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## Trouble using BluffTitler? Here are the answers to some frequently asked questions.

# Table of contents

- Top 10 most asked questions
- Troubleshooting
- Exporting as AVI
- Downloading and Installing
- DirectX
- Using BluffTitler
- Upgrading

# Top 10 most asked questions

### 1) When I start BluffTitler I get the error message: This application has failed to start because D3DX9_34.dll was not found.

BluffTitler requires DirectX version June 2007 or later. Installing the latest version of DirectX will solve the problem.

### 2) Is it possible to change the text of a demo animation?

Yes. You can change the text by editing the text in the textbox on the tool window.

A BluffTitler animation is built out of layers and every layer can have its own text. You can select a layer with the dropdown listbox above the Play button.

### 3) Is it possible to change the picture of a demo animation?

Yes. BluffTitler accepts any BMP, JPG, PNG and TGA picture. You can change a picture with the Change Texture... button on the tool window, by pressing F9 or by choosing Media > Change Texture....

Note that texture is the computer graphics term for a picture, image or photo.

A BluffTitler animation is built out of layers and every layer can have its own texture. You can select a layer with the dropdown listbox above the Play button.

### 4) How do I change the font size?

You can change the font size with the Font Size property. You can select this property with the dropdown listbox above the 3 sliders. You can change the fontsize itself with the first slider.

A BluffTitler animation is built out of layers and every layer can have its own font size. You can select a layer with the dropdown list box above the Play button.

### 5) Where can I find more BluffTitler fonts?

There's no such thing as a "BluffTitler font". BluffTitler uses standard True Type fonts that can be downloaded from websites like:

- fonts.com
- fontcenter.com
- dafont.com
- lineto.com
- vllg.com
- typography.com
- emigre.com
- fontfont.com

You can select a new font with the Media > Change Font menu item, or by pressing F6.

Please note that the demo animations use the Arial font not because that's such a beautiful font, but because the Arial font is present on all Windows systems.

A BluffTitler animation is built out of layers and every layer can have its own font. You can select a layer with the dropdown list box above the Play button.

### 6) Does BluffTitler come with any presets?

Yes. The installer comes with about 300 ready to use demo animations, presets and examples covering almost all possible effects.

You can open a demo animation with the menu item File > Open Show.... You can play an animation by pressing the Play button.

The best examples/presets can be found in the online gallery.

### 7) May I use demo animations in my own videos?

Yes, that's the whole idea!

### 8) Does BluffTitler run on my computer and is it suitable for my project?

We advise you to try the evaluation version before ordering. The purpose of the evaluation, or demo version is for you to find out if the program meets your requirements. You can download the free evaluation version here.

### 9) Is BluffTitler compatible with my favorite video and animation software?

The answer is yes. BluffTitler exports animations in the AVI format. This is the most widely supported animation format and every video and animation tool on this planet can import AVI files. You can export an animation with the menu item File > Export as Movie...

Tips for importing BluffTitler created animations into other software can be found here.

### 10) What is the best way to create a 2 hour video with lots of BluffTitler effects?

BluffTitler has been designed for the creation of short animations and special effects. We advice you to split your video into small BluffTitler projects and use your NLE tool to mix them together.

Tips for importing BluffTitler created animations into other software can be found here.

# Troubleshooting

### BluffTitler refuses to work on my computer or crashes regularly, what can I do?

BluffTitler combines the latest video and 3D techniques so make sure your system is up-to-date. In our experience it is possible to fix all stability problems by performing the following steps:

- First check out the hardware requirements to see if your system meets the minimum requirements.
- Make sure you are running the latest version of BluffTitler.
- Reboot your system.
- Update the driver of your graphics card. You can download the latest driver from the website of your video card's manufacturer. For example if you own a GeForce card go to www.nvidia.com and if you have a Radeon visit www.ati.com. Do not forget to install the driver after downloading.
- Install the latest version of DirectX.
- Update Windows at: www.windowsupdate.com.
- Free memory and CPU usage by not running too many programs in the background.
- Sometimes it helps playing around with the hardware acceleration slider in the control center of your graphics card.
- Set the colour quality of your desktop to Highest (32 bit).
- Do not push your graphics card to its limits by using the highest desktop resolution possible. By using a normal resolution like 1024 x 768 you save precious video memory that can be used by applications like BluffTitler. Also do not use super high resolution pictures.
- And last but not least: do not download our software from crack sites, update your anti-virus software, your anti-spyware software and your firewall.

