Copy and APPEND VideoFX from VideoEvent A to VideoEvent B in Vegas 15

fnab wrote on 5/22/2019, 11:57 AM

I am desperately trying to copy my VideoFX chain to another VideoEvent WITHOUT loosing its VideoFX chain that is already there. Vegas' built in copy and paste attributes just replaces the exisitng VideoFX chain when i paste those attributes.

For Example:

  1. VideoEvent A with VideoFX "Vignette" + "Noise"
  2. VideoEvent B with VideoFX "Blur"

I want to copy "Vignette" + "Noise" to VideoEvent B (with all it's keyframes and settings!)

Vegas' copy and paste attributes deliveres this (at least in vegas 15):

  1. VideoEvent A with VideoFX "Vignette" + "Noise"
  2. VideoEvent B with VideoFX "Vignette" + "Noise"

=> "Blur" just disappears...

I want this:

  1. VideoEvent A with VideoFX "Vignette" + "Noise"
  2. VideoEvent B with VideoFX "Blur" + "Vignette" + "Noise"

 

I used the vegasaur extension for it with the 30 day trial, which was pretty nice for this. But trial period is over now and 100$ is way out of budget for me. Every other plugin I found is either a trial too or not "ScriptPortal"-ready and compiled code, so I can't modify it on my own.

I can't find anything.

 

I tried scripting on my own but it doesn't want to work correctly. It always throws an exception saying "unknown effect plugin" when i try to add it to the effect chain of the clip i want to append the effects. (Similar to this: https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/copying-clip-fx-chain--75886/) Here is a little code snippet where i try to just append the first effect from A to B:

            VideoEvent firstSelected = (VideoEvent) FindSelectedEvents(myVegas.Project)[0];
            VideoEvent secondSelected = (VideoEvent)FindSelectedEvents(myVegas.Project)[1];
           //FindSelectedEvents returns all selected events in an array

            Effects effects = firstSelected.Effects;

            secondSelected.Effects.Insert(0, effects.ElementAt(0)); //crashes with "unknown effect plugin" exception

Am I doing something wrong?

Does anyone have a solution for my problem in general?

I'm happy for every little hint i get to find a solution for this issue.

 

thanks,

fnab

Comments

Former user wrote on 5/23/2019, 8:09 PM

@fnab

I would recommend Vegasaur because it does a lot for a price that I consider fair. Vegasaur is certainly one of the best investments a Vegas user can make. But as it is out of your budget I made a small video showing two ways to get the same result.

Method 1

Method 2

fnab wrote on 5/24/2019, 9:01 AM

Thanks for your ideas to solve this with a workaround and even for taking the time to record the videos. 😃@Joelson-Forte 

Unfortunately none of those solutions would satisfy my needs. Basically i need to copy "transition effects" made of plugin chains to a video clip which are split in A and B parts. that means i have to apply two chains per clip. I usually ended up with a dummy event (for example a simple text event) of which i copied the VideoFX with vegasaur to the other clip and rearranged my keyframes.

The only possible solution you brought me up to would be with double nested projects (because the original video allready may have some effects already). But this would be super extra work and i don't feel like that would be the right way to go. I don't get why vegas just doesn't come with such a basic functionallity 😑

And yeah, I agree with vegasaur beeing a very usueful tool, and the price is reasonable for what it delivers. But since i would just need the Apply/RemoveFX part of it the price is way too high for me. Also I just do video editing stuff for hobby, not really professionally. And i bought vegas for 25 dollars or so from a humble bundle deal. so that would be 4 times the price i paid for vegas itself.

Aaaand i still feel like, if they managed to code a script, that is doing that, so should I be capable of doing it. I don't need a nice UI, i just need a quick and dirty solution 😅 (thats what I am good at xD). Blacktools by Matt Carlson ( https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/24/982540 )  would be a free alternative, but unfortunately there is neither a source code available nor is it working with Magix Vegas where they use this ScriptPortal directive.

Former user wrote on 5/24/2019, 2:42 PM

@fnab

The transitions you say must be of the kind I have here.

I tested Blacktools by Matt Carlson here and it works fine. Unfortunately not copy animation keyframes and it only works until version 13 of Vegas.

I agree with you when you say vegas should have this option natively. All other NLE's I know have this option minus Vegas.

fnab wrote on 5/25/2019, 5:51 AM

@fnab

The transitions you say must be of the kind I have here.

I tested Blacktools by Matt Carlson here and it works fine. Unfortunately not copy animation keyframes and it only works until version 13 of Vegas.

I agree with you when you say vegas should have this option natively. All other NLE's I know have this option minus Vegas.

Exactly!

I didn't test Blacktools, since I only own Vegas 14 and 15. But if it doesn't copy animation keyframes it kinda disqualifies itself for my purpose.

