How to animate TicTacToe moves (keyframes? set/add markers?)

TAGyerit wrote on 12/12/2022, 5:05 PM

I need to repetitively highlight specific areas of the screen in a video, like if I were highlighting a different TicTacToe square (9 squares, 3x3 grid) over and over as players called out their moves. VERY repetitive, so I really want to minimize the time/effort it takes to animate each move (when I say animate I just mean having an overlay graphic jump from one square to another, I don't want it to visibly slide/move.)

My best idea so far is to have 9 different video tracks added, each with the same overlay image arranged over a specific square (A1, A2, A3, B1, B2, B3, C1, C2, C3 positions.)

Then I play the video and click "M" to create a marker wherever there's a new move made. After that I go back and look at each marker and copy/paste the image from whichever of the 9 tracks is the correct overlay position and copy/paste the overlay image in that track where that Marker was set.

Rinse/repeat... In total I have about FIVE HUNDRED of these overlay changes I want to do (whew)... So creating an optimized process will save me an enormous amount of time and effort.

I'm open to ANY way that could make it easier... If there's a paid plugin or even some other software that could make this specific keyframe/setting markers task faster, please let me know!

Thanks in advance! :-)

PS - I don't understand Vegas Pro Scripting enough to understand if it could help with something like this, can it insert images into a video track on the fly as a video is playing in Vegas Pro? (Never heard of Vegas Scripting, just saw the posting category as I was getting ready to submit this. If I should be posting this in the Scripting section please let me know, and my apologies if so.)

Comments

DMT3 wrote on 12/12/2022, 6:07 PM

I had an idea using Multicamera editing, but it is not optimal. Create your squares in position (9 in all I guess) in a graphics program saving each as an individual graphic in a format that supports an alpha channel. In Vegas import each graphic and make a track for each one. Make the graphics the length of the video. Now select the graphic tracks and create a Multicamera track and go to Multicamera edit mode. Unfortunately, this is where it doesn't work well. When in Multicamera mode, you cannot see the background track (your tic tac toe board). If we can overcome that, it would work. But to continue, you would play the video and select the correct graphic track for each one the fly. I just don't know how you could make the board visible. Still working on it. Plus I don't know if there is a limit on the amount of tracks allowed in a Multicamera edit.

Musicvid wrote on 12/12/2022, 6:51 PM

Maybe a PIP or simple Video Wall approach -- here's one thread with plenty of ideas -- a forum search will get you more.

https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/making-a-video-from-a-choir--120370/?page=1

jetdv wrote on 12/13/2022, 8:17 AM

My best idea so far is to have 9 different video tracks added, each with the same overlay image arranged over a specific square (A1, A2, A3, B1, B2, B3, C1, C2, C3 positions.)
PS - I don't understand Vegas Pro Scripting enough to understand if it could help with something like this, can it insert images into a video track on the fly as a video is playing in Vegas Pro? (Never heard of Vegas Scripting, just saw the posting category as I was getting ready to submit this. If I should be posting this in the Scripting section please let me know, and my apologies if so.)

@TAGyerit It could certainly help you! Having 9 separate tracks is a good idea since you'll want to keep all the pieces visible until the game is over. If using a script, I would recommend "naming" then Markers to indicate the X or O and the position. A script could then go through every marker, drop the proper X or O onto the proper track, and you'd be done. Of course, you'll need an "End of game, clear the board" marker too and the pieces will all need to be extended to that marker.

Could be a fun script!

https://www.youtube.com/@JetDVScripts/videos

TAGyerit wrote on 12/14/2022, 10:19 AM

It could certainly help you! Having 9 separate tracks is a good idea since you'll want to keep all the pieces visible until the game is over. If using a script, I would recommend "naming" then Markers to indicate the X or O and the position. A script could then go through every marker, drop the proper X or O onto the proper track, and you'd be done. Of course, you'll need an "End of game, clear the board" marker too and the pieces will all need to be extended to that marker

Wow @jetdv that sounds like a really great solution! It's not actually TicTacToe but it worked as an easy to explain example, there's actually a sometimes-sequential element to it, meaning that if I named one Marker "1" and the script applied image1 to track 1, that the script would then see the next marker and apply image2 to track2, then next marker image3 to track3, etc, until a marker name "0" (zero) came up that cleared the images until another numbered marker came up. (I'm not talking about the auto-numbers of the Markers, but actually naming a marker "1", "2", etc.

A script that worked as I'm describing (and that you described) that I could apply after setting markers would be a big help for me! I'm going to private message you within the next 2 days with a complete description of how I can see the script functioning if that's OK, and we can take it from there, yes? Thank you.

jetdv wrote on 12/14/2022, 10:29 AM

@TAGyerit, Sounds good. And, yes, that sounds completely doable.