sure - and color gradient is probably what your gonna need - but your going to have to do some composite (at least the method I am thinking). If you want to fade to black then put your shot on line four, and above that on line three add your mask - which is your color gradient.-white to black or transparent depending on the effect you want- {round or square - or any shape you want if you want to make a png file in a photo program and import it} then all you have to do is get the parent child relationship right , fine tune the shape and use key frame to set the timing. Set the mask(line 3) to multiply (the little green box). play around with the mask by clicking on the little green piece of film. You can adjust the size shape color and make it transition using keyframe (that time line at the bottom) Be sure to pay attention to your keyframe. (ex - if you go from a small box at the beginning of the event to a large box at the end of the event - the default length is ten seconds I believe - then VMS will generate a transition from each point.

If you want to fade to another shot just bump those two up same setup and put your final shot below - making sure the line 3 composite arrow is up (parent child) then drop the opacity of your mask (line 2) to reveal the video on line 4

not sure how well I explained it in these few lines - if you go to vaast they have some good examples of compositing

by the way on the gradients you can make the edges sharp or "fuzzy" by playing with the control points ( and you can add your own).

if you want blur try the gaussian blurr - which you can add to the shot or the mask for that matter

alternate method for blur:
1)line one solid color mask
2)line two blue border with transparent back - change the color to white and set your width - composite mode multiply (mask)
3)line three add your video composite mode source (alpha) with arrow up (towards border) - add your gaussian blur here
4) line four add duplicate video souce aplha arrow down

there's probably an easier way but its the second thing that popped into my head

have fun with it

~ thanks for the leads. is it possible to break down what you're saying into asomewhat easier terms at all? i'm using VMS4 with only 3 video tracks. what do you mean by "compositing"? the reason for the transparency would be to get rid of periferal "junkiness" in the shot i want to overlay (the shot is already cropped to fit nicely with the one its going to overlay so i can't zoom in any further to push the junky background out of the frame.) i appreciate you explanation but i'm kind of getting lost.

thanks!

Sorry about that my - comments were for Vegas Movie Studio Platinum version 6
Compositing is putting together different elements into a video which is what you are doing actually. In VMS 6 - they have added more powerful tools to play with.

I still have my version 4 and it has its limitations, but if I understand you correctly you already have the video and overlay set up like you want but just want to trim. For you I would say go to video fx tab, cookie cutter, and select a shape that suites you (probably a rectangle) and drop it on your video. If you select the green box at the lower right of your clip it will open up a window with lots of options for size, shape, color, blur,etc. and you can feather the edge if you wish. You can add control points if you want to make a variation on the shape.

You may also want to try simply adding a border to your video. It is under the FX tab. Again, once you apply the effect you can click on the green box to modify the settings and adjust it to "hide" the stuff you want.

hope that helps

thanks! did the trick. nice feathered edges that conform around the subject of the shot. just one thing, i have it fading to black right now which doesn't look bad but i couldn't see anything that would allow it to fade to transparent. i tried the color chart set on both RGB and HSL but transparent doesn't seem to be available. would that be correct?