You can also look at the PBS Wizard in Neon. That, combined with the Gap Wizard in Excalibur, can help speed the process of photo montages.

The script writers would love to give you this capability but unfortunately Sony has not given us access to Track Motion and Compositing in the Script API. We have asked for it, but it hasn’t been delivered. Please make a product suggestion to Sony that they add these things to the Script API so that script writers can help automate this for you.

For all the power in Vegas compositing, it all falls short because you have to start from scratch each and every time. There is no way to save a preset. That’s why plug-ins like Boris FX are still needed even though they duplicate native function in Vegas. Because they allow you to save the whole thing as a preset.

Ulimate S has the ability to save the track setups for you but it can’t make the composites or parent/child relationships or any Track Motion because the Script API doesn’t allow it. :(

You still might want to check out the Photo Montage tool in Ultimate S. It has a lot of capability for setting up pan and scan, multiple transitions, fit photos to music, fit photos to region, etc. I’m sure it will save you a lot of time. The Setup tool will save your track setups and restore them in a new project at the push of a button.

~jr

It's not as klunky as it sounds but I set up a 2nd instance of Vegas where I load in a nice comp, then copy and paste as much as I can from it to my new timeline.

Track motion comes in as a separate copy/paste.

It sucks but beats starting from scratch.

- R

Thanks for the ideas.

Another idea I came up with is to render background graphics to avi to reuse on later projects. Duh!

Now if only DVD-A 2 had a realistic way for you to save layouts as templates.

thanks again
jack

Here's another idea. Get your montage section up and running the way you like it, and then save the veg as something generic like BradyBunch_3x3 or whatever.

When you want to reuse the veg, open it to the media pool, right_click and replace the existing photos with the new ones. Render out and you're done with that section.

The best way to do it is to use Debug Mode's 3D Lite( Not wax 2) combined with Vegas plugin package feature.

first, you use 3D lite to make all the movement and zoom in- zoom out. make all the keyframes using Debugmode's 3D lite.

second, after you satisfied with the effects. click on the "plug-in chain" button, and a window called "Plugin chooser - Video Event FX" will show up.

There you can click on "Save As" and give it a nice name like "Picture Flying around 1". Then the FX package is saved.

Next time you want to use this flying effects. Just click on "Video Event FX" button and choose The "Picture Flying around" button. Then the whole motion will be applied to your new picture.

Easy, right? I use it all the time. and I can combine with all the other Event FX into one. Like I can have a picture flying around when it keep changing the Tint by saving both 3d lite and color corrector fx in the same package. Explore the power of Event FX package, you will be impressed !

and best of all, because 3D Lite works in ---- uh, 3D space. so you can apply some fancy 3d effects as well. Enjoy it!