crossfade across tracks

bruceo wrote on 1/4/2008, 8:09 AM
I often move groups of clips off of the master tracks to other tracks to add track based effects on the group. When I come to the end of the group and the last clip "crossfades" into the adjoining clip on the track below I normally fade out the clip on the top into the clip below, but this is not a proper crossfade like on all the crossfases done between clips on the single track..... How do I make a proper crossfade across tracks in Vegas?

Comments

Grazie wrote on 1/4/2008, 9:11 AM
double post - apologies . . Grazie
Grazie wrote on 1/4/2008, 9:12 AM
Bring that section back as a Nested Veg and it WILL be treated as as ONE event. So then crossfades and so on will apply! Dead easy.

Grazie
Chienworks wrote on 1/4/2008, 10:06 AM
What makes it not proper?
craftech wrote on 1/4/2008, 10:39 AM
Yeah seriously. They have to overlap either way. I often do them just the way you said.

John
bruceo wrote on 1/4/2008, 10:41 AM
"What makes it not proer"

Crossfade two clips on 1 track then move the first clip up and fade out into the 2nd track. Comparing the 2 you will see that it is not a crossfade but more like an additive dissolve, it actually goes dark midway through the transition. I thought this is where I would use A/B editing mode, but I don't remember how to turn it on or if it is even still a feature...
bruceo wrote on 1/4/2008, 10:46 AM
Nested make sense, but that seems way to messy and I have often had problems with final renders from nested projects although I have not tried it in V8b
craftech wrote on 1/4/2008, 11:16 AM
it actually goes dark midway through the transition.
=========
Right click on the fade and change the fade type to a more gradual one. Or move the track below a little more to the left. Or both.

John
Former user wrote on 1/4/2008, 11:24 AM
Don't fade the lower track, only fade the upper track.

Dave T2
Chienworks wrote on 1/4/2008, 11:32 AM
Exactly, only fade the upper track. At the halfway point Vegas will use 50% of the upper track and fill in the other 50% with what's below. If you faded in the lower track then at the halfway point you'd be adding in half of the lower track, which would be 50% + (50% x 50%) = 75%, instead of a full 100% brightness. Man, i phrased that badly, but i hope you can see what i actually mean.
bruceo wrote on 1/4/2008, 5:23 PM
That's what I do. Fade only the top track using default fade and no fade in on the bottom and the bottom clip starting at where the top fadeout starts. Just cross fade the two clips on 1 track and then across tracks and you'll see it is not the same.

Here are 2 clips with 2 second crossfade one is butter the other is not very good.

http://www.firstsightpictures.com/crossfade.wmv

http://www.firstsightpictures.com/crossfadeacrosstracks.wmv
Former user wrote on 1/5/2008, 7:31 AM
On the second one, both tracks are fading. You should only fade the UPPER track. The lower track you leave up full the length of the fade.

Do not fade both tracks.

Dave T2
bruceo wrote on 1/5/2008, 10:44 AM
It is not fading. The top track fades in and the bottom track has no fade out or vice versa . I noticed that in shorter crossfades it is not as noticeable as with longer crossfades. Here is a screengrab http://www.firstsightpictures.com/crossfade.jpg
Former user wrote on 1/5/2008, 11:52 AM
Yes, according to youur screengrab, you are doing it correctly.

Just out of curiosity, what happens if you change the Envelope Fade Curve?

It really looks like a double fade but apparently it is something else.

Dave T2
farss wrote on 1/5/2008, 12:30 PM
What is the upper track's compositing mode?
The screenshot was too tiny for me to see it.

Bob.
Grazie wrote on 1/5/2008, 12:48 PM
You have a Track Fx applied to the upper track. What is it? And where/when does it take effect?
Grazie wrote on 1/5/2008, 12:54 PM
. . and you've got an Event Fx on the lower. I'm now wondering whether you've got 2 Fxs vying for effect AT some weird temporal point of change - ie the fade?
farss wrote on 1/5/2008, 1:01 PM
As far as the actual fade part I just tested this:

Two projects only difference is one does the fade on the one track, the other does the fade between tracks. Render both out, invert one and add the two. Result is 50% grey without variation.

