Me, too. :D

Yep, one thing great about Vegas, several ways to achieve an effect. I know some people don't play with keyframes much so I wanted to show an example of using settings other than the default. Good conversation.

@Richard-Bril First off, your stuff looks GREAT. Very pro.

Let's get creative. You've got basically eight combos of left>right, right>left camera moves. (or maybe sixteen)

Let's go with, for now:

(Full speed, hart hit)
Front court/ Back court Left..... to ....Front court/ Back court Right (4 possible combos)
plus
Front court/ Back court Right... to... Front court/ Back court Left (4)

And

(Soft hit)  Same 8 combos.

Add whatever other common variants of camera follows. (medium hit?)

Create a Pan/Crop Window Template for each of those.

Go through your video, making cuts, creating discrete "events" and
simply call up pre made variant to each. Should be easy, cut right before

each ball hit.

I don't think this is that hard.... and with the correct smoothing/tweener

formula, you are pretty much done... Playback and review, tweak to taste.

 

@Richard-Bril Hi Richard, just my 2 cents. I think it all depends on the subject material. I know you’re not asking about this, but I think there is real value in using the hold keyframe, then direct jump zoom. Zooming, panning and jump zoom all have their place, it really depends on what you want to convey.

There is also the long held opinion that too much zooming can look a tad amateurish. Just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should.

Since you shoot a fair bit of this on a tripod in a static position, an 8k capture would give you even more options.

Ditto, @JN-, though it does seem he's doing at least some of that now, but you're right, there is a ton you can do with some of those more "jump" type moves, (some good tutorials on YT for those) kept to a minimum, as you've suggested, they'll be a sweet add.

I'm seeing, basically, two products/ on the one hand, a truly Pro event, and then some more amateur matches, and certainly the Pro event one would probably invest more time/money onto. His "Pro" event looked really good and in both, you do see his zooms. For crank-it-out amateur stuff, maybe he just wants to hit a button, and "poof" done with that one!! ahahaha. Can't blame him.

Wow guys, what a treat to work my way through your answers and great insight! I appreciate the thought and effort that went into your responses and ideas.

@Marco. Wow, my friend! Those 4 video examples you made were so good to understanding and seeing the subtle differences. Thank you for going to the trouble to do that. I thought your 3rd video (Smoothness: 100% Type: Smooth) was just about as good as the Vegasaur Tweener one...maybe Tweener had a slight edge...but very close. That makes me want to experiment more with using Smooth instead of Linear. But as you can see, it's the "easing" effect that really makes the difference in the end with Tweener (apparently AE has these "easing" effects built in, but I'm glad we have options with VP. I see where you're coming from with your comments about using Motion Tracking for Panning and Pan/Crop for Zooming...unfortunately that would make the editing time just a little too much, I think.

(When I do a "quick" editing job on a single volleyball game, even with only 1 or 2 cameras, it can take 4-5 hours. To do the "bigger and better" matches (3 sets, with 5-7 cameras) can take weeks.)

@Former user Thank you for the suggestion to use a 50% setting on the Smoothness. I'll definitely remember that when doing my next project. I liked seeing the additional movement you added to that still photo, it helps get a better idea. The reason I'm not 100% crazy about those pans/zooms is because it's hard to tell what it would look like on moving footage as opposed to the still photo, but also the fast starts/stops are a bit sharp...to me, at least. Yes, I like the way the pans seem to veer a little as they go from point A-B, rather than making a distinct straight line. The lack of easing (slowing down when starting from one keyframe and then slowing down again when reaching a new keyframe) give it a bit of an "abrupt" start and stop...which is what I'm trying to get away from. If you used 9 KFs for the single still photo, imagine how many KFs I'd have to use on a 15 minute volleyball game. That's where I appreciate being able to slap some basic "ball-following" and "action-following" KFs, then let Tweener fill all the in-betweens in really fast.

@fred-w Thank you for the kind words. I absolutely LOVE your idea of creating Pan/Crop Window Templates for those 8 or 16 "shots" you described. I can definitely see that as a starting point for each "play". How do you create Pan/Crop Window Templates?--I don't think I've heard of that before. (Looking forward to trying that!!!)

