How to move cropped clips in Sony Vegas?

[Jon.G]

Ok, so I'm trying to figure out how to move an object in Sony Vegas. Should be simple enough.

But, every guide I've found online shows how to use the pan crop to do this. This isn't an option for me since I'm already using it.


See, what I'm doing is, I have 2 video sources of the same thing, and the one that's on top has something in the bottom right corner I want to place on top of the source that is under it. So, I used the crop to crop it down to only that bottom right part, and set it to not stretch to fill the screen. So, now I have the bottom right corner showing, and it's in it's original location.

However, my 2 sources don't align exactly, so I want to just nudge it over a little bit.

Any guide I find online suggests using the pan crop. But, I can't, since it's already cropping it. If I move it around, it doesn't move the whole clip, it moves what is selected to be shown.

I need a 2nd pan crop on top of the pan crop I've already used.


How do I do what I'm trying to do? Is there a guide online someone could point me to?



Thanks.

[poisondeathray]

don't use crop - mask out the top layer using the pen tool, then move the top layer

[Jon.G]

Ok, my video editing skills are.....growing....so, I don't know what any of that means yet, but have a feeling I will soon.

Could you explain how to do what you are suggesting, or refer me to a guide that will?

[poisondeathray]

In the event/pan crop dialog , in the lower left corner there will be a checkmark box under position, mask. Check it

Pick the pen tool (I think it's called "anchor creation tool", but looks like a pen tip) , draw a box or shape around where you want the mask to be. You just move the cursor and click points where you want the mask vertices to be. It's analogous to photoshop drawing masks. This will be what "covers up" the lower layer .

You can move the top layer by selecting the keyframe and moving it freely wherever you want

[aedipuss]

i think what you want to do is use the track motion effect. click it on the track you panned/cropped and you should be to move the result around.

[Jon.G]

I did this project in Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 9.0, which is lacking the mask checkbox. Normally I would be using vegas pro 10, but for some reason 10 pro doesn't like my .avi file and wouldn't let me drag it into the session, so I happened to have that 9 version still installed from earlier, and found that to work, which has limited me a bit, but worked up to this point. Now if I try to open the project in 10 pro, it gives me a codec error trying to open the .avi I couldn't drag in, so I'm not sure why 10 is throwing a fit over the codec....

I don't want to use a track effect. I did look at the track motion, but anything I did in there seemed to change nothing. Plus, I have several clips in this track that need to be moved individually.

[poisondeathray]

What kind of AVI ? What codec? Use mediainfo if you don't know

If Vegas 10 Pro is the 64bit version, you would need 64 bit version of that codec used by the file

[aedipuss]

individual clips can be put on separate tracks and then track motion can operate on just what needs to be moved.

[aedipuss]

sequence of work

[Jon.G]

Well, that makes sense, 10 is 64 bit, so I'll have to track down a 64 bit codec and that should take care of that.

That will also take care of my track limitation issues, so I can then move things on to their own track and track motion it.



However....is there a guide that will easily explain how to use track motion? I looked at it, and can't seem to get it to move anything around.

[aedipuss]

turn track motion on. move your cursor inside the internal rectangle, it should turn blue, hold down the left mouse button and drag the video to where you want it.

[Jon.G]

Ok, but now I absolutely cannot get 10 pro to work with this damn codec, and 9 limits the number of tracks, so I'm stuck.

My avi is using the huffyuv codec. I've found guides online for installing it to windows 7, and found a download for a supposedly 64 bit version, yet the guide I found said it doesn't matter both should work. Well....neither work, anytime I try to open the project in 10 pro, it gives me the codec error, and won't let me add the avi to a new session.

What gives? Could someone guide me to software or codecs that actually work?

[poisondeathray]

ut video codec is another lossless alternative - comes with x86/x64 installer (both) , and works with all programs (Adobe, Sony , both 32bit and 64bit versions) in Win7 and XP (Not sure about Win 8)

[Jon.G]

This seems highly inefficient to have to put each little clip in it's own track....why is it track motion, and not clip motion? Clip motion would make so much more sense, to be able to do the motion on the individual clips rather than the entire track.

[Jon.G]

Bit too late to change codecs now, the video is already recorded in, the editing already done, I'm stuck with it.

[poisondeathray]

Bit too late to change codecs now, the video is already recorded in, the editing already done, I'm stuck with it.

You're not "stuck" with it , you go lossless codec => lossless codec . Or am I misunderstanding what you're trying to say ?

Maybe you've finished the major edits, but you're obviously not "done" , or you still would be doing this

[Jon.G]

So, you're suggesting I convert my avi file to a new one? But then....I have a completely new file, and have to redo all my edits......I'm not sure I understand what you're suggesting I do.

[poisondeathray]

ok you lost me. I thought you wanted to use vegas pro, files that works ?

If you've already done a lot of work in vegas studio , you can export out a lossless video , then import that into pro

To answer your other question, you can replace clips in vegas (I think it's right click , replace) . I think they are all automatically replaced if vegas can't find the first one and they are named the same but placed in a different folder

[Jon.G]

I'm not ready to export, I still need to do things to my session.....ugh......no one is following what I'm doing.


Ok, take 1 old VHS tape of an episode of Friday Night Videos recorded in 1983 from antenna at EP mode, record it into your computer using huffyuv, and you get a bigass 1.5 hour file of god awful quality due to the signal being recorded, method of recording, and age of source.

So, you go to youtube, and grab better looking versions of the music videos, and go to your CDs and grab better audio.

