If I have a long project I work in sections. Render your sections to a mxf file in the format you are working in (720 or 1080p). Then you can put them together to make your 2 hour project. Render is seamless because it does not recompress the files. Then if you find a mistake somewhere you can fix the section. Rerender the section only and rerender the project. Make sure you render all the sections the same. So when you put the sections together it does not recompress and take forever to render the project. It should only take time to render the section you goofed. When you have your finnished MXF file. I call it my master file. Then make it to what you need. Blu-Ray....DVD....Web....or whatever.

Is there any way to lock the track or lock the project so events will not move?

Yes. Right click on the event - use Switches/Lock. But this is only one thing. Vegas is loaded. Understanding what to use and when to use it -- ah -- that's gonna take some work.

Be assured that you can work with very complex timelines and keep everything straight and in sync. This will take some skill, knowledge of Vegas (especially when to ripple and when not to ripple) and a fair amount of using "undo". I make the most mistakes when I work too fast.

A few things that help are "saving" your work frequently -- and working in sections. (as mentioned above) I would not construct a 2 hour editing timeline. I usually limit a section to 5 to 10 minutes (depending on how complex) -- I often do very short (but complex effects) as a separate veg and then use a "nested veg" or rendered composite in the larger timeline.

I'm constantly learning new techniques and refering to Spot's book. That's one of the reasons I visit this forum too --- I far from know it all.

"To maintain the integrity of the project," just four words will suffice:

Save Early, Save Often

Maintain a keen awareness of the status of the ripple edit button and the ignore grouping button at all times!

Ralph

> Save Early, Save Often

AND make serial versions of the Veggies. If you get something like Edward Troxel's Auto Save then in effect you ARE getting Auto serial saves. I have this but also do NAMED serial versions. The Auto Save is switched on all the time.

Veggies can take up minuscule amounts of space. A disappointed client will take-up an awful lot more of your Editing career!

Grazie

Edward Troxel’s Auto Save = Excalibur……man that has saved me many headaches

Click on the first first event on that track right click select events to the end and then drag to place this will maintain spaces etc
if you need to scrub within one of those events/clips in that group ctrl/alt will allow you to maintain frame no. while scrubbing back and forth

Rory

edit alt on its own will let you scrub back and forth on the event/clip maintaining all spaces and frames within the group = awsome Sony Vegas

This is too cool I appreciate all the suggestions here so far! Thanks everyone.

Steve.

One additional tip.
One can lock envelopes to events. Problem I had for ages was the outcome wasn't what I expected and then it dawned on me. It's only the nodes that are locked which makes perfect sense. So the solution I've devised is to always have a node on each side of any cut if the envelope changes value over the cut.
This way if I ripple or doing other slipping and sliding things all hold together. It can be more work upfront but it has saved me from a lot of the grief that I used to have.

Bob.

When I'm working on complex projects. My workflow dealing with 20-30 tracks and effects I’ll nest them into sections. By dividing Vegas projects into smaller sections in multiple instance of Vegas. Such as Vegas Part 1,Vegas Part 2 and Vegas Part 3 etc. Then put them all together in a master project.

By doing this way, if you have problems--- you don’t have to render or edit that whole event just that section you need to change or effects in that section.

This is how the top composting programs work. Auto Combustion and Eyeon Fusion etc.
Nesting can help you organize a timeline or create other effects:

· Create a single element — such as a lower-third graphic or watermark — that you can use in multiple timeline locations or projects.

· Create a complex composited element that you can use as a single media object in the timeline.

· Create a transition across multiple events by placing the events in a nested project and applying a transition to the nested project event.

· Create a musical composition with its own tempo and FX bus structure that you can use in another project.

· Create a separate project for each scene in a video and nest those projects in a master video project. You can apply color correction to each shot within the scene and then apply color correction to the entire scene in the master project.

· Use master projects to deliver a single project in multiple formats without time- and disk-consuming intermediate renders: for example, you could add your 24p, 16:9 HD (high-definition) project to a master project to reformat the project as widescreen SD (standard definition) for DVD, letterboxed SD for VHS, 4:3 pan-and-scan SD, or 25p.

JTD please explain in more detail….Create a transition across multiple events

thanks

Rory

> · Create a transition across multiple events by placing the events in a nested project and applying a transition to the nested project event.

No - The Nested Project comes back into Vegas as a completed Proxy file - period!

However, you CAN add transitions to selected events within the Veg that that Nested Project is coming FROM; save and return to have the Nested to been seen to have been updated. Basically you ADD transitions (or ANYTHING!) to the original Veg of the Nested project.

Grazie

Yes--This is straight from the Vegas help menu. Under nesting timeline.

"Create a transition across multiple events by placing the events in a nested project and applying a transition to the nested project event"

Thanks!!!

Yes, I am NOW reading that too.

To me that does NOT make any sense at all? A Nested Veg Project in a another Veg is regarded solely as just an other piece of Media: with 1 "IN" and 1 "OUT". How on earth can it then have Events that one can add Transitions to? Sure, I can add Transitions to the Events that make up that Nested Veg, but ONLY within its OWN project. - Have I missed something?

Bizarre . . .

Grazie

Yes...
Example: event FX level,track FX level then at the video project level."Video Preview Monitor" FX output.

Grazie, suppose you had four events, one in each quadrant of the screen, and you wanted to transistion to another four quadrant screen. Nest each of these four event projects, and then in the parent you can transition from one to the other. To me, that is the type of scenario they are referring to.

Jerry

TT, thank you! Of course it does, and simplifies a lot of the need for involved "Track Laying". I must remember that one. Your example brought it home to me. Great stuff!

My bone-gnawing was to do with seeing that the underlying Nests would need to be acted upon, for changes, but all this was to do with was at the HIGHER main Veg level. Lesson learnt!

I couldn't see "The Nests for the Trees"!

Grazie