I just recently started a youtube channel for beach volleyball content (which is what we're talking about here)...at the same time I also started another channel for the poker nights I host (which I've sought counsel in another thread I started on how to do the graphics for the cards, etc). I'm learning so much and each new challenge opens up so many doors. I'm working on a new project with my kids right now which I've been editing for some time...and this one is the most challenging of all with a lot of chroma key, etc. I do most of my filming on smartphones, so the quality is not quite where it "could" be if I had some good cameras, but after color grading and effects, it doesn't bother me that much. For the big volleyball matches, I use 4 phones, 2 GoPros and a drone. Putting all those together is a challenge in the editing.

@JN- Thank you, sir. You've been a help from my early days in VP...and I won't forget that. Both you and Fred are right...there is some content on my VB youtube channel that is of a more "pro" level...then there are some more silly games or arguments...and I don't put the same amount of time and finesse into those projects. It would be nice (as Fred said) to have a button to push and "poof" it all works itself out. But with all the input here and the Vegasaur education (and if I can figure out the Pan/Crop Template Fred mentioned)...I think it will get close.

Best Regards,
Richard

P.S. If the phones I use to record with could capture in 8k (longer than 5 minutes at a time), that would be great, but even the newest phones cap 8k record time at 5 minutes. My Note 9 record in 4k and up to 60fps, but it caps off at 5 minutes. The newer iPhones record in 4k at 60fps, but they cut off at 10 minutes. Even the GoPro 8 won't record for very long in 4k at 60fps, they overheat after a while. Because an average volleyball match is 22 minutes I set my phone to (2560x1440--2k?) and 30fps and *then* it records indefinitely. I record about 7 games a day, 3 times a week...so it's a lot of content. To capture the whole VB court properly, I have to move the phones/GoPros back quite a bit...so the extra resolution of higher rates would be very nice for zooming and getting close-ups and replays.

@Richard-Bril Hi Richard. I guess I was just theorising in an ideal world where 8k would give you a bigger canvas to work in. Using external recorders can usually overcome the time limits of some mirrorless cameras. It might be worth thinking of using at least one camera that could record at 4k for longer durations either internally or externally.

 

@fred-w Thank you for the kind words. I absolutely LOVE your idea of creating Pan/Crop Window Templates for those 8 or 16 "shots" you described. I can definitely see that as a starting point for each "play". How do you create Pan/Crop Window Templates?--I don't think I've heard of that before. (Looking forward to trying that!!!)

 

Best Regards,
Richard

@Richard-Bril There is, in Vegas, usually MORE than one way to accomplish a desired result.

On the Pan/Crop template/preset idea.....There is NOT per se - although, certainly, there might be certain existing 3rd party scripts, usually free, (see below) that would do that, or that could be created for that - I'm investigating now. (without scripts, you CAN save one Keyframe, only, as a preset)....

In Lieu of that, you would simply Create a collection of, say, sixteen preset empty events - (saved to some sort of "Volleyball Default" project) - either way to the right on the timeline, or on an empty muted track below -- set up with those 16 key frame moves, named accordingly, and simply select/copy the empty event with the desired move, then select the several timeline events that would require that move (control clik on several events, or just clk one, you'd probably do well to NAME events ahead of time according to desired camera move) right clik and select paste attributes, or paste selected attributes. (I think the former is fine if you'd not be adding any additional effects) You should do this, probably, before any other event based effects are added, I think the paste attributes would overwrite any such

Other possibilities:
1. Utilizing Scripts you can/Vegas can do amazing things.

 

If you want to become a cuts-only editing speed demon, you need to:

1. Develop a rhythm.
2. Minimize your movements (keyboard and/or mouse).
3. Eliminate thinking.

Everyone develops a different editing style, so what I've developed here may or may not work for you. However, give it a try and see. Here is how I use these three scripts.

1. Put the scripts in the directory where you have your other scripts.
2. Use the Keyboard tab in the Options menu to assign keyboard shortcuts to these three scripts. I use Ctrl-1 for the script that deletes from the cursor to the beginning of the event, Ctrl-2 for the script that selects the events under the cursor, and Ctrl-3 for the script that deletes the event under the cursor.
3. Put your video on the timeline, and start at the beginning of the timeline.
4. Scrub through the video using the J-K-L keys. You can set the scrub speed range in the Edit tab of Options menu. I use the Fast speed. 

Use the cursor position as the guide to your editing: Event selection no longer matters when using these scripts.

