Auto-Generate Scripts (or macros)?

Lajko wrote on 2/26/2003, 7:16 PM

Suppose I have an effect or transition that is just the way I want. It may involve a couple of filters and a transition.

I want to use it many places and save it for other projects. How can this be done?

a. Is there any macro facility?

b. Seems scrips could do it, but it is a lot of work to go and again write a script and fine tune it. Can Vegas generate a script for a sequence so we can re-use it (or edit it if we wanted to tweek it.)?

c. You can run a script, but how about "Make a script from what I just did" function?

Comments

SonyPJM wrote on 2/27/2003, 11:04 AM

Sorry, there are no macro recording facilites in Vegas.

Lajko wrote on 2/27/2003, 1:38 PM

So how would I repeat a series of filters/effects when I want to use the same thing in many places? It would seem a lot of work, after designing the effect/filter you want to have to re-sedign it again by writing scripts and debugging them until they work.

A simple example is using a filter with a couple of key frames. Some filters have many settings. Another is a pan/crop where you always want an image to move to a corner of the screen. An use of this would be a segment where you give a short bio of all members of a team. You start with a full shot then crop and move it to the upper corner. Then you follow maybe with a bottom third overlay.

These repetitive tasks (10 people on a team maybe?) need some way to, well, repeat them. What would you suggest?

Maybe this is one Spot can answer. I don't recall getting into this subject when you were in Seattle for V.A.S.T.

jetdv wrote on 2/27/2003, 2:17 PM

I've had these same problems with a specific editing job. The answer is, I wrote a script to duplicate it. One way to make the script easier is to save each effect as a preset. Then, the script only needs to add the effect and pick the proper preset. I figured that even though I had to duplicate it, I only had to duplicate it ONCE for the script - instead of each time I wanted the effect.

SonyPJM wrote on 2/27/2003, 2:29 PM

You're correct... writing a script to have the right behavior can
often be complicated so I think the first issue to resolve is how many
times would you use it. Using your example, do you have to do just
one team or do you have to do a whole league of teams every season?
If you're only going to need to use the script 10 times and it is not
something super simple, manual editing is probably the best approach.
Or, in some cases, defining a filter package and/or custom effect
templates will speed things up just as much (if not more) than a
script.

Without specifics, I can't give too many how-to details here. But one
general concept I've toyed with for performing macro operations is to
extend on the idea of exporting and importing XML. There's a sample
script that exports an entire project as XML. Something similar can
be done to export just a selected event. Then, perhaps the XML could
be edited to form a template to be used by an import script. The
import script could read the template and "apply" it to any selected
event. The application of the template could be enhanced/customized
by event-specific parameters or be given a GUI to set specific
variables.