Wax 2.0 Tutorial

Here's an in-depth tutorial on everything you need to know about Wax 2.0.
Here, we'll cover:
-Opening and importing
-Chroma key and quick 3d
-settings, saving, and exporting as an AVI file

Here's a short video i made using Wax. Of course, this is only using some of th
www.youtube.com/watche many features available.

Step 1: Getting Wax

wax is a FREE download, and a safe one. Just follow this link to the site: http://www.debugmode.com/wax/download.php

Step 2: Importing

Now, the first thing you must learn, obviously, is to import. Alot of people give up on wax because they can't import. But this is usually becuase the files they want aren't in the correct format. Wax can only take AVI files, as well as exports in AVI. If you have a file of a differentformat, don't worry. There is a free, non-trial converter called Leawo that has a wide range of video conversion, as well as audio conversion. Look for 'Leawo AVI converter'.

Now for the actually importing. There is a bar with tabs that say ,"Media bin" etc. You can see on the screenshot below where it is. Click on media bin, and click on the button that looks like a deck of cards. There is an image note on it. This will bring you to your files. Wax can take most picture files, AVI video files, and as far as I know, mp3 and WAV audio files. It may take others. Just click on the file or files and then press Enter or click 'open'. You will see the files appear in the media list. To drag them onto your timeline, just click and drag onto the timeline.

Step 3: Chroma Key

Some videos like to use chroma key, or using a green\blue screen. If you do not use either of these, skip to the next step.

Now we will start to use video presets. To open the presets, click on the second tab on the media bar.

A new interface will open in place of the media bin. There will be a list as follows:
General:
texture generator
quick 3d
pixel stretch
RotoMate
Warp(winMorph)
Shatter image

Color:
Chroma key

To use the preset, click on the item from the list, and drag it to the item on the timeline. You should see a dropbox appear under the item with the name of the preset. Click on the preset and you will get a list. With the chroma key, you will see a color bar, a color picker option, a tolerence level, and an invert option. Next to each of these you will find what appears to be a stop clock. Clicking on this stop clock will give another list, this time giving you four options:

None; Linear; Smooth; custom.

We'll focus on linear later. These stop watches appear next to all video presets.

To activate the chroma key, choose an item on the timeline with a solid, well lit background of one color. Chroma key means to delete a background to place the main image in a new background. Use color picker to select a color off of the background, or use the color bar to select from a color wheel. Then just adjust the tolerence until the background is keyed out.

Step 4: Quick 3d

Now, alot of times you'll want to change the file dimensions, or make the image move around the screen. To do this, drag the video preset, quick 3d, to the part you want changed. If you are using chroma key, make sure that quick 3d is higher up on the dropdown list under the chosen item than chroma key.

Now, click on quick 3d when it appears under the selected item. You will have a long list of options to chose from including cropping, rotation, size, and of course, the stop watches,among other things. The most used options are rotation, position, and scale.

Rotation: perphaps you can only green screen yourself standing, but you want to be laying down. With rotation, you can rotate your target. If you want the target to spin, click the stop watch, go to linear, and move your position indicator (the thing that follows with your film to show you where you are, it is noted below). Don't get it mixed up with the markers, which tell the film where to start and stop playing/exporting. Move this indicator over your first node, which will apear over any option that has a stopwatch effect activated. You can drag these nodes to different parts of the track, and add more if you change a setting while your indicator is not over the first two nodes. Now, the linear function means it will smoothly change the amount from the first to the next. Lets say you have the first node set to 0, and the next set to 7 in rotation. In the period between the two nodes, the object will spin 7 times and then stop. Now, if you added another node after the 7, and set it to -7 with the same distance between it and the 7 as the 0 and 7, it will spin in reverse with twice the speed. You can do this with all images.

Position: Posistion gives you a 3d axis; a y, x, and z. Y goes up and down, x goes side to side, and z goes forward and backward. You will see it as getting smaller and larger. Now, for linear selection, when you modify the nodes, look to see where the image is at on node and at the second node. It will go straight from one position to the second. Remeber, however, that if you  move the image outside of its range, you will begin to notice that it starts to crop out. The range of the image depends on the file size. For complete coverage, your file should be set to 320 x 240. Or, you can make the output file smaller by going to settings and editing the output dimesnions.

Step 5: Plugin Presets\ Transaic

Alright, almost done. Now we move to pllugin presets. This has several special effects, like particles and text effects. To use, again just drag from the list into the item on the timeline. Options will appear below that you can alter. In text presets, the there will be an option called text 3d where you can change what the text says. You also have an option to change the text color.

You may also want to transition between files. Wax a a great selectionto choose from. The next tab on the media bar is transaic.Drag and drop on a file. Now, the image you want transitioned into must be below, many times starting before the first file has ended.

Step 6: Saving\ Exporting

Finaly, to save, click the 'file' button on the upper left-hand corner. then, hit save. You may also press 'ctrl' s. Nothing else must be said about saving.

Exporting is a little more complicated, but still pretty easy. You first need to select your output quality. Usually you will want to select 'best quality (full)'. Then, go to project settings and change your video name, and decide if you want it to compose any audio you may have added or just video. Press 'ok' and proceed to rendering. To render, press the green arrow. It will begin rendering and the window will close when completed.


Ok, now you've finished your video in wax!

Step 7: Trouble Shooting...

wax isn't perfect and can come across some problems.

'Wax shutdown and said it performed an illegal operation': This means that there was a glitchand it had to shut down. Be careful, there is no solution to this and you will lose all of your work, so save periodicaly.

'Wax won't render. It says that some render engines must have pixels set to a multiple of four.': This can be a problem.I don't know why it happens, it usually, doesn't, but if it does you must redo the project. Try to make these videos in small segments.To avoid the hassle of spending an hour on a faulty file.

'When i open Wax, it says it can't open i\o file, and now i can't import!': Sometimes this will pop up, but you can get around it by closing wax and then re-opening it.

if you have any problems or questions, post a comment. You're welcome to post videos of your creations with wax.