### I am getting out of video memory errors. How can I free video memory?

- Do not spread you desktop over 2 monitors.
- Do not set your desktop to the highest resolution possible.
- Do no set your photo and video cameras to maximum quality.
- Do not set BluffTitler to maximum quality: choose Settings > Medium Quality or Low Quality.
- Do not use software antialiasing when exporting: select Hardware Antialiasing in the File > Export as Movie... dialog.
- Close all other applications.
- Turn off hardware antialiasing in the control center of your graphics card.
- Install a graphics card with more memory.

Remember that all pictures have to be stored as uncompressed textures on your graphics card. A JPG picture might be small in bytes, but the number of pixels is the only thing that counts. For example a picture with a resolution of 4096 x 3072 pixels always takes up 48 MB, no matter its filesize. And realize that by quadrupling the horizontal resolution the number of pixels increases 4x4=16 times!!! A resolution of 1024 x 768 only requires 3 MB (3x16=48)

### My NLE tool refuses to import BluffTitler generated movies.

Make sure the resolution and framerate of your BluffTitler project matches your NLE project. Choose File > Set Show Resolution... to set the resolution and choose File > Export as Movie... to set the framerate.

Tips for importing BluffTitler created animations into other software can be found here.

### My BluffTitler created AVIs are completely black, white or contain crap. What can I do?

This happens when your graphics card runs out of video memory and fails to report this to BluffTitler.

In the File > Export as Movie... dialog select the radio button Uncompressed AVI and select the dropdown listbox item Software Antialiasing - Low Quality or Hardware Antialiasing.

# Exporting as AVI

### How do I export a BluffTitler animation?

Choose File > Export as Movie...

### I am wondering what settings for saving to AVI would match the quality and clarity of the show as seen in BluffTitler.

A typical BluffTitler animation runs 60 uncompressed frames per second on a desktop resolution of 1600 x 1200 pixels. Burned on a PAL DVD this has been reduced to 25 MPEG-2 compressed frames per second, 720 x 576 pixels. Can you see the problem?

Unless you have a very fast harddisk and lots of memory, a video file is always a compromise between sharpness and smoothness:

Exporting the animation uncompressed gives you the best possible image quality, but it won't play without stuttering.

Exporting the animation compressed gives you a smooth playing animation, but the individual frames look not as sharp.

Please understand that this has nothing to do with BluffTitler or the AVI format. It is a limitation of the current hardware: harddisks and DVD players are not fast enough to play an uncompressed animation in realtime. For this reason exported animations will never look as good as when played in realtime by BluffTitler.

# Downloading and installing

### When I start BluffTitler I get the error message: This application has failed to start because D3DX9_34.dll was not found.

BluffTitler requires DirectX version June 2007 or later. Installing the latest version of DirectX will solve the problem.

### The installer does not work.

If the installer does not work (or if you do not like installers) you can download the application as a ZIP file.

### When I run BluffTitler it says: "Could not find any compatible Direct3D devices"

Most of the time this is caused by the fact that your graphics card does not support hardware vertex shading. Installing a better graphics card, like a nice NVIDIA GeForce or an ATI Radeon will solve the problem.

### How can I remove the irritating DEMO text?

BluffTitler is not free. When you buy BluffTitler you will receive the fully functional version with the irritating DEMO text removed. More info about how to buy BluffTitler

### What are the differences between the evaluation and the real version?

In the evaluation version the word DEMO is always visible in the render window and you cannot save shows and presets to disk. Apart from that, all features are enabled allowing you to fully test BluffTitler before you decide to buy it.

