To create this tutorial, I'll use only Studio 12 Ultimate and Hollywood FX 6.0. I am not about to tell you that my little tinkering can replace the Montage themes. However, I was inspired by the Montage themes and that will allow me to show you, once again, the things that you can make using the combination of these two programs. I will use the demo film from Studio 12 (OurFunVacation.mpg) which is in the 16:9 format. In order to also create the HFX effects in 16:9, I will open HFX 6.0 directly from Studio 12 where I placed my first clip on the timeline, the HFX effects created will then be made in 16:9. Moreover, as one can not directly import HD clips into Easy FX Editor, this trick might also enable me to use HD clips while using the HFX effect and Easy FX Editor from Studio 12.

Step 1 : Creation of 3 HFX effects

Here is a brief summary explaining how these three HFX effects work. If you have followed our previous HFX tutorials, you should be able to make them with only the steps that are given below. Otherwise, you will find these three special effects in our download section in the "HFZ_Pinnacle-Montage-Theme.zip" file. In order not to mix these in with the Declic-Video HFX effects, they will unzip in a special folder named "Perso".

In the first effect, which I called "peel-a", there is only one object that peels itself and it uses the "Host Video 1" object. The object is scaled down to approximately 0.3 and placed in the lower right corner of the screen. For the object to unpeel, I reversed the peeling percentage. An envelope for this object is moved and resized to fit the screen at the end of the effect.

The second effect, which I called "unpeel-a", again there is one object that unpeels itself and it uses the "Host Video 1" object. The object is scaled to approximately 0.2 and placed in the upper right corner of the screen. No envelope is associated with this object. It's movement is provided by the "spring" transition below.

The third that I called "spring" is composed of three objects. A background image which was installed without my knowledge on my computer.... Two simple objects that will contain the media "Host Video 1" and "Host Video 2. Both objects have been reduced as you can see and an envelope was created to move them from right to left while reducing their size, so as to simulate a vanishing point.

There are many ways to achieve the desired result. I deliberately chose not to use the easiest or most "compact" because I deliberately broke up the movements. The goal here is not to hand it to you on a silver platter but to let you find out the different ways you can do this so you can use them in other applications. You are therefore free to change the settings anyway you like.

Step 2 : Creation of the main video track

Place clips 3 and 4 from OurFunVacation.mpg on the main video track and cut clip 3 so that the length of clip 3 is equal to the length of clip 4.

On clip 4, use the HFX Filter video effect. Then edit it and select the "unpeel-a" effect. This effect will unpeel the image on clip 4.

If you are following along, you should see something like this:

Then apply a Boris Graffiti title to clip No. 2, just to see the possibilities ... For this tutorial we used the "SqueezeOn.GRF" effect, but once again, you are entirely free ...

If you are following along, you should see this:

You will now insert the "Spring" transition between clips 3 and 4 then you will stretch it out until clips 3 and 4 are completely covered by the transition.

You should now see this:

And if you are following along, you should see this:

• The "B" image of  the "spring"  transition unpeels with "enroule-a" effect.
• The "A" image of  the "spring" transition displays the Boris Graffiti title
• The two images are resized and are moving by the "Spring" transition

Step 3 : Creation of the Overlay Track

On the overlay track, place a portion of clip 1 and clip 7 from OurFunVacation.mpg. Place the clip on the overlay track so it starts one second before the "Spring" transition placed on the main video track in order to make the connection invisible.

Then you make a razor cut near the end of clip 1 so the effect that you will use ends before the end of the clip.

If you are following along, you should see this: You'll see that the video on the overlay track takes up the entire screen.

This will be fixed by applying a HFX Filter on this clip. You edit this HFX and select the "peel-a" effect

And your viewer displays this :

• The "B" image of the "spring" transition is placed on top with the "peel-a" effect.
• The "A" image of the "spring" transition is placed on top with the Boris Graffiti title
• The "A" image of the "spring" transition is placed on the bottom and  unpeels with the"unpeel-a" effect, it moves and resizes to take the whole screen at the end of the effect by using the envelope
• The top two images move and resize by the "Spring" transition

Finally, you have to add a fade to black to clip 7 to finish the editing.

Note: we have not included any audio to simplify things but you can do so if you desire ...

Step 4 : Construction of the "Title" track

Finally, you can use the "Title" track that is still available ... Here I just used the track to add a simple horizontal scrolling. But the track still offers other resources and could well be used under certain conditions to add additional video ...

After all these changes, your viewer should look like this:

And if you're not yet convinced, then watch the finished creation:

Of course, there is no question you can use all these things simultaneously as I did here. But in certain circumstances, you can avoid intermediate rendering by applying only part of this tutorial, this will do until Studio offers a larger number of tracks which is more important as the desire of many users is to be editing in HD.

{Thanks to Loosecannon for the fine tuning}