Countdown Effect

xer0n wrote on 2/23/2005, 10:48 AM

Im pretty new to vegas so i was wondering if someone could help me out.

I am trying to create a countdown effect from 50:00 all the way to 00:00 with every second changing. eg, 50:00 [1sec pause] 49:59 [1sec pause] 49:58.

That might not be too clear so here is a sample what im looking to achieve:

http://www.putfile.com/media.php?n=Countdown

I created this just by text and the prospect of having to change it every second doesnt thrill me.

I was wondering if there was a quicker way to do this

I have Vegas 5 and can get access to After Effects if needs be.

Thankyou
Ian

Comments

Spot|DSE wrote on 2/23/2005, 10:56 AM

Insert a 50 second empty text event. Drop a Timecode counter on that event in the Media Pool. Right click the event and choose "Reverse"

johnmeyer wrote on 2/23/2005, 11:00 AM

I created a Vegas VEG file that shows you how to do what DSE (Spot) suggested. It is on his site. It may require a (free) registration in order to download. Here is the link:

Count Up/Down Sports Clocks

Spot|DSE wrote on 2/23/2005, 11:02 AM

Thanks for posting it, John. I'm trying to avoid posting links to the site since I've come under a lot of fire from a couple people in the past few days for doing so. Sorta hard to ignore a resource as large as the site is though, and it's large in no small part thanks to your contributions.

jeff_12_7 wrote on 2/23/2005, 11:06 AM

Are you asking for 50 minutes? or 50 seconds? can't tell from your post...

Chienworks wrote on 2/23/2005, 11:10 AM

Well, as a quick experiment, i tried this:

- Place a solid black generated media event on the timeline for 50 minutes
- Add the timecode effect, set for "time"
- Use the cookie cutter to mask out all but the minutes & seconds digits
- Render this to a new file. You could choose uncompressed AVI at 1 frame per second if you want to save space and time
- Drop this new file in as the top track of your project
- Properties / reverse it
- Use chroma key to remove the black background, leaving the white digits floating on top

Tweak as necessary.

johnmeyer wrote on 2/23/2005, 11:20 AM

Thanks for posting it, John. I'm trying to avoid posting links to the site since I've come under a lot of fire from a couple people in the past few days for doing so.

Yeah, I saw that Spot. I can understand your reluctance to "draw fire." It isn't much fun getting yelled at. At this point in my life, I don't handle such things very well, so I've stayed completely out of those threads. I've had enough problems in my own life the past few months (which is why I "disappeared for two months), and I don't need to manufacture any.

Back to the issue of linking to other sites. My technique in answering people's questions in this forum is to post links to everyone's sites (inlcuding, once in awhile, my own). There is an amazing amount of stuff, in finished form, at these sites, and it is silly to write it all down again, when I can just link to it.

In fact, that more or less defintes what the World Wide Web is all about: Links!

xer0n wrote on 2/23/2005, 3:01 PM

Thanks everybody for there input.

I managed to get what i wanted using the method Chienworks described.