OK, so no reactions, so I suppose I should go into the more detailed explanation of the type I was unable to finish on the first try.

Let me describe what these two plug-ins do and how. They use the same math as Bézier curves, but instead of calculating the points on a curve based on a start point, an end point, and one or more control points, they do produce a set of video frames based on the start clip, end clip and one or more control clips.

We’re all do a simple version of that all the time, just based on a start clip and an end clip. We call it transitions. The difference between the standard transition that Vegas can do natively and what these plug-ins do is that we can use any number of clips. In the above example, the clips are actually static images, which helps illustrate how they are used but you can use it with real video clips. The start clip is the image of a redhead (same as my forum icon), seen as the leftmost media in the screen-cap image in my second post. The end clip is the same image but with blond hair. The remaining five are the control clips.

Just as with Bézier curves, at the beginning of the transition we see the start clip, at the end we see the end clip, and in-between we are seeing some kind of combination of all seven clips, thus producing a much smoother and more involved transition than just a standard two-clip transition.

Because Vegas does not have a built-in ability to just select more than two clips for a transition, we have to use a work-around by placing each clip on a separate track and apply the same effect to all of them. In this case we have seven (there can be as many of them as Vegas can handle, the plug-ins don’t care). At the start clip we apply it like this:

In the first line (Number of Layers), we say 7, because we are using seven clips. In the second line (Current Layer) we say 1 because this is the first (or the start) clip. We do the same for all seven of them, placing a 7 in the first line and placing increasing numbers in the second line (so the last, or end, clip will have 7 in both line).

Additionally, we are animating the Progress from 0 (anything before or at the start of the transition) to 1 (anything after or at the end of the transition).

Last but not least, we have to set the compositing mode of all the tracks except the lowest of the seven to Add. Yes, this is quite complicated. But I see no other way of accomplishing the same result in Vegas.

Anyway, if this was the Blendy Bends plug-in, we’d be done and we’d just have a transition from the start clip to the end clip. But this is Blendy Pends, which works like a pendulum: It goes from the start clip to the end clip and back. And it can do it several times. In our example, we have set Wave Cycles to 3, so it goes back and forth three times.

Unless we want some additional effect that I have not thought of (but you can), we would use the same number of wave cycles in all seven tracks (and we would animate the progress equally in all seven tracks). But, as suggested, we may achieve additional effects by setting these values differently. So, ironically, by having to use separate tracks because of the way Vegas treats transitions, we have additional possible tricks up our sleeves.

Anyway, that is what it does and how it works.

Look interesting... is it possible to download the plugin ? and does your old Bororo3D work in Vegas pro 14 ?

Thanks !

Thanks. I’ll make a zip file for the download over the weekend. Bororo3D was for 32-bit Vegas, so, no, it would not work in VP 14, which is 64-bit only. Though VP now supports 3D natively, so much of Bororo3D is redundant anymore.

I uploaded the two effects to http://www.pantarheon.org/koliba/files/. There is only one file in there at this time, called koliba-ofx-1-0.zip. Once you have downloaded it, you have essentially two ways to get Vegas (and others) to find the effects. The first one is to unzip it into wherever your other OFX files are, typically something like C:\Program Files\Common Files\OFX\Plugins. If you unzip it into there, you’re done.

Personally, I don’t like to have much in my C: drive, and it is easy to have any OFX effects on other drives. You could, for example, create a D:\OFX folder and unzip the file into that (the whole zip, so you end up with a Pantarheon folder inside the D:\OFX folder (or whatever folder you unzip it to).

But in that case you need to let Vegas (and other software) know about it. You do it by either selecting System from your control panel or by pressing Win-X, and then Y (Win being the Windows key). From there, select Advanced System Settings, like this:

Next, click on Environment Variables:

Then, if you have an OFX_PLUGIN_PATH variable listed, click Edit, otherwise click New, like this:

Then, if New, type the name of the new variable, OFX_PLUGIN_PATH (exactly as appears here) and type in the whatever path you unzipped the file to (in our example, D:\OFX):

Click OK, and you’re done. You’ll never have to do it again (unless you want to add the effects to other computers), so whenever I add new effects to it, you will just need to unzip the new file over it all, and it will just work.

Adam

If anyone is interested in that kind of thing, I have just uploaded the source code for these plug-ins to the same web directory. This may be particularly useful for anyone who might want to write a script to automate the use of the plug-ins, given that more than one track is involved (I have never been able to figure out how to write Vegas scripts, so I cannot be the one to write the script, but the plug-ins are script ready as the OFX specification describes how to make OFX plug-ins scriptable and I have done that).

Last but not least, http://www.pantarheon.org/koliba/files/ now contains the file Alex-BlendyPends.zip, which contains the Vegas Pro 14 project file (including the seven images in PNG format) for the video in the first post of this thread. That can be useful to see how exactly the Blendy Pends plug-in is applied to these tracks (including how the top 6 are set to Add), and to play with other options that I have not mentioned yet but will eventually (hey, right now it is past 3 AM where I live).

Thanks for the file, I will try it soon...

Actually, thank you! And please let me know if everything works. Because so far I have been the only one using it.

Let me try it.

Let me try it.

Yes, please do.

red prince, under which name your plugin should appear in Vegas ? I did installed it but it doesnot appear in Vegas Pro 14.