### Is it safe to install BluffTitler?

Yes. The BluffTitler installer does not install new or alters installed video codecs, DirectShow filters, DLLs or other system files. Therefore the performance of your other video and animation programs is not in danger.

If you want you can download the program as a ZIP file from the download page.

### Does BluffTitler run on my computer?

We advise you to try the evaluation version before ordering. The purpose of the evaluation, or demo version is for you to find out if the program meets your requirements.

### Is BluffTitler compatible with my favorite video and animation software?

The answer is yes. BluffTitler exports animations in the AVI format. This is the most widely supported animation format and every video and animation tool on this planet can import AVI files.

Tips for importing BluffTitler created animations into other software can be found here.

### How do I uninstall BluffTitler?

Choose Start / All Programs / Outerspace Software / BluffTitler / Uninstal or use the Windows Control Panel.

### My license keys fail to work, what did I do wrong?

Enter your license keys exactly as you received them. Please take care of the following:

- keys are case sensitive: 'Kwasiba' is not the same as 'kwasiba'
- do not add spaces at the end and the beginning of the keys
- did your mistook an 0(zero) for an O?

A good trick is to ask somebody else to enter you keys. For some reason it is impossible to see typing errors after staring at the same three words for longer than 10 seconds.

### How do I upgrade to the latest version?

- Carefully read the release notes in the program history.
- Check the new system requirements and upgrade DirectX if necessary.
- Download the latest version from the download page.
- Install the new version.
- Activate the application by entering your license keys into the program with the menu item Settings > Enter License Keys....

### What happens to my own shows when I install a new version?

The installer only deletes or reverts the files that were installed by the previous installer.

# DirectX

BluffTitler requires DirectX version June 2007 or later.

### How do update DirectX?

DirectX is available as a free download from Microsoft. Microsoft offers DirectX in 2 flavours:

- The DirectX End-User Web Installer
- The DirectX End-User Redistributable

The web installer is preferable because it only downloads the files you require and installs them fully automatically.

However, if the web installer refuses to work (or if you would like to install DirectX on an offline computer) you will have to download the redistributable. This installer is a bit confusing because it installs another installer that you also have to run.

When you run the redistributable installer it asks "where you want to place the extracted files". The files it extracts are temporary files that you can delete when the installation is completed, so it is best use a location like: d:\temp

One of the extracted files is DXSETUP.exe. This is the real installer that you also have to run. After running this file, DirectX is installed on your system and you can delete all the extracted, temporary files.

### Does BluffTitler require Windows Vista?

No, it wil run fine on Windows XP as well as on Windows Vista.

### Does BluffTitler require DirectX 10?

No, it requires DirectX version June 2007 or later.

### Does BluffTitler require a DirectX 10 graphics card?

No. For example it still runs fine on a GeForce 2. For maximum performance however we recommend a graphics card with at least 256 MB that supports shader model 3.

### I am running Windows Vista, do I also have to update DirectX?

Yes. BluffTitler requires DirectX version June 2007 or later, which may not be present on your Vista system.

### But isn't any DirectX 10 version newer than any DirectX 9 version?

Not according to Microsoft's logic. After Microsoft released DirectX 10, it kept releasing new versions of DirectX 9. This has probably something to do with the fact that DirectX 10 will never run on XP.

BluffTitler requires at least DirectX 9 version June 2007, which has been released after the first version of DirectX 10.

### But I do not want to downgrade my Vista system to DirectX 9

All Vista systems have DirectX 9 as well as DirectX 10 installed: they live side by side. When you update DirectX to the latest version, DirectX 9 as well as DirectX 10 will be updated.

