Credits not rolling

GEJ wrote on 6/30/2008, 7:52 PM
Hi all.

Something strange is going on; but I'm sure someone here will have a solution (and an explanation of what I'm doing wrong!)

I decided to insert a credit roll at the end of the video I recorded this past weekend. I used "plain scrolling on black". Edited the text to my liking; but whatever I do, it just doesn't show up in the preview (nor in the rendered project).

The only time I can see my credits is when I resize the credit roll on the timeline; then it is visible in the preview window.

To make sure that I'm not totally insane yet I created a new project, with just the credits, and that works fine.

What am I doing wrong? Using VMSP 8.0d.

Comments

Ivan Lietaert wrote on 6/30/2008, 9:38 PM
Here is one possible exlplanation: perhaps your credit roll is on a track that is inactive/muted.
GEJ wrote on 6/30/2008, 9:52 PM
No, the credits are on the same track as the recorded video, and it's active.

But, now that you mentioned it; I did do some more investigating. I have a video track (credits included), an audio track, a text track (empty so far) and another video track that displays a club logo.

Video and audio tracks are the same length of course, around 30 minutes. The logo's track has that exact same length. The credits start after all other tracks finish.

Now, when I mute the logo track (basically a simple .png file that is inserted and plays from the beginning to the end of the main video) then the credits are visible. If I don't mute it then the credits just show a black screen.

The main video track is set to Source. The logo's track is set to Multiply.

I've been playing with this for a number of hours now. Surely there's something very basic that I'm missing...

Any other ideas?
MSmart wrote on 7/1/2008, 12:47 AM
The logo's track is set to Multiply.

Try changing it back to Source Alpha. Right click on your logo, choose properties then click on the Media tab, for Alpha Channel, change it to something like "Straight (unmatted)" or one of the other settings if necessary.
GEJ wrote on 7/1/2008, 8:15 PM
No, I'm afraid that doesn't do it either. I tried all different settings there, but nada...

Maybe I'm just approaching this whole thing the wrong way. My logo is a full screen size image, white background, with the logo itself in one of the corners. I figure there must be an alternative way.

As a workaround, I have rendered the video and logo to a file, then created a new project with the rendered avi, and the credit roll attached. That works fine, and the second rendered project looks good.

So the problem has been circumvented; but I'd still like to find out why it didn't work with the first method...

Thanks!
Chienworks wrote on 7/1/2008, 9:00 PM
The problem was the multiply setting, which is applied to the entire duration of the track whether there's an event there or not.

Multiply worked where your logo was, sort of, because white is equal to 1 and black is equal to 0. Wherever your logo was white, Vegas multiplied the contents of the track underneath by 1. Anything multiplied by 1 is still the same thing so you didn't even notice what was happening. Wherever your logo was darker this caused the video behind it to darken too.

Now, after your logo was over, there was nothing left in that track. Nothing = black which also = 0. Mulitply anything by 0 and you get 0, which is black. That meant that anything behind the nothing, namely, your credit roll, was converted to solid black! Had you continued your logo over the credit roll you would have seen it. Other simple solutions would have been:
- add a white generated media event on the logo track over the credits
- place the credit roll on it's own track, separate from the logo and video tracks
- used chroma key to remove the white background instead of multiply
GEJ wrote on 7/1/2008, 9:41 PM
Thanks Chienworks, for once again coming up with an excellent reply to my less than perfect skills!

After posting my previous reply I realized that I had somehow answered my own question. Instead of using a white background, I should have used a transparent background. I was staring myself blind at the fact that it just happened to "work" (the logo bit) with a white background...

I have changed the logo to a png file with a transparent background, left the track properties to alpha instead of multiply, and now everything works great.

Of course: I do appreciate your expert, yet easy to understand explanation. I admit that I still have a lot to learn; and that I wasn't quite sure what "multiply" meant. Now I do, and I thank you for it!