits

Now, we get to completing the alignment of the final credits roll.

The above alignment process was just a demonstration; at this point, I recommend ungrouping the aligned cast list, and then aligning and distributing everything that consists of two columns; we’ll move and arrange them later.

The images are aligned the exact same way the rest is aligned; you don’t have to worry about a different process for them; just treat them like the “roles” for the software “descriptions” while using the software’s name as a “role” for the software’s “version.”

Breaking Credits for Headers

For each “group” of credits (cast, crew, software), you want to group them all using CTRL-G.  This will chunk them together and ensure that they won’t change their position relative of each other, keeping the columns and rows intact.  Next, drag the top and bottom groups (while holding Ctrl to keep them vertically aligned) to where you want the credits to begin and end.  Make sure that leaves enough room for all the credits and headings between them.

Once the top and bottom groups of credits are placed, select all groups of credits, and use the “Make Vertical Gaps Between Objects Equal” distribution method to even out the spaces for headings.

At this point, you have your dual-column credits finalized.  You might be tempted to use the alignment tool to center them, but resist that temptation; this ensures that the column separation space is aligned throughout the entire credits roll.  Select all the credits (just the dual-column stuff, nothing else), and press Ctrl-G to group them to prevent any further alignment adjustments from affecting them.

Now, move the titles, and the additional items into the credit scroll, as well as the backdrop.  Expand the backdrop downward to cover everything from the first “Credits” to the final logo… or whatever you have starting and ending your credits roll.  If you have any raster graphics in your roll, do not adjust the horizontal size of the backdrop; you want the end result to have an effective width appropriate to your final video size.

Once everything is placed where you want it, select everything and then center it all using “Center on vertical axis” alignment.  If you remembered to group all the two-column credits, then everything will center in the backdrop, while all the credits will still remain in the same two columns.  Don’t use the distribution controls at this point; they will treat the backdrop and the entirety of the two-column credits as single objects, and the headings will move above and below those objects.  Just eyeball the distance at this point, and you should be fine.

If you wish to add new credits, just ungroup these, add the new credits, align everything again, and then relock them without moving anything off-center of the column.  Yes, like I said, this is pretty work-intensive, but extremely flexible and powerful in the end.

Exporting the Credit Roll

In the end, you should have a completed and aligned credit roll that looks like this (click on the image to see the full-size version):

Now, we want to select everything, if we hadn’t already selected them during the centering task.  Once the backdrop and everything within it is selected, we go to “File” and “Export Bitmap…” and see this box:

10225 width?!  Yow!

Something to note, the project size is in the Width and Height boxes in the “Export Area” options, which consists of x0,y0 (upper-left corner) to x1-y1 (bottom-right corner), and a width and height value.  This outlines the exact area in the workspace that we want to export.  By changing the x and y values, we can add extra blank space to the area we want to export; by default, it will only export the area identified in the buttons at the top.

In this case, since nothing is outside the backdrop area, it defines the space that will be exported, which is what we want.

The Bitmap Size area, however, is what resolution we want the ending PNG file to be.  Notice that it is many times larger than the width and height of the original workspace.  This is usually different based on the dots per inch of the previous work (I do a lot of stuff with Inkscape, so scaling the end result to my specifications in this step is a normal habit); it will apply that same DPI to the current work.

To fix the issue, all you need to do is change the width to the desired width of your video project.  In my case, the height of the project then drops to 6193.

Once you have the correct size, use the browse button and select where the file will be exported to, and what its name will be.  At the time of this writing, the export will only save as PNG.  Once you’ve selected the filename, and clicked “Save,” you need to then click “Export.”  This is very important!  If you do not click “Export,” nothing really gets saved; the “Save” button in the browser window doesn’t do anything except add the filename to the filename field.

Conclusion

Now, we have a credit roll ready to go, all we need to do is add it to a Blender scene, run the camera down over it, and render the camera’s view to video.  We will cover all that in the next part of this article.

In the meantime, play around with Inkscape a bit, try out some layouts and designs for your credits.  Get creative!  You might just find that a credits roll itself can be an artform if you really get into it!