it was really very easy -- I'll post the .veg here, mainly it was 48 tracks - 1 parent and 47 children (or something like that). Then I selected and right click added the photos "accross tracks" rather than what it normally does (accross time). Then you just select all the tracks and and change the compositing mode to "3D" rather than source alpha (default). Then change the "parent composite mode" on the parent track to "3D Source alpha" Once that's done - just going into the 3D composite and placing them accordingly - then dropping the screen grab of the project where you're going to start (no-one seems to look good when their talking :( so that's almost never pretty) Then once you've placed all the photos in 3D composite modes on each track, you just use the parents "parent composite" button and that's your "camera" with which you can keyfram and move all around and in severall different ways. I posted the veg be aware it Ver. 6d (sans the photos) in there and so you'll have to just tell it to "ignore the missing files," but if you can't understand my gibberish then feel free to look at it - it's really quite easy - but failrly time consuming

My suggestion is that when you are making one of these *NEST!!!* It will save you more than likely hours of render time as it will only have to render that massive 3D bit over a very short bit of time- rather than having to place all those tracks in 3D space for the entire project.

Dave

Hi Dave,
Thanks for posting. The .veg I downloaded has nowhere near 47 tracks. Is that perhaps in an embedded .veg?
Tom

Nicely done. I liked it.

The only way I could think of to improve it might be something too difficult to do. As you zoom in on the speaker it might have been even better had it been a full body shot that zoomed in to the head shot. I want to see his whole body until it becomes a close up.

Very nice effect.

I think I would have liked to see a different color for the background. Perhaps, white or light blue. Towards the end it gets a little too heavy with black.

Or perhaps save a few pictures to start behind the speaker and pass him as he comes up to full screen.

Nice work.

my suggestion would be to start with the pictures and then place your title card where your talking head is and have the transition from that to him. The still as he comes up appears to be very unflattering.

Love the composite though. Very nice work.

cheno

This veg does not show how the photos were placed in 3D space. Were they rendered or was this a separate veg file?

Dave, a very nice example. Many options...... good starting point!

"Hi Dave,

GAH!!! - Sry Tom - Fixed it now - was out all day or I would have changed it sooner.

Dave

And I thought I had to purchase after effects to do something like that (or this.

Dave, is there a way in Vegas to, after the flythrough, position the camera above- like in the example I cited above? Just curious- I have not ventured far into the 3-D realm of things and if Vegas can do things like this, then my money can be spent elsewhere. (like possibly paying you for a veg that does what I need :)

Anyways, just curious.

j razz

Neat effect.
Comment on speaker track: Maybe put a velocity envelope on him so you can have just a bit of ramping in of movement before he starts speaking instead of the still.

I'm curious though why this effect needed to be done in 3D? Why couldn't you simple pan/crop each track to zoom past along the same paths?

that would have taken me, OH SO MANY MORE HOURS compared to the hour and a half i spent laying this out - plus you would have to do a BUTT LOAD of keyframe work in every track when I did the slight move up etc...

MUCH MUCH faster in a 3D track - and what if I would have wanted to go in all kinds of directions instead of just straight forward?

Just imagine the work that would have been - nearly impossible and countless hours of frustration - I guaruntee you. Before I knew how to do this in Vegas, I tried once - you can just forget it, believe me.

I feel a little dense asking this, but it does seem that a 2d move with a drop shadow might do the same--though I'm not sure. What exactly does the 3D option do to give the sense of the different pix being in front of or behind another?

There certainly seems to be a sense of depth in your example, but I'm not getting exactly how to do it.

I think a lot of us would appreciate it if you could give us more detail on your technique.

