pan/crop and track motion

[Baldwin Li]

Hi folks,

I'm editing an opening sequence for a HD feature in Vegas and am pretty new to it. I'm using lots of split screen and movement - think the start of 'The Thomas Crown Affair' (the original Steve McQueen one) or the opening of '24').

As far as i can tell the only way to achieve the pan/crop i've outilned in the attached diagram is to use a combination of Pan/Crop and Track Motion but not the Pan/Crop clip function alone. This means that I will have to make a Video Motion keyframe for every clip which is locked to the timeline therefore when i do any edits to the clip I'll have to change the keyframe position... somewhat frustrating. Is there any remedy to this aside from going back to using Premiere (which I'm used to and has a far more sensible clip motion/resize system where you resize the actual picture rather than the frame around it)?

The reason Im using Vegas is cause it seems to handle native HDV well and Ive been pretty happy with it so far for this rough cut. Maybe it just isn't really cut out for complex opening sequences (I'll be dding titles as well) and I ought to use something else?

Cheers,

Baldwin

[Jarrod Whaley]

This is a very good question; it's something that I've had trouble working around too.

If anyone knows of a solution to this problem within Vegas, I'll owe that person a beer.

What I usually end up doing when I need an effect like this is to do it in After Effects and then export it uncompressed with a gamma layer. This works and it's not too much trouble, but I'd much rather accomplish this in Vegas.

[Edward Troxel]

Use Pan/Crop to crop down to just the one person. Use Track Motion to position the person as desired.

[Jarrod Whaley]

Ed, that appears to be what he's already doing. He's looking for a way to avoid using track motion because he wants to keep his keyframes on the event level instead of on the timeline.

I don't know if what Baldwin would like to do here is possible, but I personally think it should be. There are quite a few things about event pan/crop that really get on my nerves, and this is one of them.

[Ian Stark]

In other words what we would like is a 'Clip Motion' function? I'm with you guys.

My solution (I'm sorry to say) is the same as Jarrod's - out to AE then back in again.

[Graham Bernard]

Originally Posted by Ian Stark

In other words what we would like is a 'Clip Motion' function? I'm with you guys.

My solution (I'm sorry to say) is the same as Jarrod's - out to AE then back in again.

One word - "Nesting".

- g

[Ian Stark]

Any chance of expanding to more than one word so the slower among us can understand!?! ;-)

[Graham Bernard]

Originally Posted by Ian Stark

Any chance of expanding to more than one word so the slower among us can understand!?! ;-)

Indubitably, dear heart!

#1 - Make a separate Veg of THAT one event, and do to it what you want - P/C or TM.

#2 - Bring it BACK into the main proj as a nested VEG and either TM it there OR P/C it there.

Nesting allows for whole OR single events to be brought into a headline project as PURE media. Meaning, what you DO to them within its OWN Veg is carried over.

I use Nested veggies in many ways. They are a complete Godsend, and have provided me with Creative Solutions that weren't available prior to Nests - think that they "came-out" in V6?

I suppose you could go even further and Nest Nests within Nests. This would give you some amazing control of what you did to EACH event- "Out of Vegas to AE? Tish tish!! Gadzooks Sir Starkie!"[ Grazie slaps thigh as per swashbucklin' pirate - and exits stage right ]


Nesting - ain't just "for the birds"

- Grazie

[Baldwin Li]

Thanks for the replies everyone. Just been experimenting with nesting and it seems like a pretty good workaround for the lack of a 'Clip Motion' function although I suspect it will still be more time-consuming and fiddly to have a hundreds of .veg files for each clip than using Premiere or After Effects.

Thanks for pointing it out the nesting function Graham, I'll definitely be using it a lot more, I did know about it but had played around with it much. I like the fact you can have several Vegas projects open at once... But for this opening sequence I'm afraid I'll probably leave Vegas!

Cheers,

Baldwin

[Brian Brown]

First off, I'm a longtime (and somewhat frustrated) Premiere Pro user. I downloaded the Vegas trial about ten days ago and have been playing around with it.

Baldwin, you should be able to do what you're trying to do by creating a mask to crop your image and THEN use the pan/crop tool to move the image where you want it in the frame.

You could also use track motion IF you wanted that same relationship in every shot (event), for each track in the timeline.

At first blush, I find Vegas to be very intuitive and fast from a "cutting video" standpoint. However, I find it's overall motion control a bit cumbersome, and nesting *.veg files is fine... but many of its NLE competitors allow nested sequences from the same project file and multiple timelines.

What Vegas wins in spades is its total "format agnostic" interface, and beautiful down-rezzed HDV content. If its motion control was a little better, I'd switch over yesterday.

HTH,
Brian Brown
BrownCow Productions
http://www.brownland.org/blog/

[Jarrod Whaley]

Originally Posted by Brian Brown

Baldwin, you should be able to do what you're trying to do by creating a mask to crop your image and THEN use the pan/crop tool to move the image where you want it in the frame.

Well, whaddaya know! That actually does work. By far the best solution to this problem, IMO. I have no idea why I didn't think of that myself.

Brian, I guess I owe you a beer. Do you like PBR? :)

[Brian Brown]

Hey, glad to help, Jarrod. ironically, it took a Vegas-newbie to come up with a solution *grin*. Seriously, though, I use motion sooo much in PPro, I just had to find out the best way to "pan and zoom" in Vegas.

As for the beer, I'm here in beer-nirvana (Colorado), so I've developed a pretty keen taste for the high-end stuff. Not to toot my own horn, but I also have this little beer-related sideline I do: http://www.beeriodic.com/ In your neck of the woods, there's a place called Big River Grille & Brewing that has a special spot on the Table (see attachment). Anyways, you can buy me an Iron Horse Stout there if I'm ever passing through.

Cheers,
Brian

[Baldwin Li]

Hmm yes the mask plus pan/crop method does work and is great for doing bezier curve masking but I just want to cut out a right-angled rectangles from the source which is almost impossible using the anchors. I can create a mask using another video layer I guess but that ends up being just about as fiddly as the separate .veg files solution... or am I missing something?

Cheers,

baldwin

[Graham Bernard]

Originally Posted by Baldwin Li

Hmm yes the mask plus pan/crop method does work and is great for doing bezier curve masking but I just want to cut out a right-angled rectangles from the source which is almost impossible using the anchors. I can create a mask using another video layer I guess but that ends up being just about as fiddly as the separate .veg files solution... or am I missing something?

Cheers,

baldwin

Baldwin, tell me, just exactly what are you trying to achieve here? Why do you want to "cut-out" rectangles? - Are you wanting to do picture in picture?

G

[Baldwin Li]

Originally Posted by Graham Bernard

Baldwin, tell me, just exactly what are you trying to achieve here? Why do you want to "cut-out" rectangles? - Are you wanting to do picture in picture?

G

I just want to use rectangular portions of the source material and have them in different parts of the frame. I dont want to do picture-in-picture. Ive attached snapshot of the kind of thing I want to achieve.

Baldwin