Comments

jrazz wrote on 11/22/2005, 4:31 PM
Do a search on this forum for scripts... or go to www.vasst.com and look there as there are many scripts you can use to do this and other things without manually having to do them one by one.

j razz
Spot|DSE wrote on 11/22/2005, 4:37 PM
John Rofrano's Event length and Xfade script should do what you want to do.
mjroddy wrote on 11/22/2005, 4:53 PM
How common is automating this kind of project.
I find that I could not reley on a script to do the job for me - personally.
For me (a self-admitted nutcase), every pic tells a different story and the transition is all part of that story. If it's a playful pic, I might hold on it longer, but have the transition shorter to keep the "upbeat" feel. If the music is sharp there, I would keep the transition to match. A more emotional pic needs a slower transition.
Of course, if the pics were all of a similar nature (say, technical, or similar), I might be inclined to use some automation. But I find that I lay down the pic, add movement if necessary, watch the transition, lay down the next pic, add movement, watch both transitions to see how they flow with eachother and the movement and move forward accordingly. This is why I couldn't use Ultimate S for a job like this. It's also why it takes me FOREVER to do a project.
Anyway, the question was (assuming I'm not hi-jacking), is automation common?
J_Mac wrote on 11/22/2005, 4:58 PM
Yes, for me. I've done more of these this year, and found that doing the 'Auto' first gave me a base to start with, and then I went back and personalized each pic. John.
TomG wrote on 11/22/2005, 5:48 PM
Thanks for the help. I agree with you Matt & John. Usually my transitions will be pretty uniform thourghout on stills. Ultimate S & Excalibur are great for adding some motion via pan/crop but in those cases, I have to look at each still and tweak it based on content.

TomG
busterkeaton wrote on 11/22/2005, 11:40 PM
Ultimate S gives you a way doing this sort of job, very quickly. I think you still have to view the timeline and tweak.

If you have a job you want to take a lot of care with. Ultimate S still lets you get it done faster. It lets you save your project time for parts you really care about.

Another thing Ultimate S is great for is that it's so fast to create a slide show, that you can create several versions using Randomize and you may come across transitions and juxtapositions that you love. Render what you like. To create a new slideshow takes about 1 sec. So creating a few is not lost time at all.