A Collage of Stills in Vegas 6

[solarblast]

I have about 90 stills that I would like to put onto the screen in 145 seconds as a collage. It's easy to do this if the stills are shown individually for a few seconds at a time. However, I want to blend these images one into the other. There is no intent to let viewers to clearly identify each still. Undoubtedly, they will, but that's of no matter. Is there a way to do this without spending a lot of time producing fades for each still.? For example, is it possible to easily drop these stills on the time like and specify that I want to insert a squeeze, barndoor, or spiral effect inserted between each of them?

I suppose I could put 45 (60) on one video track and 45 (30) on another, and let them overlay each other as they are shown. That, or a variation, has the disadvantage that there would never be a time when a single still would be completely visible on its own.

[dwill123]

"Easily" is a relative term but you could probably script the effect you want. I just can't tell you how. You should probably post this question in one of the Sony forums. Or you could try posting it here www.pana3ccduser.com. These guys are very good with Vegas.

[guns1inger]

I would use something like Microsoft Photostory with Papa John's output templates. You can put all your clips on the timeline, set the duration, and let it work out the pans/zooms/fades etc, or you can adjust them yourself. Output is WMV only, but Papa John's templates give a pretty good output. You can then load this into Vegas

[solarblast]

Are the Sony Forums part of the Video Help Forums? If not, where are they?

Don't have have Photostory and am not familiar with the templates you mention.

[solarblast]

Ah, I see the link to the Sony Forums above (in red). I just went there and see that I register by providing my true e-mail addres instead of a pseudonym. What prevents this site from address harvesting if the e-mail addresses are seen by everyone? Maybe once I've created an account, I get a choice for a userid not the same as my e-mail address?

[guns1inger]

Photostory is a freebie from Microsoft. Papa John's site is easily found through google (as are most things people here ask for).

[ScorpioDragon]

I have about 90 stills that I would like to put onto the screen in 145 seconds as a collage. It's easy to do this if the stills are shown individually for a few seconds at a time. However, I want to blend these images one into the other. There is no intent to let viewers to clearly identify each still. Undoubtedly, they will, but that's of no matter. Is there a way to do this without spending a lot of time producing fades for each still.? For example, is it possible to easily drop these stills on the time like and specify that I want to insert a squeeze, barndoor, or spiral effect inserted between each of them?

I suppose I could put 45 (60) on one video track and 45 (30) on another, and let them overlay each other as they are shown. That, or a variation, has the disadvantage that there would never be a time when a single still would be completely visible on its own.

Do you mean you want each still image to quickly transition into the next image without having to manually insert a transition between each image?, and maybe you want to be able to shorten the length of time each image is displayed? If so, have you tried the automatic overlap option? You can try this:

First, make sure the stills/images are NOT input into the timeline yet, then

Go to ----> Options, then select Preferences,

Click on the Editing tab and [1] make sure the "Automatically overlap selected media..." is activated/checked, and [2] then reduce value (the length of time) next to the "New still image length (seconds)" to a lower value. (Don't forget to select "Apply," then close the preferences window.)

Now, go to the Explorer tab (at the bottom left section of the main Vegas window), then select/hilight all of the stills you want to use, then drag all of them at one time into the timeline. This will automatically overlap each still.

(Try experimenting with the various settings on the Editing tab.)

Hope this helps somewhat.

[solarblast]

Well, the Sony sign-up procedure is a bit unconventional, but one does get to finally select a userid.

I'll try the suggestions mentioned in the post immediately above this (ScorpioDragon). I have set up that way, but checking it again wouldn't hurt. Perhaps it'll make what's happening clearer if I examine the process with say 5 seconds of time per still for 3-4 stills. That'll help determine what kind of transition actually gets used. As far as I read, it seems like only a simple fade is allowed.

[solarblast]

I found a reasonable solution on the Sony site. Here's one way to work this.

I've set up 5 stills of 4 seconds each. I click first and last frame as using shift-click. I then drag a transition preset into the crossfade area betweent he first and second stills (Events). It's the only one that gets transition. If I do it between the 4th and 5th, it works fine. That is, all the events have the crossfade. So there we are. It looks like there are some good possibilities here.

I'm trying to blend pictures of two families in a way that makes it look like they are coming together as one or a group. A dissolve between stills I hope suggests that. The occassion is a marriage. Maybe there are some plug-ins that get across the concept the stream of stills is merging into a single family (in some sense). For example, at the conclusion of displaying the stills, a single still appears with all of the preceding pictures in an array or scattered about the screen.