Making a template

cmcdonald wrote on 7/14/2007, 7:57 AM

I love the tutorials that have been posted. They are really helping me to learn how to use VMS to its potential. Can anyone tell me if there is a way in VMS Platinum to create a "template". As an example, there was recently posted a great tutorial that shows how to create a 4 way split screen effect. Is there a way that I can make a template version of this effect so that each time I want to use this, I only have to replace the photos in my template with new photos from my media pool without having to go through all of the steps to recreate the effect? Or is this just another example of me being to lazy to work through the steps? Thanks

Chris

Comments

Ivan Lietaert wrote on 7/14/2007, 11:51 PM

If you have made a splitscreen once, you can copy the parameters necessary.
1) Create a splitscreen project and save the project as 'splitscreen template'. You can use this again and again.
2) Create a new project, the one where you want to introduce the splitscreens.
3) Create the video tracks and put the video events where you want them
4) Four each quadrant, go to the respective template quadrant, rightclick on the event and 'copy'
5) Next go to the quadrant in your new project, rightclick on it an choose 'paste event attributes'.

example:

Tim L wrote on 7/15/2007, 8:59 AM

Chris,

Ivan's method may do exactly what you are asking for, but note that you can save new templates of your own design, for both track motion keyframes and for pan/crop keyframes.

Assume you have images going to the four corners of the screen. You can set this up using pan/crop or using track motion. Once you have the desired settings in your pan/crop or track motion window, simply click in the "Preset" title box and type in a new title of your own choosing, then click the floppy-disk icon at the right end of the preset title. You will now have a user-designed template that you can recall at any time from the preset drop-down list. Basically, selecting one of the presets simply loads the pan/crop window with the settings you had when you saved the preset.

So, you could easily set up four new presets: "Upper Left Quarter", "Upper Right Quarter", "Lower Left Quarter", and "Lower Right Quarter". If you want photos or video to fade in at the center of the screen, then move to one of the corner positions, you might also want to define a "Center Start" template.

Now, you can add an event to your timeline. Place the cursor at the beginning of the event and select Track Motion or Pan/Crop. Select the "Center Start" template for that keyframe. Now move a few seconds down the timeline, add another keyframe, and then select "Upper Right Quarter" from the preset drop-down list.

You can design your presets like this for most any other Event FX (brightness/contrast, color adjustments, etc.) as well. The basic premise is to get the settings the way you want them in the effects window, type in a new preset name in the drop-down area, and click the floppy disk icon. Your new preset will then be available in the preset dropdown list.

Tim L

Ivan Lietaert wrote on 7/15/2007, 12:22 PM

Tim, thank you for your sharing your insights. Being a newbie, I'm realizing now that Vegas is 'unfathomably' deep. The option of tweaking an effect, and saving it, makes Vegas Movie Studio even more worthwhile. Your suggestion opens up a whole new perspective for me, and even kind of redefines my concept of what templates are.

One more question: is it possible to locate these tweaked, saved effects and exchange these files, very much like it is done with other 'templates' (think of Word or excel templates)? Or are these what they call 'scripts', and being unavailable to VMS?

cmcdonald wrote on 7/15/2007, 5:57 PM

Thanks folks. I knew there had to be a relatively simple way of doing this. That's why I love these forums. So many people, with so much knowledge, willing to help each other.

OhMyGosh wrote on 7/15/2007, 11:27 PM

Ok Tim, you blew me away with that one! I was lead to believe that I couldn't save that sort of template in Pan/Crop :O That just helped me more than you could know, as I have to recreate many of the same effects in different projects. Huge thanks. Cin
PS. I would also like to say thanks to Ivan for his very helpful post as well :)

OhMyGosh wrote on 7/16/2007, 8:35 AM

Hi Tim and Ivan,
I use Pan/Crop and add several keyframes, save the preset, but then when I use the preset on another clip all I get on the second clip is the effect that was the one on the last keyframe of the preset clip? What am I doing wrong? Thanks. Cin

Tim L wrote on 7/16/2007, 9:34 AM

Ivan,
I don't think the templates are easily accessible. I have Vegas 7.0 (full version), and still have VMS 6.0 installed. I see a "Presets" folder in my VMS program folder, but nothing similar in the Vegas program. The presets *might* be stored in the registry -- or maybe hidden files somewhere? not sure...

Also, these presets are not the same thing as scripts. Only the full Vegas supports Scripts, which very much resemble C code or Java or something. This capability lets you write a little program that taps into the project data and information. If you know what you are doing (and I don't have a clue regarding scripts), you could probably write a little script that went through all your clips and added a specific color adjustment, or automatically overlapped each event by a certain amount, etc. But the great thing about scripts is that smart people who do know what they are doing can generously share them with people like me.

OhMyGosh,
The preset is for just a single keyframe -- not for a whole series (sorry...). If you have multiple keyframes, you'll need to save multiple presets, and then add multiple keyframes to the new event.

Tim

OhMyGosh wrote on 7/16/2007, 9:51 PM

:( Thanks Tim.

mickbadal wrote on 7/17/2007, 9:15 AM

Hi folks - I use an approach that I believe accomplishes what is being looked for here, and in a very visual way, which is why I favor it.

First I create these effects (like the 4-way split screen tutorial) in a template project. Then when I'm searching for an effect I'd like to use, I can look through that template project and of course preview the effects visually, until I decide on one I want to use. Once I've decided on the effect I'd like to use, I do the following:

1) In the template project, mutli-select all video/audio events involved in the effect, and "Copy" them
2) "Paste" the effect into my video project.
3) In the media bin, find the video that I want to apply the effects to
4) Right-click-drag it on top of the event containing the effect, and choose "Add as take". This adds the video as a second take to the event, which of course adopts all the attributes of the event.

If you find this appealing, search the online help for "takes" for more information. It's an interesting feature, allowing you to swap multiple videos around "inside" an event, viewing each one with the attributes of the event applied.