Conclusion, both methods produce the exact same outcome.

As Grazie has discovered however if you're applying a track FX, all bets are off, especially if it's something like CC. The track FXs are applied after the event envelopes which is the reverse of how it works when doing crossfades in the one track. I think using track composite envelopes will get you to where you want to be but I'd need to drag out the manual to check that.

Bob.
bruceo wrote on 1/6/2008, 8:11 AM
Compositing mode is default and the track fx are color corrector and brightness contrast. Why would track fx make a difference, it is just fading out one frame into the other? If I put the same effects at clip level and crossfade on tracks it looks fine as in my example. Not being able to put it on track level and make a proper crossfade defeats the timesaving purpose of putting similarly treated clips on one track for fx treatment vs havng to apply them across clips. It would be nice to be able to paste attributes, but Vegas sucks when it comes to pasting attributes because it doesn't give you an option as to which attributes to paste like FCP does, so it pastes everything everytime....
Grazie wrote on 1/6/2008, 8:30 AM
Have I missed the point here, Bruceo, but why aren't you do this ALL on one track and running the long shot INTO the midshot? Same track? Why the heavy weather? i don;t see what you are gaining? I must have missed the plot here . .

Grazie
Harrie_G wrote on 1/6/2008, 11:54 AM
I agree with you Bob.
When you crossfase a clip on a single track both clips are "added" during the crossfade.

When you use fade in and fade out simultanuously on two tracks, how the corssfade looks like depends on the compositing modes.

According to what happens on a single track, you should set the compositing mode of the upper track to "Add".

Then you get a true crossfade.

Harrie
bruceo wrote on 1/6/2008, 6:03 PM
"Have I missed the point here, Bruceo, but why aren't you do this ALL on one track and running the long shot INTO the midshot? Same track? Why the heavy weather? i don;t see what you are gaining? I must have missed the plot here . ."

I wouldn't think I am alone in this workflow, but I cut up all of my footage and get it all paced and tight on one track and then once I am happy with it and begin color grading I will put the groups of clips with similar grade treatments on one track and appy the treatment at track level and then only apply a few curves tweaks on certain clips that need fine tweaking. so in an average 20 minute piece I probably have 6-7 tracks with different color treatments. This saves a ton of time on longer edits so I don't have to individually color 500 clips. I would try to keep it all on one track and just cut and paste the treatments to a group of clips but Vegas' cut and paste attributes is too rudimentary as it only has the default option of applying all attributes (velocity,opacity,fx etc etc)

I don't understand how the default source alpha compositing mode would make a difference based on FX on the track or clip a fade out on an upper track should fade in anything on the lower track evenly based on the envelope curve nothing to do with FX.....?
farss wrote on 1/7/2008, 12:09 AM
Your methodology is very sound and there's many good reasons for working this way.

Where I think you're coming unstuck is in how the pipeline works. The order in which things are done. For example CC is based on levels. So if you apply CC to an image and then fade that out the result will be quite different to doing the fade (changing the levels going into the CC FX) and then applying the CC.

So if you fade out / reduce the oppacity of a clip the CC FXs in the header are applied AFTER that. The effect will be that the CC will shift during the fade.

If you refer to the Video Signal Flow in the user manual you'll understand how this works. As you'll see there the last thing in the chain is the Track Compositing Envelope. Using that instead of fades at the event level should fix your issue.

Bob.
Grazie wrote on 1/7/2008, 2:12 AM
Ah! Now I understand why you are doing it this way.

Thanks

Grazie
bruceo wrote on 1/7/2008, 9:10 AM
Thanks for the info Bob! That makes sense. I hate to add the keystrokes for track compositing, but it looks like changing the track compositing mode to add makes it smooth again, so I will try that route on this next edit.