Dave, is there a way in Vegas to, after the flythrough, position the camera above- like in the example I cited above? Just curious- I have not ventured far into the 3-D realm of things and if Vegas can do things like this, then my money can be spent elsewhere. (like possibly paying you for a veg that does what I need :)

Absolutely - I wouldn't say that it could be done as easily/nicely as in AE or Combustion - I've worked in Combustion far more than AE. the thing is that Vegas isn't designed to do this soley, mind you it's got some UBER APP power, but I personally don't think you'll ever beat the ease of a Good UI made for a specific purpose. Also not sure how well you'd be able to get that lighting affect in Vegas either (if at all really) Mind you - it's certainly possible to emulate it somewhat - I'm just not sure about the shadows being cast. Then there's also the matter of Vegas having a drastically underpowered titler compared to either AE or Combustion in terms of Clean cut lines etc... ( never really thought it was that much of a dif, till i looked at them side by side).

hope that helps answer your question.

Dave

What exactly does the 3D option do to give the sense of the different pix being in front of or behind another? - when you put the tracks all in 3D composite mode - and then make them all "children" to a master "parent" track and make that tracks compositing mode 3D as well as it's parent compositing option as 3D you can move a "virtual camera" so to speak, in any direction and have all the video planes be positioned, and even independantly moving as you move your camera in that 3D space.

Widetrack I'm not sure if you're asking about his example posted or mine? I guess I'm not sure I understand what you are having trouble understanding.

Dave

jrazz

Very cool!
Do you have the .veg for that example?

Thank you very much.

That "little example" was enough to help me almost understand parent/child and 3D space in Vegas. I wil now try to figure out how to use it in my own stuff.

I'm learning. In leaps and bounds. But I'm learning.

Thank you again.

Ayath

Dave, use Bufftitler DX9 for a simple 3d camera movement.

Lamont, that is not my clip- it was done mostly in AE. It is on the 4evergroup.org website and they kind of explain what was used to make it but no AE file or Veg file for that matter. Sorry to dissappoint, but I am kind of glad. I thought that I was going to have to purchase AE to do something like that and now I know that I don't have to. I can use Vegas for most all of my needs (Thanks to Dave for helping me to see that). I guess I need to go to one of the demo's of what Vegas can do, so I can challenge myself to do it instead of thinking I need other software to accomplish things that the software I own can do (at least for the most part).

j razz

Dave, this looks very good and your description, along with the veg file, really go a long way towards explaining how to approach the effect.

I found that with 30 jpegs in a composite, Vegas would pretty much hang while trying to display a frame. Maybe Vegas would behave better if the files were a different format but the other things that helped were to switch to preview/auto and use a small preview window. Also, muting all the tracks but the one I was working with really sped up the process of positioning the images in 3d space.

I'm on an Athlon3200. Pretty modest CPU power.

I have to agree that the shot of the interview-ee isn't too flattering. In part it's because he's so different from all the photos, the light is flatter, darker, and warmer. And because the corners of his mouth naturally turn down he looks a little frowny. You don't really want people staring at him as he comes in. You might be better served to trade that for a still that very specifically introduces his organization and then moves on to the shot of him after the frame is established. Maybe let him speak over other images or footage before you get to the shot of him, so that you can decouple the look of the stills from the look of his shot.

Rob Mack

Rob - thanks for the input - I think I've decided that from now on, if I'm going to do those composites anymroe - it's going to be with a slowly speeding up video clip to the point. (wish that Velocity envelopes would controll their counterpart audio so I could just use those rather than splitting and Ctrl+Dragging the clips.... Oh well.

yea- I run my stuff in draft for positioning the full composite and then do a ramrender to preview the effect. otherwise I pretty much do a solo on the track I'm positioning and then just unclick it to see how the overall composite looks.

Thanks again :)

Dave

Dave, maybe try using the sony border FX ( white border) on the pictures as they move, that should add some extra bang. If you do not want to change you video intro timing, try using a soft focus/blur on the speaker at the start and sharpen the image after he starts speaking. I still like your example, your client must be impressed.

I think that the effect really looks good. How you treat that final "Hero" shot would vary depending on how the shot looks. I don't know that I'd settle on a formula for it.

Rob