You spend hours laying out a session that replaces as much video and audio as possible, but you still want the original text that appears at the end of the video, hence the cropping thing. So...after hours of work, you get everything lined up, things fading between sources when they need to be, audio synced up, and a nice session laid out, except that your clips at the ends of the video with the artist and song titles don't align perfectly.

Since you used the huffyuv codec, you have to use the 32 bit install of vegas that you happen to have, which is studio, and limits you to 4 video tracks and 4 audio tracks apparently, as it won't let you add more.

You then find out, the only way it seems to move around your cropped clips is using track motion, because no one ever thought that clip motion might be a useful tool, stupid sony programmers.

So, that means each of those little cropped clips that have been isolated out and cropped in the session now need to be in their own tracks, so they can each individually be track motioned, because I'm absolutely insane and need those texts to preserve the integrity of the original program.

Which would mean, since no one has found me a way to do this motion thing on individual clips, I now need to get this project to open in vegas pro 10, which will allow me to add more tracks.

However, my vegas pro 10 64 bit doesn't like the huffyuv codec, and any methods found online do not have any effect on vegas pro 10 64 bit. It just won't do huffyuv it seems.




So......how do you go about fixing this problem? How do you get the cropped corners to line up? Is there a way to do motion on the clips within the vegas studio version? Is there another tool that will just let me nudge these damn things? Or is doing the track motion the only option, which means I somehow have to get this bloody project open in vegas 10 pro 64 bit?

[Jon.G]

Ok, so while I was waiting for a response, I re-encoded the big ass huffyuv avi to the ut thingie you recommended above.

For some reason, when opening the project in pro 10, it has been expecting this file to be in a different location and asks me to locate the file, which was perfect, since I could then tell it to use the newly encoded file.

It seems to lay out the new file fine, so...I now have my session in vegas 10.



However....this is going to make for a messy project now. These clips I need to nudge, are each a few seconds, and there's 16 of them. It seems rather ridiculous to have to have 16 video tracks in addition to the tracks I already have, each for the purpose of a few seconds of video.


Why is there no option to clip motion? Why does it have to be the entire track?

[poisondeathray]

The "clip motion" works through the event/pan crop described earlier , by selecting the position keyframe .

EDIT: so you were able to get vegas pro 10 to open a .veg file from an older studio version ? I new pro/pro was compatible but I never knew it could open other versions

[Jon.G]

I don't understand why it was designed to rely on a crop tool for clip motion. That's absolutely stupid! Crop is for crop. By doing this, this creates exactly this problem, the inability to clip motion cropped clips.

Hey, sony programmers, if you're out there, MAKE A DAMN MOTION TOOL SO A CROP CAN BE USED AS A CROP!!!!!!

[Jon.G]

Track motion is BULLSHIT for nudging!!!!!!!

I try to make an adjustment, and it creates a keyframe. I DON'T WANT A KEYFRAME, I WANT IT TO APPLY TO THE ENTIRE DAMN CLIP, THIS IS THE WRONG TOOL FOR THE JOB, WHY HASN'T THE RIGHT TOOL BEEN MADE?

Because now when I try to make a 2nd adjustment to get my nudge and sizing just right, I DON'T GET A STATIONARY NUDGE THAT I WANT, I GET DAMN MOTION WHICH I DON'T WANT


Ugh....this is so damn annoying, all these hours of work, and it's gonna go down the drain because NO ONE THOUGHT TO MAKE A DAMN CLIP SIZING TOOL!

Is there something out there that will do the damn simple thing I want it to do?

[poisondeathray]

Track motion is BULLSHIT for nudging!!!!!!!

I try to make an adjustment, and it creates a keyframe. I DON'T WANT A KEYFRAME, I WANT IT TO APPLY TO THE ENTIRE DAMN CLIP, THIS IS THE WRONG TOOL FOR THE JOB, WHY HASN'T THE RIGHT TOOL BEEN MADE?

Because now when I try to make a 2nd adjustment to get my nudge and sizing just right, I DON'T GET A STATIONARY NUDGE THAT I WANT, I GET DAMN MOTION WHICH I DON'T WANT


Ugh....this is so damn annoying, all these hours of work, and it's gonna go down the drain because NO ONE THOUGHT TO MAKE A DAMN CLIP SIZING TOOL!

Is there something out there that will do the damn simple thing I want it to do?

It's true, it might not be entirely intuitive for this in vegas (other editors do it differently)

The way I would do this in vegas, is with masks as mentioned earlier. Simplest way in vegas IMO

But for keyframes in general for any program - if you want the keyframe to apply to the entire clip, make sure the keyframe is on the 1st frame, and playhead is on that keyframe when you make adjustments. That's 1 keyframe for the entire timeline . If the playhead is elsewhere and you nudge, a new keyframe will be set and you will get interpolation between those keyframes

But if that was desired (you actually want movement and other keyframes), right click the keyframes for interpolation types. If you want no movement between keyframes, you might need to set a keyframe before or after you want changed.

[aedipuss]

you can always do it the long way. put what you want to crop on the timeline, crop, export lossless. i use sony yuv for these type edits. then use what you've cropped. the track motion tool is actually very good.

[_Al_]

In Vegas use cookie cutter. It comes handy numerous times. Use cookie cutter on clip to mask video and then use pan/crop to move it.

[budwzr]

The way Vegas does pan/crop and track/motion as separate domains makes perfect sense.

No, it's not intuitive, but once you get it in your head, it works great.