Vegas 6: Nested Projects - what are they?

[nzo]

I don't understand the purpose of nested projects in Vegas. Can anyone kindly explain what they do, preferably in plain English?

Many thanks.

[guns1inger]

Nested projects are exactly that, projects inside projects.

Why would you use them ? To simplify the timeline without having to do an intermediate render.

Example: You have created a complex motion title sequence. You have several clips all moving together to create complex overlays. You have text drift in and out. The whole thing is 7 or 8 timelines running together. Now, you want to put that at the start of a new project, as the opening titles. In the past you would have had to either copy and paste the whole thing, or render it out as a clip, then load that clip into the new project. When the new project was rendered out, that clip would be, potentially, re-encoded, risking quality loss. Now, and added complication, you have to vary the speed of the titles by 10%. So you go back, adjust the original project, render it out again, reimport it. Pain in the arse.

With nested projects you can import the project onto the timeline like a single clip. You can apply FX chains to it, change the speed of it, and render it out as part of the final video, without risking quality loss. If you have used After Effects it is essentially the same as a nested composition.

Image designing a standard title background that you can load into an project, and just vary the text overlay, but instead of loading all the clips each time, you just load a .veg file. Simple and clean. If you need to change one of the sub clips, just change the original title project, and that change then flows into all projects that use that project on the timeline, but without the need to actually render it out.

[nzo]

Got it guns1inger! Thank you for your very clear explanation. VideoHelp are fortunate to have a teacher like you on these forums.

[slacker]

This is in English but in object-oriented programming terms. Today, programmers produce code by creating "objects" of functionality which can be called upon by name through the life of the program. These objects are manipulated using methods and events. Methods act ON an object and events happen TO an object. Think of a project as a free-standing object. And think of "nested projects" as your ability to create your own objects which you can use within other projects. So, to use a simple Sony example, I could create a project which displays a watermark in the lower right hand corner of the video, save it, and then call it up and re-use it in every new project I create going forward. That way, I 'm not continually re-inventing the wheel as they say. The projects become reusable as objects. Comprende?

[nzo]

Gracias amigo - entiendo.

[nzo]

guns1inger - nice little blog you have there. Do you get much commercial video work?

[guns1inger]

Enough to keep me busy. I have a few things going at the moment, that being part of it.