When you get to a point where you want to edit, you have three decisions to make:

a. You don't like anything you've seen in this event up to the current location, but you just reached the good stuff and want to keep everything from this point until some point later. In this case simply press Ctrl-1 (delete from cursor to beginning of event) and everything from the current cursor location to the beginning of the event is deleted; and the cursor is positioned at the beginning of the event (which is the same frame of video at which you were already located). All later events are rippled (it doesn’t matter if ripple edit is turned on or not — I usually keep it turned off when using these scripts). The event immediately following the new cursor location is selected, mostly to visually help you locate where you are.

b. The second scenario is where you like EVERYTHING up to this point, but now have come to a section you don't like. In this case, press the S key to split the event, and keep on scrubbing into the newly-created event. The S key automatically highlights the event I am moving into and de-selects the left side of the split. This is consistent with what happens in (a). If you have scrubbed over several events since you made the last edit, then the events under the cursor will not be selected, and "S" will not split the event. In this case, press Ctrl-2 to select the events under the cursor, and then press the S key.

c. The final scenario is where you don't like anything in this event. I press Ctrl-3 and it deletes the event under the cursor, ripples all the subsequent events, moves the cursor to the beginning of what, prior to deleting the event, was the next event, and highlights that event to show you where you are.

Thus, to delete to the left of the cursor, you press the left-most key combination (Ctrl-1), and to delete under the cursor or to the right, you press the right-most key combination (Ctrl-3). To split the event, you simply press S (or press Ctrl-2, then S if the events are not first selected). The whole left-right thing is also consistent with the J-K-L shuttle combination. 

I could have included the split function in the selection script that I assigned to Ctrl-2, but I found that sometimes I just wanted to select the events without splitting them, and having two keystrokes instead of one didn't seem like too much of a burden.

With these scripts you don't have to worry about what event is selected or not selected. All that matters is the cursor location and the track selection. This eliminates all sorts of errors that can happen if you accidentally have more than one event selected and press the delete key. Also, since the ripple is handled by the scripts, you don't get the surprises that Vegas' own ripple editing sometimes provides.

Here's those aforementioned scripts:
https://shared-assets.adobe.com/link/51edc8eb-2c87-4035-62ec-fd077d9667ba

All common free scripts:
https://shared-assets.adobe.com/link/43d0a513-ff43-4cb7-6193-34e90116a9b4

2, Track motion presets. Key frame the track, not the event. You'd just have to get creative with that.
3. Picture in a picture...........along with, probably, track motion. (you'd have access to the movement curve editor. Not sure how this would be employed, exactly, but it certainly could work well.

Happy otter has Scripts, free, as well.

Regarding Pan/Crop templates - Vegasaur can save all Pan/Crop keyframes of the selected event (Custom tab in the Pan/Crop Assistant window)

I thought I'd post an update after nearly a whole week of editing using these 3 options to create camera movement in post:

1. Hand-placed keyframes in the pan/crop tool
2. Vegasaur hand-held camera effect
3. Active Camera plugin.

The Vegasaur handheld camera effect quickly got voted off the island and I don't use it anymore as it doesn't compare to Active Camera. Unless I haven't figured it out, Vegasaur's feature doesn't allow you to modify or edit the presets...and they all have too much movement. Active Camera on the other hand has control over all the aspects of the plugin and I've made my own presets ranging from minimal movement to more movement, etc.

Hand-placing KFs in the pan/crop tool is my favorite way unless I'm in a real hurry and just want to slap on Active Camera. I don't even use Vegasaur's Tweener now that I've discovered the power of Vegas' own Smooth and 0-100 feature for KFs. By using Smooth and 50-100 on the sensitivity scale, you get basically the same thing Tweener does when you use the "easing" feature. It eases in and out of the keyframes and even adds some "attitude" as it travels from KF a to b. I really don't see any difference between applying Tweener to my (Linear) KFs in Vegas as opposed to using Smooth KFs with 50-100 sensitivity. Might as well mention that with both Vegasaur's hand-held camera effect and the Tweener, it adds tons of KFs. This if fine, but I've had Vegas crash on my quite a few times when doing the undo (CTRL+Z) after having placed a ton of KFs in a clip. This has happened enough times to alert me that there is some issue Vegas has (at least on this rather large project I'm working on) with multiple 4K tracks on top of each other and loads of effects running.

That's my experience so far...and I'll get back to editing now.

Another approach you might consider is using the pip fx. I like it's ability to animate both location and zoom independently of one another under one roof. And its ability to drag the frame window around on the preview screen to get the exact end-point locations I want. Transition behavior is controlled by setting the slope-type of the envelope line-segments.

@Richard-Bril a lot of people don't explore the smoothing settings so I am glad that is helping. It is powerful.