Curved panning - motion along a path?

Kit wrote on 9/13/2010, 5:28 AM

With flash I can move an object along a curved path. Is there any way to create a curved pan and zoom using Vegas. For example, the bottom left hand corner of a still fills the screen, pan up to top right via top left and zoom in at the same time, but rather than this being along two straight lines (up then right) have it smooth along a curve. Thanks,

Kit

PS hope I haven't butchered the terminology completely and the description makes sense.

Comments

megabit wrote on 9/13/2010, 5:56 AM

Perhaps the gurus here know a better method, but since Track Motion is key-frame based, you can just use keys approximating your intended curve...

That's how I do it, anyway.

Piotr

rs170a wrote on 9/13/2010, 6:08 AM

Pan/Crop is the better tool to use here as Track Motion automatically resizes images to match your project properties.
For example, if the image was 3000 x 2000 pixels and you were working in SD NTSC, Track Motion changes it to 720 x 480 so a zoom in, depending on how deep it was, could look pretty bad.
Pan/Crop maintains the original size and therefore is the better tool.
Unfortunately Vegas does not have path-based motion so you'll have to do as Piotr suggested and use keyframes.

edit: I highly recommend D. Eric Frank's excellent tutorial called Vegas Keyframe Interpolation Envelopes as he does a great job of explaining the various options offered (smooth, slow, fast, etc.).

Mike

megabit wrote on 9/13/2010, 6:18 AM

"Pan/Crop is the better tool to use here as Track Motion automatically resizes images to match your project properties"

Mike is absolutely right here - Pan/Crop is more flexible than Track Motion, if you can accept event-based editing.

Piotr

TheHappyFriar wrote on 9/13/2010, 7:06 AM

I'd just like to point out...

Vegas 4 SHOWED the path the pan/crop went. It hasn't been in since.

And yeah, I'd submitted a bug report & I asked the question in the forum Q&A we had here a while ago. It's not coming back any time soon. :(

rs170a wrote on 9/13/2010, 7:11 AM

Stephen, you're not the only one who misses seeing the path (nor the only one who complained about it being removed).

Mike

ChrisMN wrote on 9/13/2010, 8:41 AM

Setting all the keyframes to a smoothness of 100 helps form an "arc" between the start and end points.

TheHappyFriar wrote on 9/13/2010, 10:36 AM

Stephen, you're not the only one who misses seeing the path (nor the only one who complained about it being removed).

I think we need to be louder then. GPU ACVHD encoding was included & 3D was included in 10 & people complained en-mas that those needed to be built in, but a really useful editing feature that was cut (accident or on purpose) isn't. At least as far as we know.

rs170a wrote on 9/13/2010, 10:49 AM

I firmly believe that there are some things that SCS can't be bothered to devote the time to fixing or implementing.
I complained (and sent in a trouble ticket) to them when some of my custom render templates didn't make the transition from Pro 8 to Pro 9 (even though they worked all the way from Pro 6).
A number of other folks complained and send tickets in as well.
Pro 10 is now on the horizon and we're still waiting :-(

For example, how long have we been waiting for a really good titler?
BTW, PTT is not what I would consider a good titler.
I had a much better one back in my Amiga 2000 days.
I'm talking about the quality of the text (full anti-aliasing would be really nice!!), not all the whiz-bang things you can do with it.

Mike

TheHappyFriar wrote on 9/13/2010, 6:44 PM

Sorry, I can't come up with a response that isn't saying anything bad about the new stuff they're adding vs the stuff that's been lost atm. :(

Kit wrote on 9/14/2010, 7:08 PM

Thanks for the link, there's some very useful information there and thanks for the tip about Pan/Crop. Key framing a curve is not much fun. I'm surprised there isn't a less time consuming way.

Kit

Kit wrote on 9/14/2010, 7:11 PM

Why did Sony drop that? Being able to see the path is basic and essential in my view. Did they ever offer an excuse?

Kit

rs170a wrote on 9/15/2010, 3:45 PM

Kit, when it was first discovered that path view was dropped, users complained long and loud - to no avail :-(
Several folks, myself included, have repeatedly asked for "real" control similar to what is found in a 3D app.
Options such as tension, continuity & bias (found in Lightwave) make so much more sense to me that Smooth, Fast, Slow, etc.

Mike