Vegas Pro 10: Multiple transitions for an image

[Kazuyuki]

Greetings.


I'm overlaying an image over my video (image in Track 1, Video in Track 2). I want to add fade and zoom transitions to the image.

The way I did it: I fade-out the image by right-clicking it and choosing a fade type. Then, I tried adding zoom (as well as envelope points and transition progress) which, indeed, worked. At least, for the zoom. The problem: My previous fade-out transition got replaced by the zoom.

Is it not possible to do that?


Regards,
Kazuyuki.

[bigass]

If you're doing a 'zoom' with Event Pan/Crop, that's separate from the fade and should remain regardless of of what transitions or fades you add to the head or tail of the event. Fade and transition can replace each other, though. Event FX are independent of all of those. If the "zoom" you're talking about is actually some kind of transition, it will probably override whatever fade you selected.

[racer-x]

Just manually fade it by dragging top left and/or right corners in.

[budwzr]

What tool did you use to "zoom"?

Perhaps your keyframing introduced an anomaly.

Possibly some things have to be flattened before proceeding, or done in a different order, to achieve what you want.

Also, you said ... "The way I did it: I fade-out the image by right-clicking it and choosing a fade type." And I don't see that on the right-click event dialog box. So that's confusing. Your "sequence of operations" doesn't make sense.

[Kazuyuki]

@budzwr
My mistake. I did what racer-x has stated. The frustration must have got the best of me.

@bigass
I was using the one from 'Transitions' (Zoom Out, Center). Using keyframe zooming seemed to be a hassle (and that I thought I could add multiple transitions as I usually do with buggy Pinnacle). If only Vegas has a landmark/reference point of some sort, that would make my life easier. Probably it's time to work with Premiere.


I thank you all for the helpful feedback.

Regards,
Kazuyuki.

[_Al_]

you have x,y coordinates for positioning and rotating in pan-crop, they can be separate)
you copy clip (right click/copy or ctrl+C), and right click another clip,"paste event attributes", if you do it often, perhaps you can generate keyboard shortcut for it too
this way you will copy whatever you set on first clip to the other

[budwzr]

Vegas is perfectly capable of doing your very simple edit.

I think I know what went wrong in your project.

Transitions "can" override a fade, especially if you used the sample drag-and-drop ones. A fade AND a transition cannot exist in the same space.

So what you will learn eventually is to use "Composite Levels" to do hard fades. IOW, fade the track, not the event. There's a hierarchy in VegasPro, so you can grab the same tool from the next level up. You'll notice the icons are the same for Event, Track, and Video Buss.

A fade or transition is normally done as a simple compositing. But you haven't got to that level yet, to see the cat skinned from the other side.

And VegasPro has a super clean layout, but a lot of depth. The better tools are somewhat obscured. You have to dig a little deeper.

Premiere is way buggy too.

[Kazuyuki]

[...] use "Composite Levels" to do hard fades.

Yes, this is the one that I've been looking for. This would help in the near future. Thanks!

There's a hierarchy in VegasPro. [...] And VegasPro has a super clean layout, but a lot of depth. The better tools are somewhat obscured. You have to dig a little deeper.

That's the parent and child compositing, right? (Though, I have yet to see a use of track motioning for my project)
So I see it's true that Vegas is really deep. This is exciting, just like game mechanics. :)

---
One question: The image that I'm using to overlay have a transparent background. In 'Video Event Pan/Crop' when I'm creating the anchor points, is it possible to display the video in the image's background? Or what alternative masking techniques I could use?

Info: The image is a person sitting on a chair facing away from the screen, and the video has a scene with a sofa. I'm masking only a certain area of the body to make it look as if the person is really sitting on the sofa.

[poisondeathray]

One question: The image that I'm using to overlay have a transparent background. In 'Video Event Pan/Crop' when I'm creating the anchor points, is it possible to display the video in the image's background? Or what alternative masking techniques I could use?