 

Anyway I am heavily coding right now and i might have found a way to accomplish it exactly how I would need it, at least for OFX Effects. I think vegasaur was only capable of copying OFX too, as far as I remember. Since i only learned java and need to implement it in C# it is a bit tricky for me. But I am looking forward to present my solution when I'm done :D

Former user wrote on 5/25/2019, 5:48 PM

Yes,

Vegasur Direct Copy feature can only copy the effects of the plugins that use OFX technology and Vegas has some plugins that use DX technology, and in these plugins Vegasaur Direct Copy does not work. But Vegasaur can still manually import DX effects into Apply/Remove Fx and apply them to selected events or media.

If all goes well, your script it will be a very useful. I'm rooting that everything works out. I am also looking forward to seeing the result.

fnab wrote on 5/29/2019, 8:38 AM

Alright, this is what i coded lately:

A neat little extension with the very basic functionality for the solution of my problem.

It can:

  • Read Effects from one or multiple VideoEvents
  • Append a selection or all effects to one or multiple VideoEvents
  • Copies effects with keyframes and all settings (i hope, looked good tho)
  • Has custom commands which can be executed like a script for "ReadFX" and "AppendFX" (basically similar to a button press)

I am not sure if the custom commands work properly, if the GUI isn't showing or at least has been initiated. Need to test it further. Also give it some time if there are many effects or effects with many keyframes. Vegas isn't responding to anything when the extension is busy. I might add a progress bar in the future, to avoid confusion.

I tried to code it in a modular way, so that further extensions can easily be integrated (like adding more tabs to it) which i plan to do.

Things i might mess around with in the future are markers which i want to use to automatically change velocity or adding effects to clips with a specific group of keyframes for animation. I want to speed up the process of making my "Rocket League Compilations" which consume quite a lot of time. My projects always look like that, and i wanna automatize some steps:

Also I am thinking about extending the current copy effect functionality with things like copy and read from trackFX or MediaFX (which I don't even know lol). And I wanna have a way to add effects - more precise their keyframes - at the end of a VideoEvent, like you would need for the "A" effects from those transition effects we mentioned earlier, so that i don't have to move them manually (which is buggy sometimes to select all keyframes? xD).

 

Anyway I am quite happy with how far i already came. I even made a cool logo for it, when debuging stressed me 😅

You can download the extension from my google drive:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1qyJE3m1kBeKHnQ-do2HidAbNaad79XL3 (click the top right download arrow button to download the whole .zip)

I'm thankful for any feedback, bug report or any message from anyone that wants to use and test it. Or even any ideas what could be useful to implement.

Zulqar_Cheema wrote on 5/29/2019, 9:59 AM

Not working on 16, sorry

 

fnab wrote on 5/29/2019, 11:48 AM

Not working on 16, sorry

 

I only tested on Vegas 15, but I just installed Vegas 16 trial on a fresh virtual machine, added my extension to the specified path (I had to create the folder tho) to reproduce the error but it works with no problem. Except the icon in the menu didn't show up in front of the string, for whatever reason...

 

Vegas specifies following locations where it is looking for application extensions

C:\Users\<username>\Documents\Vegas Application Extensions\ 
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\VEGAS Pro\16.0\Application Extensions\ 
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\VEGAS Pro\16.0\Application Extensions\ 
C:\ProgramData\Vegas Pro\16.0\Application Extensions\ 
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Vegas Pro\Application Extensions\ 
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Vegas Pro\Application Extensions\ 
C:\ProgramData\Vegas Pro\Application Extensions\ 

 

If it's in there somewhere, I have no clue, why it won't run. What's the message saying, if you click on details tho? Maybe this might help me to narrow down on potential root causes.

EDIT: If i try opening "Fnab.dll" with Tools->Scripting->Run Script and open the file there, I get the exact same error. This is not the way how to use this, since this is no script but an extension. You just need to copy the files to one of those paths and start Vegas, then go to View->Extensions->FnabFX and the window should appear which can now be resized and docked to the UI.

Marco. wrote on 5/29/2019, 11:58 AM

Here it works fine in VP16 b424. Installed into the folder you suggested in the info text. Toolbar icon doesn't apear, either.

Former user wrote on 5/29/2019, 11:33 PM

@fnab

I installed your extension in the standard Vegas extensions folder that stays in C:\ProgramData\VEGAS Pro\Application Extensions.

Here it worked fine in Vegas Pro 14 Build 244

Only the icons that should appear in the Toolbar and in the Extensions Menu that are appearing blank (See yellow arrows). Other than that, everything else works properly. Thanks for sharing!

 

 

lan-mLMC wrote on 6/15/2020, 7:49 PM

@fnab Can you add DirectX support? And integrate command into context menu?

fnab wrote on 6/16/2020, 12:47 PM

@fnab Can you add DirectX support? And integrate command into context menu?

I'm sorry, but I don't really work on this extension anymore. Things changed a bit lately and I basically lost interest in it.

I can't help you with the DX Support but as far as i remember, i added something to add commands to keybinds, which you could use if it would be helpfull.

Has custom commands which can be executed like a script for "ReadFX" and "AppendFX" (basically similar to a button press)

I just don't remember too much unfortunately 🙁

lan-mLMC wrote on 6/16/2020, 8:39 PM

@fnab It's a pity to hear you aren't interested in that any more.