How to highlight?

david-pedd wrote on 3/11/2010, 8:00 PM

I want to highlight an area of my frame with a circle or ellipse. I want to adjust the transparancy and adjust the position. I can't figure out how. Any ideas? Thanks.

Comments

Grazie wrote on 3/11/2010, 10:11 PM

As I am not sure what it is you mean by saying "highlight" AND "transparency" and what this would relate to in the final view, let's attack this the other way around - what is it you WANT to finally achieve? - If I didn't know any better, it sounds as if you wish/want to follow a player around a pitch, or highlight an individual or travelling item within a "scene" of some sort?

So, what is it you wish to achieve, as there may be many ways to get you what you want in an easy simple way. Vegas WILL do it, of that I am sure.

Regards

Grazie

JackW wrote on 3/11/2010, 10:45 PM

Try the Bump Map; try the Cookie Cutter; try a combination of both.

Jack

david-pedd wrote on 3/12/2010, 7:46 AM

Thanks. The "Bump Map" did what I wanted. Thanks again.

Guy S. wrote on 3/12/2010, 2:17 PM

If Bump Map works for your current need, that's great.

I often need to highlight a button, knob, or other user-interface element. For this purpose I generally use a) the video event's mask generator (if the mask needs to move over time), or b) Photoshop (if the mask will remain stationary).

Photoshop (or whatever imaging program you prefer) is really easy:
- Make sure timeline Preview is set to Full
- Grab a frame from the timeline (Copy Snapshot to Clipboard)
- Create a new image in PS (under Preset, select Clipboard)
- Paste Vegas frame grab into new PS image (ctrl+v)
- Create a new layer (ctrl+shift+n); make sure new layer is on top of Vegas framegrab
- Fill the new layer with black, then adjust its transparency to taste (you'll see the frame grab begin to appear under it)
- Use one of the masking tools to create a mask (you can feather the mask as desired (ctrl+alt+d)
- Press Delete to cut a hole in the black layer over the framegrab
- Hide or Delete the Background and Framegrab layers and Save the file

There are more elegant ways of doing this in Photoshop, depending on the version you have. But this is easy and will work with any version of PS released int he past 8 or more years.