But fear not, there is a fix. Although a bit kludgy, there is a way you can solve this problem. So, if you are itching to create animated titles for your video projects, after just a minimum amount of work, you can do so.

First things first

You will want to make sure you are up to date on both OpenShot and Blender. Better yet, let’s go from a clean install and install the pieces manually. First let’s get OpenShot installed. If you are using Ubuntu greater than 9.10 you will need to follow these instructions:

1. Open up a terminal window.
2. Issue the command sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jonoomph/openshot-edge.
3. Issue the command sudo apt-get update.
4. Issue the command sudo apt-get install openshot openshot-doc.

You should now have the latest release of OpenShot on your Ubuntu machine. Now let’s get blender >=2.5 installed on your machine. Follow these steps:

Open up a terminal window.

1. Issue the command sudo add-apt-repository ppa:cheleb/blender-svn && sudo apt-get update
2. Issue the command sudo apt-get install blender

You should now have the latest version of Blender installed.

Configure Blender in OpenShot

You now have to make sure OpenShot knows where your blender executable is installed. The Blender executable will be found in /usr/bin/blender. Open up OpenShot and then click Edit > Preferences. In the resulting window make sure the Blender executable is /usr/bin/blender.

Apply the fix

Now for the fun part. In order to get animated titles working with CENTER alignment you have to run a fairly long command. The command must be run in the /usr/share/pyshared directory or it will not work. So follow these steps:

1. Open up a terminal window.
2. Change to the proper directory with the command cd /usr/share/pyshared.
3. Issue the command sudo sed -i 's/CENTRAL/CENTER/g' openshot/blender/*.xml openshot/blender/scripts/*.pysed -i 's/CENTRAL/CENTER/g'openshot/blender/*.xml openshot/blender/scripts/*.py sudo sed -i 's/CENTRAL/CENTER/g' openshot/blender/*.xml openshot/blender/scripts/*.pysed -i 's/CENTRAL/CENTER/g'openshot/blender/*.xml openshot/blender/scripts/*.py.

Yes the above command is all one line and it is very important that you run the command as such. You might see an error stating something to the effect that file(s) *.pysed cannot be found. That error is fine and will not prevent the fix from working.

Check the fix

This is simple. All you need to do is open up OpenShot, click Title > New Animated Title and then attempt to create a new animated title using the CENTER alignment. If you get no warnings or errors (which you shouldn’t) you are good to go.

Final thoughts

It’s good a solution for this problem is available, because the animated title feature in OpenShot is very nice to have. Animated titles make your video project all the more professional. Hopefully, in future releases, this will not be required.

The OpenShot Video Editor has a built-in tool for the creation of titles. With this built in tool you can create static or animated titles. Now, the title editor relies heavily on Blender >= 2.5, so you will need to have this vector graphics tool installed as well. NOTE: If you are using Ubuntu 10.10 the installation of Blender does not meet the requirements (it is 2.4x and not 2.5). For this to work you will need to install Blender from source.

Once you have Blender installed all you have to do is find out what directory has the Blender executable (open up a terminal window and issue the command which blender to find this out). Once you have that path, click Edit > Preferences and then enter the full path to the executable in the Blender section. You should also know there are issues with older releases of the Blender/OpenShot combination on Ubuntu causing titles that are CENTERED to not work. Hopefully this bug will be worked out soon.

You can begin creating your titles even before you have created your video. All you have to do is open up OpenShot and click Title > New Animated Title to begin creating your title. Of course you do not have to create an animated title. You can easily create a static title for your video and then spice it up with transitions and/or fades.

Let’s create a title

Figure 1

After you click Title > New Animated Title a new window will open for you to begin your creation (see Figure 1). As you can see, there are a number of different types of animated titles. And each different type of title will require you to enter different information/configurations for the end result. In my sample I have chosen a Blur title. For that title I must enter at least enter:

File Name: This is the file name for the resulting title file.

Title: This is the text for the title.

The rest of the configurations can all work with the defaults. If your installation has trouble working with CENTRAL (AKA CENTERED) just select a different alignment for your title text. When you’ve configured your title click the Render button.

As you might expect, the very term “Render” could bring your PC into the realm of slow motion. Even rendering a short title can bog your machine down…so don’t do any crucial work during the rendering process.

After the rendering is finished you will then have a fancy new title clip to add to your video project. To add the title all you do is click File > Import Files, navigate to where you saved the title, and add it. Naturally you will want to add the right title to the right location (as in Intro titles to the beginning and Credit titles at the end).

Final thoughts

OpenShot is an amazing tool for creating video projects for various purposes. The ability to create static or animated titles only heightens the level of professionalism to your video.

The video is available in the formats MP4, H.264, Ogg and MSMP4 and resolutions 1920×1080, 1280×720 and 854×480 as well as versions for Sony’s PSP. The direct downloads are rather slow at the moment and I suggest to use the torrent download for fast and speedy transfers.

Another option would be to view the video on Youtube (ok quality) or Vimeo (better quality).

The story begins a bit slow but it’s nice and entertaining. Have fun, exactly the right thing for a Sunday.