horizontal video clip scrolling???

phox6801 wrote on 4/17/2012, 8:59 AM
I'm in need of a method or script which will sequentially take my video clips and scroll them from right to left across the screen (back to back) like a train pulling cars. I've seen this done in a lot of videos and have no idea how to time the track motion for each layer so they line up perfectly and have the same time going across the screen PLUS sync with the audio.

I've wanted to do this effect for years and have never figured it out in Vegas and can't find an online resource / tutorial / plug-in to allow me to do it.

Any ideas?

Comments

rs170a wrote on 4/17/2012, 12:30 PM
See if the Using Parent Motion to make a moving film strip tutorial, courtesy of John Rofrano, will help you do what you want to do.

Mike
phox6801 wrote on 4/17/2012, 2:37 PM
It didn't. I tried using the PARENT MOTION concept and it introduced a few quality issues.

1) I have to reduce the size of my video clips to such a small zoom ratio in order to fit them side by side that when I zoom into the child clips from the PARENT ZOOM window, the HD quality is gone. It doesn't make sense that it would recompress or reduce the original file quality, but my preview playback when I tried this pixelized the child clips.

2) The PARENT ZOOM is 4:3 or even SQUARE in ratio (not letterbox) and therefore when it scrolls across the subclips, it makes them appear square instead of true letterbox.

johnmeyer wrote on 4/17/2012, 4:22 PM
I have to reduce the size of my video clips to such a small zoom ratio in order to fit them side by side that when I zoom into the child clips from the PARENT ZOOM window, the HD quality is gone.Don't ever use track motion to zoom into media (like photos) which are higher quality (more pixels) than what you plan to use for your render. The problem is that when using track motion, all media is first converted to project resolution and then zoomed.

Use pan/crop instead. When zooming with pan/crop, all media is sampled at its original resolution and then zoomed.

Track motion must operate as it does because there is no way to ensure that all media on the track is the same resolution.

As for your original issue, perhaps you could set up one event to scroll horizontally as you want, using pan/crop, and then copy/paste its attributes to other events.
PeterWright wrote on 4/17/2012, 7:09 PM
Another way is to use the Push transition. Timing will be goverened by the length of the events and length of overlap/transitions. If the in and out transitions meet in the middle, e.g. a 2 second clip with 1 sec transitions in and out, you should get continuous movement.
Gary James wrote on 4/18/2012, 3:03 PM
"Another way is to use the Push transition. Timing will be goverened by the length of the events and length of overlap/transitions. If the in and out transitions meet in the middle, e.g. a 2 second clip with 1 sec transitions in and out, you should get continuous movement."

This doesn't quite do what you describe. The first clip scrolls into view, and remains centered on the screen. But when the next clip scrolls into view the first clip remains stationary; it doesn't scroll off-screen. The result is sort of a stacking effect like you see as printed pages exit from a printer into the catch tray.
Chienworks wrote on 4/18/2012, 3:09 PM
Gary, It works fine for me. Make sure you use the "push left" transition. The "push IN left" transition does do what you describe.
Gary James wrote on 4/18/2012, 3:50 PM
"Gary, It works fine for me. Make sure you use the "push left" transition. The "push IN left" transition does do what you describe."

You're right. I had the "Push IN Left" transition selected. The "Push Left" transition does as described, but with a caveat. All images have to be sized to match the output aspect ratio of the project. Otherwise there is an apparent black gap between images as they scroll across the screen.

But given this small side-effect, this is an elegantly simple solution to the problem.

Thanks.
phox6801 wrote on 4/30/2012, 12:29 PM
John,
How do you use PAN/ZOOM over sublayers. Pan and zoom only work on an actual video clip or image itself. I want to have multiple videos to fly over using the PAN concept, but I don't have a master track to pan from.

I've tried to create a large JPEG image with a chroma key color which I would use to place video clips UNDER the JPEG image, but when I move the PAN zoom over the image, the video tracks don't stay matched up under the chroma keyed area under the jPEG image... so in essence, the pan zoom works on the image, but I can't keep the video tracks beneath them to follow the same path. I essentially want the viewer to see multiple videos move across the screen in sequence without having to lose quality of the video.