Have you increased the Width and Height under Position?

In Event Pan/Crop, under Source, set "Stretch to fill frame" to Yes.

Hope this helps,
Paddy
SCS

Mike, my plan was to use Parent Track Motion on multiple tracks (chart, building, and font) to do a slow push into everything. But I could use Track Motion in addition on the individual tracks to further shrink the building, so thanks for the workaround. Not sure what the drawback is for resolution (it's a Track Motion on top of a Track Motion), but it doesn't look too bad.

It's still weird to me that these two images display as the same size under Pan/Crop.

Steve, yep, they're maxed out.

Paddy, Stretch to fill frame has been marked "yes"---if it's marked "no" then the image doesn't get resized, it just gets cropped. Since the image has a different aspect ratio than the timeline, I've set it to Match Output Aspect. If I change this to Match Source Aspect, I can make the image much smaller, but when I enlarge it past its full size it gets cropped once again.

Since the image has a different aspect ratio than the timeline, I've set it to Match Output Aspect. If I change this to Match Source Aspect, I can make the image much smaller, but when I enlarge it past its full size it gets cropped once again.
The aspect ratio of the image shouldn't really be a factor, if the event switch "Maintain aspect ratio" is enabled. But you may want to use Track Motion just to simplify things.

Best,
Paddy
SCS

I think the problem I'm having is that the building graphic is smaller than the timeline (in this case 600x640 vs 1920x1080), so if I enlarge it past its full size then I must match the timeline's aspect ratio, not the source's, or cropping occurs. I encounter this all the time when flying in graphic badges, logos, etc. You've got to match the project settings if you want to enlarge it past its full size.

It's still strange that two images of much different size display identically in Pan/Crop...

Paddy's correct in what he's saying to do.

Pan/crop does just that, pan & crop it. It won't re-size on it's own, the "stretch to fill frame" does that. With "stretch to fill frame" "YES" then when you crop the image down it takes the edges of the pan/crop markers & makes those the edges of your video preview. When "stretch to fill frame" is "NO" then it doesn't make the pan/crop edge markers your preview window edges, it just crops the photo down like you would do in Photoshop/Gimp.

THEN you would use track motion to move it around in your project space.

I'm guessing you're wanting to do something similar to this:

Hmmm... thanks for the explanation. I think my problem is far simpler, though.

Here's how I see it:
Try this test some time. In Photoshop (or something like it) make two versions of the same graphic, one that's 100 pixels wide, the other 600 pixels wide. Drop both images onto the timeline. Both graphics fill the screen automatically (the smaller one is noticeably more pixelated), but both appear the same size.

The Event Pan/Crop window gives the correct width of each (100 & 600). Use these settings:

Maintain aspect ratio: Yes
Stretch to fill frame: Yes
Automatically crop still images added to timeline (in Vegas Options)

Shouldn't graphics that are different sizes appear as different sizes within Vegas? As it stands, Vegas initially "blows up" each of my sub-1920 pixel-width graphics to fill the frame so they look identical. If a timeline is 1920 pixels wide, why would two different-sized graphics look the same?

Because of this initial behavior, and the fact that any width adjustment made in Pan/Crop is limited to 8 times the initial width of the graphic, the end result is that both images end up the same size, but with different levels of resolution.

If you've stuck with this so far, thanks for your patience. My workaround is (in Photoshop) to expand the canvas of my graphic, leaving a transparent border around it. My building graphic is still 600 pixels wide, only now I add 300 pixels of transparency the the canvas around it. When imported, Vegas correctly sees this new image as a 1200 pixels wide. The same automatic resizing occurs, but the graphic now appears smaller (because Vegas has "shrunk" it due to the added transparent border).

This is odd to me (I like to crop my images tightly) but it does solve this puzzle. If anyone can shed more light on this, I'd be much obliged.

On a project I just finished I needed to use the pan/crop to make small *.gif graphics very small. I was disappointed when the final results were close but not close enough. So after fiddling with it a bit I also tried track motion for re-sizing and that worked.

I found it strange that a tiny little animated smiley would fill up the entire screen at first but that no longer matters because I did get the small size I wanted.

The project resolution is probably why it was so large to begin with.

In Vegas 12 if the first thing I add to the project is the tiny smiley then it will ask if I want to set the properties to match it. I have not done so yet but I would not be surprised if I did that the smiley would then be its small size. That would be because the project settings would match the tiny smiley. And assuming the second display is not set to fill up the second monitor.

Anyway, a combination of pan/crop and track motion will get the job done.

A hidden feature in pan/crop is the ability to 'flip' the graphic. So in my project a spider runs from left to right and another spider runs from right to left even though the original spider ran from left to right only. You have to right click on the pan/crop to find that. I wish there was something obvious to click on instead of having to right click to figure it out. I did this in the past and I knew it was there but I forgot how I did it and was very frustrated trying to find it.

