Zippy,

I sometimes have 6-10 tracks of CG alone...

As Kelly infers, the beauty of Vegas is the unlimited tracks. I will often set up a track with a specific FX or Track Motion position and ONLY use it when I want that "effect" -- saves a lot of time & keyframe headaches...so long as I'm not seeing any error messages or blue screens...

As many as you need is a good answer. But there is a but... you don't really need many. I've done some very complex porjects with just a single video and audio track because remember Vegas is based on events so if the events are scattered across dozens of tracks or only a few is more a preference of how you work and what you're doing.

No, I don't think 18 tracks are nearly enough. :)

James

Zipps . . this is where V4 scores - underline "Scores" - this is because -I Believe - Vegas has its roots in audio. This is where tracks just get added and added and added . . . IMHO, I think the rationale, philosophy has come over from there. You want more tracks? Go get more tracks . . . I/you sometimes can only GET what we want done with a massive amount of tracks . . . . yes, I could be more efficient, yes I could possibly be less of a messy editor - BUT, I tell you what! Having this abilitiy to just "throw-up" media onto a screen and THEN start playing with it from there - bit like an artist with a brush full of colour - I wouldn't change THAT for anything. . this s/w is just too good at allowing us to DO what we want . . . Zipps, add as many as you want . . . sub tracks for Parent and child . . .build up whole families . . think vertically as well as horiziontally . . throw fxs on different tracks . . give your self a target of say . . .30 tracks . . and see what you get! I bet you'll be going up the wall before you hit any block by V4 - it's that good IMHO . . . . . .

Zipps you ask an excellent question - yes the're rules . . and yes the're limits . . but this shouldn't get in the way of giving you doing the unthinkable . . .. add them tracks and free up yer ideas . . .

BTW . . there has been a thread on this "how many tracks" - go see that - something like that . . must've been just before you joined us - yeah? See the numbers others deal with,

Regards,

Grazie

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Zipps - please read all of this . . . it is lengthy . . but I do mean it . . .

Do what you need. Yes it can be very daunting. . . and yes you will "crack-it" . . give yourself time and experiment, experiment, experiment . . . . belive me there is no real "correct" way of dong stuff in Vegas -there are many ways. And yes, this can in itself be confusing . . . frankly, I prefer this situation than being "cramped" into a straight jacket by the designers of "other" NLEs . . . .

Okay, your question is really about understanding what is going on with all the FXs and Parent/Child mixes - yeah? This isn't about what is the minimum or the "correct" number of tracks - and yes I do understand your frustrations. This is tough stuff . . . I too have this and I've had to put in much time and give myself breaks away from this learning curve to allow myself to take a breath - yeah?

So, might I politley request that you reframe your questions here - or start another thread - so that we can give you even more assistance . . . I might not be able to answer most of your questions - but I will have a go.

I've found that you have a vaster knowledge of the tech side of this stuff than I. I'll let you into a secret: I bet there are others here that when you come across with a techincal question they too are amazed at your "hidden" knowledge . . . go for it Zipps . . I'm listening . . . I may be able to help . .

Regards,

Grazie

I'd love some kind of workshop on parent/child as I am sure I am missing something from not using it but just don't get the concept.

Anyone else in the same boat here?

Cheers

Me too,
I use parent/child a little, but I dont think I'm grasping the concept fully.
things dont always work the way I'm thinking they should,and I'm sure it's my lack of understanding.

Either that or my Vegas has a parent\"stepchild" setting.

I don't know about version 4, they went into about a half a dozen pages in the PDF manual for version 3.

I think I saw some tuts on SPOT's site.

A quick example:

Its literally a parent/child relationship with the parent controlling the child. You form the relationship by having at least two tracks. Click on the L shaped arrow at the extreme left of the header of the bottom track (the child) which then makes the track above it the parent.

The topmost track acts like a mask. So as they did in the manual for illustrative purposes they placed some generated media on the top track using the default text template spelling out the word fire. The second(child) track actually had some fire footage.

When you make the parent/child connection by linking the two tracks, the top track acts like a mask. Everything except the word fire turns black blocking everything on the child track except where the text on the top track is so the text becomes transparent on the parent track and the fire on the child track bleeds through to make it look like the text is on fire with everything else black. Its black because its transparent.

You can take it further. By adding a third track below the child what ever is there will bleed through the transparent area of the child or in this case the black. So in the manual example they added just a simple gradiant so it changed from black to dark blue at the bottom to light blue at the top with the fire still showing through the text.

That's all just with the default setting setting the composit mode of the parent to Alpha. By changing this setting you effect how the tracks interact with one another.

So another trick would be to set composit to multiply. That would have the effect of multiplying whatever color you had on the parent overlay track making all the colors darker/stronger. The opposite, Screen woulld lighten.

You can do lots more, but that's a start...