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Many people are very excited about all the great new features that Sonic Foundry has developed in Vegas Video 3. It was difficult for me to decide on what to write about since there are so many new things available. I finally decided to share one of my techniques to simulate a 3D effect by combining a new filter called Deform with the Track Motion controls.
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Start by adding two splits at four seconds and six seconds on the timeline. The "S" key is a shortcut to create splits. This will create four events starting from the left we can call E1, E2, E3 and E4. If you want a slower spin, you have make your splits further apart on the timeline. Such as splitting at three seconds and seven seconds will give you a four second spin transition. I am going to make a two second spin transition.
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Another new feature of Vegas Video 3 is the Deform filter. This filter will give us a perspective look that allows us to create 3D effects. Insert a Deform Filter in E2 and another one in E3. You can click on the Event FX button in each event to insert filters or you can right click on an event and select Video Event FX and then "Add" the Deform filter.
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Place the cursor in the timeline at the start of E2 (timeline position of 4:00). Go back to the Deform filter menu and set the Amount to .500 (point 5) and leave all the other values set at their default positions. Click at the far right end of the keyframe timeline in the Deform filter window and drag the Squeeze Left all the way to the left so it is a value of -1.000 and drag the Squeeze Right all the way to the right to a value of +1.000. This should create a new keyframe at a timeline position of 4:29 that is at the end of the E2 event. Right click on the first keyframe and use a Slow setting for motion. You can also use Smooth, which is another new feature of Vegas Video 3. Right click on the last keyframe and make sure it is set as Linear. Type "Spin A" in the Preset field and then Save it by clicking the little floppy disk icon to the right. It is good to always save your work to use at a later time instead of always rebuilding everything. You can then easily modify sources and values.
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Now do the same procedure for the E3 Deform filter and reverse the settings. Set the first keyframe (timeline position of 5:00) to Fast and set the Amount to .500. Now set the Squeeze Left to +1.000 and Squeeze Right to -1.000. Set both Squeeze values to zero on the last keyframe. An easy way to set zero values is to double click on the handles of the Squeeze sliders. Set the last keyframe as Linear. The Amount .500 should be the same in all the keyframes of E2 and E3. Save this filter as Spin B.
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We now need to add the Track Motion. Place the timeline cursor at the start of E2 and open the Track Motion window by clicking the icon to the right of the name field in the track header. Make sure the Sync Cursor icon is enabled in the bottom left area and turn off the Lock Aspect button. It is the fifth button down the left side of the Track Motion window. Now click the + icon in the bottom row to insert a keyframe that will be at 4:00. Now add two more keyframes at 5:00 and 6:00. I position the Track Motion window so I can also see the timeline for cursor placements. The cursor will snap to the exact times by clicking the event’s edge. Select the middle keyframe at 5:00 and set the H Size value from 720 to zero and leave the V Size set to 480. This will collapse the left and right sides of the frame to a flat line in the middle. Name the effect Spin AB and Save it.
We can now preview the effect in the video preview window by selecting Play from Start. It will spin clockwise with perspective to create a 3D effect. Check out the new "Build Dynamic Ram Preview" under Tools. Select a loop region from 3:00 to 7:00 and go to Options-Preferences. In the Video tab at the top is a field to set the amount of ram you want to use for previews. The Help file says:
Vegas displays the maximum size of the RAM cache to the right of the control. You must leave at least 64 megabytes available for Vegas (more if you are creating complex projects). If you reserve excessive amounts of RAM for your RAM cache, performance may decrease.
Select a Ram preview by using Shift-B or click on it under the Tools menu. It builds the preview and then allows you to play it in real time.
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Besides doing a tutorial on 3D effects, I am also trying to demonstrate some of the many new features of Vegas Video 3. Another new feature is the keyframes showing in the timeline where we can tweak our effects. These are not event keyframes, but track keyframes. At the left edge of the track header are four little icons. Click the bottom icon and the Track Keyframes will expand in the timeline. You will see the keyframes we created in the Track Motion menu at 4:00, 5:00 and 6:00. We need to leave them in place since they are synced to our Deform filter keyframe settings. You could drag them to change effects for timing purposes. We can also right click them and set the motion values. These keyframes are also color coded to the type of motion they have assigned to them. Set the 4:00 keyframe to Slow, the 5:00 keyframe to Fast and leave the 6:00 keyframe as Linear by right clicking on each one. This will create acceleration at the start and move through the spin at a steady speed and eventually come to a slow stop when it reaches the end of motion.
One more step is to add a light source that gives it some realism as it spins around. A simple method is adding a Brightness filter to E2. Make sure you are in the Brightness filter of E2 and place the cursor near the middle of the keyframe timeline at the bottom of the window. The position is not critical because we can drag the keyframes to adjust their timing. Add three new keyframes with a little space in between each one. Select the middle keyframe and adjust the Brightness to a value of.25. You can now drag these keyframes to adjust their timing. We want to raise the brightness to give the effect that the video frame was hit by a light source that caused a glare as it was spinning around. This all is a matter of taste and "Less is Best." I set the left and right keyframes to Smooth and the middle keyframe to Linear.
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This is just a starting point to introduce some of the new features of Vegas Video 3 and some of the possibilities with 3D effects. Don't forget to experiment. Try using different timings, keyframe types, filter settings and motion settings.
Enjoy and be creative,
Gary Gowman
Copyright 2001 Gary Gowman. All rights reserved.
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