Info: The image is a person sitting on a chair facing away from the screen, and the video has a scene with a sofa. I'm masking only a certain area of the body to make it look as if the person is really sitting on the sofa.

Not enough information

Is the person in the foreground, and the sofa the background ?

What kind of movement is involved with the camera, and person ?

A better description and screenshot would help

[budwzr]

The Bezier Mask results can be viewed in the preview window.

Alternative masking options depend on the source material, like PDR said. Some of the "Masking" tools have names and primary functions that seem to have nothing to do with masking, but can be critical to certain fX.

Parent/Child has to do with "grouping" tracks, so operations occur as if that group of tracks is flattened.

Track Motion allows you to "slide" the frames in XY direction.

3D Track Motion allows XYZ manipulation. You can flip and rotate the frame(s).

It takes a while for these, and other tools, to really sink in, as far as what they're good for, and how they can be combined to do almost anything.

VegasPro is all about chaining and layering. That's why individual tools seem inadequate at first glance, but when you combine tools you start to transcend that.

"Masks" can be chained as well. First one captures the shape, second one captures the edge, third one softens the edge. Then you add colormatching, fX, etc. It's a total process.

You've got to play with all the individual tools and get them embedded in your mind, then your mind will automatically select them for you as you work. Like a construction worker has many tools, and intuitively knows which to use for a given job.

The stucco doesn't go on until the framing is complete, hahaha.

[Kazuyuki]

.
Top screenshot: A scene in the video, and the image to be used.
Bottom screenshot: The result that I'm going for.

It would be better if somehow I could see the background, so I could precisely mask the body parts with respect to the surrounding sofa(s).

What kind of movement is involved with the camera, and person?

The scene just zooms out (from the center) a bit and slowly for 3-4 seconds. I had this taken care of with keyframe pan & zoom applied to the image as implied in my previous post.

@budwzr
Thanks for the insight. I'll see what my limited creativity can do.

[poisondeathray]

It would be better if somehow I could see the background, so I could precisely mask the body parts with respect to the surrounding sofa(s).

If you've already masked out the person - there is no need to do extra work or to see the background in the event pan/crop masking window. Just do a rough mask out the couch & put it on a layer on top to "cover up" parts of the person, then you can fine tune the position for person

Top Track: copy of the backgound video, but rough mask around the couch to "cover up" the person
Middle Track: person, positioned to where you want
Bottom Track: background video

Video tracks on top "cover up" tracks below

[Kazuyuki]

If you've already masked out the person - there is no need to do extra work or to see the background in the event pan/crop masking window.

Yeah, it's a simple example; just need to prepare myself for the upcoming challenges. :)

Just do a rough mask out the couch & put it on a layer on top to "cover up" parts of the person, then you can fine tune the position for person

Top Track: copy of the backgound video, but rough mask around the couch to "cover up" the person
Middle Track: person, positioned to where you want
Bottom Track: background video

Video tracks on top "cover up" tracks below

Got it. Thank you!

[poisondeathray]

If you've already masked out the person - there is no need to do extra work or to see the background in the event pan/crop masking window.

Yeah, it's a simple example; just need to prepare myself for the upcoming challenges.

What challenges ?

The couch mask doesn't even have to be exact , it's called a "rough garbage matte" because you just do it very roughly , only important to be precise on the top edge of the couch where it meets the person. The rest of the bezier mask is very quick, should take no more than 2-3 seconds

Does it make sense ?

To do the zoom in this example, you set the top layer as "parent" , so tracks 2, 3 become "children" of the parent . You adjust zoom or cause any user defined motion by adjusting "parent motion" button on track 1 , not the "track motion" button. This way all 3 tracks move together and your 3 track composite acts as one and "sticks together"

[racer-x]

I just want to add that I like making my masks in an image editor like PhotoShop or Paint.NET (free), then import. It lets you be more precise. Just export a frame for reference.

Your project is pretty simple however, so the Vegas masking tools should suffice.

[budwzr]

You need to position the scrub bar through all the images to see them in the preview.