I didnt try using a mask but I tend to think it won't work.

I'll give it a go and get back to you.

Auggy

The way you describe it, you should be able to do this quite easily using the cookie cutter. Just duplicate the track. Set one to B/W and key frame the cookie cutter to follow any movement.

ok it cannot be done easily.

The cookie cutter only has preset shapes that can only be sized in a locked aspect ratio (no options).

Thus animating from a square to a rectangle is not doable.
however you can use the track motion to resize the square to a rectangle but thats all you can do.

To get it b/w in the square you would have to create a mask and make the track color and then make it follow the square.

I think it can be done but using like 3 tracks.
track 1) the square (cookie cutter) resize using track motion
track 2) video in color and mask (mask follows track 1)
track 3) same video as track 2 but in b/w+

auggy

You can't put the cookie cutter on a track. It's an effect that must be applied to an event. The only way to put the cookie cutter on track one is if you have some video clip on track one as well.

. .and again, this is an example of wanting to be able to post a JPG of what to do. C'mon Sony - sort this out. There are some great Galz and Guys just aching to get things right for people. Please?

Auggy, take a look at http://www.vegasusers.com/vegshare/textdisp?chienworks-morphing-mask

This uses only the bezier mask function of the Pan/Crop tool. I put duplicate video clips on tracks one and two, applied the mask to the clip on track one, and B&W to the clip on track two. I added 2D glow from track motion to track one to get a white outline. It's very very crude but it should give you an idea of how to proceed.

Just did it with Bezier mask. It takes two tracks. The bezier mask tweens across the frame, changing from a square to circle.

1. put the two clips on a track, and add whatever transition you want.
2. render the area you'll mask to a new track
3. Apply BW filter to the original events.
3. Use event pan/crop on the new rendered clip and draw your square at the point you desire.
4. Go to the next timeline spot in the pan crop tool and then move/reshape your mask shape. Vegas will tween the shape from one keyframe to the next.

Now, the frustration will be with the bezier tools. They don't have canned shapes so you have to shape everything yourself. The simplest thing to do would be to turn snapping on while you adjust the point. Alternatively, You could make some guide images in photoshop to help you draw and shape you bezier masks. Just add them as takes to the color layer. and then switch back and forth between takes.

Rob Mack

Forgot about the white border, but Kelly didn't. His method works, but I'd be considering making this tween in flash at this point. Create a flash 4.0 swf file and bring it back into Vegas. I assume that will work and give a little more control.

yea, thats exactly my point.

If the brez, had pre shapes it would be much easier.

I do however appreciate you guys tipping me with 2 tracks as I will master that method. So thank you

It would be much easeir to add borders and and precut shapes though, to the masking tools : )

Auggy

kelly,
I'm using V5 and it does not load :(

bummer!

I'l try to follow the instructions anyhow.

Aug

To be sure, more capabilities in the vector tools would be useful. The bezier mask is currently built specifically for making masks, not shapes with frames, nor arrows, boxes, callouts, thought bubbles, whatever. Sometimes these are nice to have, and people currently use a dingbat font for most of this, but then you can't really tween the font shapes. So you just can't have it all.

It's normal for people to take these special needs out to another program for compositing. Unfortunately, Vegas has so many usable compositing features that we're all inclined to want it to do everything. It doesn't.

Rob Mack

I had a tweening "flash" (pun intended) but it didn't pan out. I placed a white generated material on top of black generated material, added the Iris transition and the Mask Generator FX. I then keyframed the Iris transition to go from circle to square. This creates the desired mask EXCEPT Vegas doesn't tween the shape transition... it just abruptly changes from circle to square. If it did do a smooth transition this would be a neat way to create animated masks in Vegas. Perhaps Vegas 7?

Jerry