Comments

JohnnyRoy wrote on 3/20/2003, 8:10 AM
> [SonicDenis] Isn't this EXACTLY what SpiceMaster does, and much (much (and with version 2, much)) more? Plus, it comes with a gazillion gradients to do it on.

Yes, and its also more expensing than Vegas! I paid $199 for my upgrade from VideoFactory to Vegas 3 and I just paid $149 for my upgrade from Vegas 3 to Vegas 4. How am I supposed to justify another $199 for SpiceMaster just to get a gradient wipe?

It’s way too expensive. Yes, I understand that a "professional" can afford it, but a hobbyist like myself can’t justify the price just to make personal videos. I understand it does so much more than just a gradient wipe but I don’t want so much more. All I want is a simple gradient wipe like Studio 7 has and Premiere has and I don’t want to spend more money on the plugin then I paid for the whole NLE application!

Perhaps you could consider it for inclusion in a future version, or make it a free download for Vegas customers, or convince Pixelan to make a light version, which only does a gradient wipe and is much cheaper (they make a $19 version for Microsoft Movie Maker users), or you can create a C# version of the Vegas SDK and I’ll try and create my own which I would make freely available.

We realize that SpiceMaster does this and we’re also not buying SpiceMaster. So obviously more people that just myself feel its not worth the high price for such a basic transition that other NLE’s include for free with the base package.

~jr
JohnnyRoy wrote on 3/20/2003, 8:49 AM
> [jetdv] For the first keyframe, set the luminence values to 1, 1, 0, 1 (going downward). Set a second keyframe at the end and set the values to 0, 0, 0, 1.

Good point... and if you use 0.9, 1, 0, 1 and 0, 0.1, 0 1 instead, you will get a soft edge on the wipe. Vary the amount of 0.9 and 0.1 to vary the soft edge.

~jr
earthrisers wrote on 3/20/2003, 10:25 AM
Great thingy, and greatly easy to use... THANK you!
Ernie
rohde wrote on 3/20/2003, 1:21 PM
Thanks, jetdv, for you input on this.

The only fallback on the whole use of compositing to accomplish this is that after the transition, the parent track has to be filled with white in order for the "to" video to continue showing up.

This is where I think the transition would greatly help out.

Learning lots and lovin' it!

Thanks guys.

-Rohde
jetdv wrote on 3/20/2003, 1:57 PM
Not if you move the TO video to track 3 as soon as the tranisition is complete. Just split track 2 at that point and move the remaining piece to track 3.

Track 1: ___________PPPPPPPPPP_______________
Track 2: ___________TTTTTTTTTTT_______________
Track 3: FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
rohde wrote on 3/21/2003, 12:09 PM
jetdv wrote:
Not if you move the TO video to track 3 as soon as the tranisition is complete. Just split track 2 at that point and move the remaining piece to track 3.

----

Yeah, except when adjusting transitions for whatever reason, you now have to deal with two tracks, and possibly keeping in sync motions / effects between two tracks.

Playing with it, I think I'm OK with just extending the gradient over the entire clip, and then moving the keyframes to adjust the transition.

The thing I like in this method (mask generator) over the standard gradient transition, is that it can be toyed with in how it transitions.

For example, I tried putting the end / begin points like suggested originally, and then putting a middle keyframe with the levels set to normal, mapping the full gradient to the full alpha channel range.

This way, it start out with a fairly sharp entrance - get extremely soft in the middle, and ends sharp again.

-Rohde