View Full Version : Fluid panning in Vegas?


Donald Blake
October 20th, 2008, 10:57 PM
Hi everyone,

I have a high resolution picture (7402x5124) and I was practicing panning and zooming in it at 720x480 (minimum), but it's really hard to get a nice fluid movement, I can only manage to move around in a jerking motion every time I change direction or zoom, is there a way to get that camera like panning from left to right then slowing down to a perfect stop and then maybe zooming in at variable speeds.

Is there a plugin or a trick? I'm new to all this, I'm using the Event pan/crop button.

Since we're talking about it here's a couple of other questions :
Is it possible to pan in a cercular motion?
Is it possible to achieve a "handheld" motion look?

Thanks!

Perrone Ford
October 20th, 2008, 11:07 PM
Vegas can do this natively with track motion.... but your pic is WAAAAY too big. Resize that thing to a max of 2500 wide or so...

Edward Troxel
October 21st, 2008, 06:42 AM
There's a couple things you can adjust to help get the changes you're wanting. First you can right-click the keyframes and change the type of keyframe (linear, smooth, fast, slow...) which helps control how that particular keyframe works. Then there's also the "smoothness" setting which helps control how it much it eases in/out of each keyframe. Adjust these two to get the results you're wanting.

Mike Kujbida
October 21st, 2008, 07:14 AM
Use Pan/Crop to do this, not Track Motion.
Pan/Crop will leave the image at it's native resolution while Track Motion will automaticallly scale it to your project properties.
If this is set to SD NTSC DV, that would be 720 x 480 which means any deep zooming will look absolutely terrible.

Jeff Harper
October 21st, 2008, 07:32 AM
You must practice with pan and crop, that's all there is to it. It just takes practice, there is no magic forumla.

and I agree track motion is not needed or what I would choose for simple pans/scans.

Perrone Ford
October 21st, 2008, 09:42 AM
Use Pan/Crop to do this, not Track Motion.

Yes, Mike is right. I meant pan-crop, but said the wrong thing...

I hate Mondays...

Mike Kujbida
October 21st, 2008, 10:11 AM
I hate Mondays...

Don't we all :-)

Donald Blake
October 21st, 2008, 10:12 PM
Thanks Guys for the info, I'll practice it asap.

To resume everything,
-To get my pans and zooms I must use the options with right clicking on the key frames.
-I can't pan in a circular motion, I can add as many key frames as possible to make it less jerky.
-Hand Held can be achieved only by experience and lot's of practicing.

Ali Jafri
October 21st, 2008, 10:32 PM
There are a couple of very good plugins for vegas that'll give you excellent handheld type motion from subtle to extreme. Do try BlueFX and proDAD. ProDAD will also stabilize jerky footage, great for a glidecam or steadicam movement feel, although it does zoom in on footage to achieve that. Hope this helps. Cheers.