### After updating DirectX, BluffTitler still complains about not being able to find D3DX9_34.dll.

Are you sure you have correctly installed DirectX? If DirectX is correctly installed the D3DX9_34.dll file can be found in the C:\Windows\System32 folder.

The redistributable installer is a self-extracting archive. When you run it you need to specify the folder it should extract to. Then once extracted, run the DXSETUP.exe from that folder to install it. Once run, you can safely delete the extract folder.

If you run the web installer then it does this for you.

### Does BluffTitler run faster on Vista?

No. The performance of BluffTitler depends mostly on your graphics card and less on your operating system.

# Using BluffTitler

### I have problems using the interface of BluffTitler, how do I start?

Take the getting started lesson or watch the video tutorial.

### How do I change the background colour?

BluffTitler uses the colour of the ambient light layer as the background colour. You can select the ambient light layer with the Layers listbox. Another option is to use the File > Set Background Colour menu item.

### How do I change the font size?

You can make the texts smaller and bigger with the Font Size property. When you select this property with the listbox above the three sliders you can use the first slider to change the font size.

### How do I change the texture?

Use the menu item Media > Change Texture... or press <F9>.

### How do I attach a particle layer to a text layer?

Select the text layer and use the menu item Layer > Attach Particles to active Layer....

### How do I rearrange the order of the layers?

You do not have to: layers are automatically sorted by their distance to the camera. Only in the situation where you have more than a single 2D picture layer, manually rearranging makes sense. To move a layer up choose Layer > Bring active Layer Forward.

### How do I change the size of the tool window?

You can't.

### How do I make a layer temporarily invisible during the animation?

Simply move the layer to an invisible position.

### Is it possible to change the random startup shows?

Yes. At startup BluffTitler loads a random show from the media/shows/startup folder. Feel free to place your own shows in this folder.

### How can I overlay a BluffTitler animation onto a video background?

You can export an animation with transparency info (32 bits RGBA) by choosing File > Export as Movie and selecting the Uncompressed AVI with Transparency radio button.

Alternatively you can do the mixing inside BluffTitler by using the video layer. Also some NLEs offer chroma key transparency. You can set the background colour in BluffTitler with the menu item File > Set Background Colour....

### Streaming Video Tutorial

Need a little help getting started with BluffTitler? This 25 minutes streaming video tutorial shows you the basics of how BluffTitler works! Sit back, relax and learn the basics of creating fun 3D animated titles with BluffTitler.

Watch the tutorial video

### Antialiasing

Looking for razor sharp computer graphics?
Find out how to beat jaggies in BluffTitler!

### My BluffTitler created AVIs run very slowly and never reach the end

This happens when the software or hardware you are using to play the AVI file is not powerful enough to handle the AVI you've created. Reasons can be: the resolution is too high, the framerate is too high or the file is too big.

For Video/DVD authoring tools, this is only a problem in preview mode because the video file/DVD it creates will player perfect (the WMV file Windows Movie Maker creates will play perfect), but if you want to watch the AVI on your computer you will have to use a lower resolution, a lower framerate or use compression.

### My favourite DVD authoring tool refuses to load BluffTitler created AVIs

On this page you can find tips for the most popular NLEs.

### BluffTitler can't use my favorite AVI codec

If a codec refuses to work you have to do some experimenting with different resolutions. Some codecs have strange limitations. For example DivX seems to work only with a limited number of standard resolutions like 640 x 480. If everything fails choose Microsoft Video 1 or Full Frames (Uncompressed).

### The video layer does not accept video files or renders them in a new window

BluffTitler uses DirectShow to play movies. This means that it can play every video format that has a DirectShow decoder filter installed on your machine. For more info see the video layer.

### BluffTitler refuses to run when another animation tool is running

Some programs lock system resources that might prevent BluffTitler from running correctly. Solution: close all other programs before starting BluffTitler

### Is it possible to add sound to my movies?

BluffTitler is a visual effects program and does not export audio. Use your NLE or Windows Movie Maker to add sound.

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