Autocolouring
In this article:
Overview
Autocolouring allows you to take a file with speaker information and automatically colour the text belonging to each speaker in the most efficient way. Autocolouring scans the file to determine who the most frequent speakers are. It uses the results of this analysis together with the scene information (if present) to work out the optimum way of assigning colours to speakers.
The autocolouring mechanism colours the file according to the following rules:
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Adjacent speakers in the same scene are given different colours
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The most frequent speakers are given the brightest colours (in order white/yellow/cyan/green/magenta)
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The number of times that a particular speaker changes colour throughout the file is kept to a minimum
If a file does not contain any scene markers it is simply considered to be a single long scene.
Workflow
The autocolouring function is most useful after importing a script that contains speaker information. To autocolour such a file you would proceed as follows:
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Start by creating a new file based on the appropriate programme. This will initialise the colour template if one is available.
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Import the script to create the subtitles and populate the speaker list. The speakers in the imported file will be merged with those in the colour template to set the preferred colours for those speakers.
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In the Speaker List, assign any other preferred colours as required. For best results, do not assign too many preferred colours, i.e. you should normally let the system choose.
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Select any autocolouring options from the lower toolbar.
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Click the Auto Colour button. Wincaps Q4 will colour the file according to the rules described above.
Autocolouring controls
The autocolouring controls are located in the lower toolbar area of the Speaker List pane.
The controls works as follows:
Enable magenta - if enabled, autocolouring is permitted to use magenta. If not enabled, autocolouring will not use magenta except where magenta has been explicitly assigned as a speaker's preferred colour.
Ignore Scenes - if enabled, autocolouring will ignore any scene markers, i.e. the whole script is considered to be one big scene. If disabled, scene markers are used if present.
Manual colour override - if enabled, setting a colour for a speaker will cause all text for that speaker to be coloured immediately in the selected colour. This method will ignore any autocolouring rules. If disabled, setting a colour for a speaker will simply set the preferred colour for that speaker. The preferred colour is used when autocolouring is performed. The text will not be coloured until autocolouring is run.
Auto Colour - click this button to autocolour the file. Speakers will be assigned their preferred colours unless a conflict occurs, in which case an alternative colour will be used. Speakers with no preferred
colour are assigned a colour automatically by the system.
Access colour template - click here to learn about colour templates.