I will post a link to part of the video with the animated *.gifs later on this evening. I got to get a bunch of DVD's out for now.

I hope this helps.

Danny Fye
www.dannyfye.com/ccm

Thanks, Danny.

Your track motion option will work (it is possible to TM the individual track with the graphic and make it smaller. I'm already Parent TM'ing a group of tracks that contain this thing, but TMs are additive, I guess). Oddly enough, in your example if you were to make your gif larger by padding a transparent border around it, you'd be able to shrink it more.

Where I have problems with TM is, I guess, windows within windows. Since TM works at the track level, it sees everything through its "window". It's easy to get into trouble with reduced resolution when zooming in (even if your graphic is in a higher resolution, TM sees it at the timeline resolution, so when you zoom in you can dip below good resolution even if the graphic has plenty more pixels to offer). You can also get into trouble inadvertently cropping graphics when zooming out (again, because of the way TM sees things). I do get nervous coordinating movement between TMs and P/Cs, all those keyframes are difficult to wrangle...

I think the combo of TM and pan/crop helps the resolution a bit. Probably depends on how much is pan/crop VS. TM.

I went ahead and uploaded the video sample which is an intro to the video of the play Charlotte's Web. This was slopped together real quick so please do not judge it on how it looks.

http://www.dannyfye.com/001.html

Danny Fye
www.dannyfye.com/ccm

Looks great---I've got a lot to learn!

[i]Shouldn't graphics that are different sizes appear as different sizes within Vegas? As it stands, Vegas initially "blows up" each of my sub-1920 pixel-width graphics to fill the frame so they look identical. If a timeline is 1920 pixels wide, why would two different-sized graphics look the same?[i]

Because you didn't do what I said to do: set "stretch to fill frame" to "no".

I see what you mean. Setting it to "no" is the only way to resize an image in Pan/Crop, AFAIK.

I tend to shy away from Track Motion because of the resolution & keyframe issues (I prefer Pan/Crop because the settings you keyframe into it stay within that event, while TM can affect all events on that track if you're not careful).

Thanks for the explanation!

HUH???

If I set "stretch to fill frame" to 'no' it will not resize at all with 'pan/crop' in Vegas 12.

What version of Vegas are you using?

I believe he misspoke (and you confirm you get the same thing I get in 10!).

pan/crop NEVER* re-sizes, it's for panning & cropping the event. Track motion is the only way to re-size and move the stuff on the track.

*The "no" will crop without stretching, which I guess could technically be called "re-sizing". It's useful if you want just one person in an image, for example. I believe (don't remember) other NLE's would have this on "no" by default.

HappyFriar,

By resizing, do you mean Zooming? I can zoom in and out with Pan/Crop. That is how I do my slide shows. It changes the size of the image on screen.

In fact, for zooming in, you only want to use pan/crop, otherwise the picture will get soft as you zoom in.

Dave T2

In the technical sense it's not zooming, it's cropping & then scaling the crop to fit the screen. In a visual & practical sense, it zooms.

Since pan/crop is on the media level it will always have higher detail then the track level. The track is locked to the resolution of the project, the event is locked to the resolution of the event.

Resizing, scaling, zooming, visually it is the same so I wasn't sure why you said track motion was the only way to resize. I never use Track Motion.

Pan/Crop is actually closer to a "zoom" because visually you are adjusting the camera distance from the image.

Just wanted to clarify that you should only use track motion to "zoom" if you are making the image smaller on the screen. Otherwise, use Pan/Crop.

Dave T2

I said track motion was the only way to re-size because that IS the only way to re-size. When you crop you're not resizing, you're cropping. :) It's like taking a photo of two people, cropping one person out & getting a reprint of the cropped area, that's what the pan/crop is doing.

Track motion is like moving your face closer to the picture instead. When you're zooming with a camera you don't take part of the image you're seeing an just expand it to fill the screen, you move the camera closer.

The only reason pan/crop has higher resolution is because the events resolution is different then the tracks resolution. If you have an event resolution equal to or lower then the track resolution the pan/crop "zoom" you're talking about & using track motion would look the same. If your image was 8000x6000 & so was your project, track motion would have the same detail as pan/crop.

TheHappyFriar said, "I said track motion was the only way to re-size because that IS the only way to re-size. When you crop you're not resizing, you're cropping."

If I set "stretch to fill frame" to 'no' then it will definitely crop the image. If I set "stretch to fill frame" to 'yes' then it will resize the image. I know, I have done so in my recent video.

Instead of using Track Motion, you can also use Event Pan/Crop, look to Position - Width and Height. set this number larger.
Or on the F-window, make the box larger.
Think F-Window or F-Box is your field of view of the camera.