There are two of them, one appears as Blendy Bends, the other (more powerful) as Blendy Pends. Additionally, at the bottom of the Video FX list, there is a folder called Pantarheon/Koliba and they appear under that folder as well.

These snips are from Vegas Pro 14:

Ok, thanks, I did found it both inside the OFX list but there is no Pantarheon/Koliba folder in the Folder list.

Strange... But at least you found it in the OFX list.

Well, I have finished another plug-in for this series, called Palette Mallet. I have not released it yet because I am wondering whether I should just zip it up and upload it to the link mentioned earlier in this thread or make an official installer. Making the installer would take me some time ( I have not made one in years), making a zip file is a snap.

Anyway, I tested it on a video shot deliberately with the wrong color temperature. Then I applied three different methods, all done using Palette Mallet. The result is in this teaser video (teaser, because it only shows the results but not the steps of fixing it, which will be the subject of another video when I get to it.

Anyway, the bad original is in the lower left quarter of the video, the results of the three methods in the remaining quarters:

I have just added hand-made subtitles to that teaser because while the auto-generated ones (generated by YouTube, that is) were surprisingly good, they did have several errors in them (such as transcribing white as right and SpyderCHECKR as spider check uh).

I have not been able to make the full video explaining how that particular color temperature was corrected yet, because the sudden cold weather has made my voice so hoarse I can barely speak.

So, for now, just some written description follows:

Palette Mallet is based on the way video look-up tables (LUTs) work. Indeed, I originally started working on it just to use it as a part of a LUT tutorial I was working on at the time, but then I kept adding to it and adding to it (and not getting back to the tutorial, then again, if you watched the above teaser, its actor is me, I am getting old and have to take things easy).

Palette Mallet started off with two parts, a palette of eight colors (black, white, red, green, blue, cyan, magenta, yellow) and a mallet. The idea was that if a painter has a palette with those eight inks, he can mix just about any color within a gamut by mixing several of those inks.

In the past people used to make automata that could draw or paint an image and mix the inks just like a human painter (nowadays this can and is done by computers). If you changed some or even all of the inks, the automaton wouldn’t be any wiser. It would paint the same image as before but the colors wold be changed, whether subtly or drastically.

Palette Mallet allows you to change the “inks” in an image or a video and recreate the same image/video with the new “inks”. You can change them in the palette portion and further modify them in the mallet (by changing their brightness, contrast, saturation, gain, etc). In the mallet you can adjust these individually for each “ink” or certain groups thereof (the primaries, the secondaries, warm, cold, and others).

This would all be combined in a simple LUT, which then would be applied to each frame. That was the basic idea, but I kept expanding it but still producing a simple LUT.

Then I added further ability to apply a mask based on certain criteria. The mask is optional but if applied, it will decide how much of the LUT to apply to various pixels.

I was hoping people would have reacted and told me whether they wanted me to create an installer. But since no one has said anything, I will just zip it up and upload to my site (when my old age says to go ahead).

This message is just a very basic description of the plug-in, which is much more powerful than a few words can express. And yes, like the previous version, it continues to be free to download. All I ask in return is to give me credit for my work and to let others know about it.

Adam

Looking forward to giving it a try Adam. You'll post it on http://www.pantarheon.org/koliba/files/ right?

Looking forward to giving it a try Adam. You'll post it on http://www.pantarheon.org/koliba/files/ right?

Thanks, Nick. Yes, I will. I am very sick right now. I tried to start making the explanatory video, but my voice was very deep and very hard to hear. As soon as I feel better, I will post it, and then I will make the video.

It has just occurred to me, I don’t need my voice to be fully functional just to zip up and upload it, so I have done just that. The file koliba-ofx-1-1.zip (dated 11-11-2018) in the afforementioned directory is now available for anyone to download.

If you have the older version, you can just overwrite it with the contents of this zip file and everything should work. Otherwise, you can either unzip it directly to C:\Program Files\Common Files\OFX\Plugins and it is ready to work. Or you can unzip it somewhere else on your computer (personally, I avoid cluttering my C: drive) and add its path to the OFX_PLUGIN_PATH environment variable as described above in the 6th message of this thread (I have no idea how to link to any specific message within a thread).

It installs and interesting things happen when I play with the sliders. Looks like there's a lot of power in this thing, but think I'll need some instruction to use it in the way you intended. Great to see someone developing this sort of thing for Vegas. Get well soon!

Thanks, Nick.

OK, just to keep you updated. I started working on a video explaining how I was fixing the clip (the one from six messages up) with my plug-in, recording the various steps from my computer to a Blackmagic Design Video Assist 4k over HDMI.

Then on Monday I broke my HDMI cable, like some dummy. On Tuesday I ordered a new cable and it would normally arrive today (Thursday) but today is a big holiday here in the US (Thanksgiving), so no mail today.

In a way it is good I broke the cable because it forced me to split the video into two parts (Part I containing the clips from before I broke the cable). So, I made Part One—this is the thumbnail:

I started uploading it to YouTube 24 hours ago. It is currently 75% uploaded. So, if we assume a linear upload function, it should finish uploading in 8 hours. I have not really slept since I started the upload because I have been watching Windows, making sure it does not upgrade itself and does not slip in a reboot, which would end my upload prematurely.

So, if everything goes smoothly, the video should be at in roughly eight hours.