I struggle with pan/crop myself. As an alternative you could try track motion for the entire track or bezier masking and picture in picture.

It's incredible right ? How bad this tool is. No matter how many years you use it you never really know what you're doing, you manage something average most of the time, but when there's some serious work you can just forget about using it... Thank you Roger for the two alternatives, I'm going to try them.

Marty.

Use Pan/Crop to crop (or pan). Use Picture In Picture "to move up or down a video".

Jøran Toresen

So all this time I've been using the wrong tool... Thanks a lot J-Toresen, I'm quite relieved to be wrong.

Normally you use the pan/crop tool for panning/cropping an event. For resizing and repositioning you use the track motion tool.

Since version 15 (I think) two FX have been added Crop FX and Picture in Picture FX, which achieve the same.

Advantage of last two effects is that settings can be directly made in the preview window, disadvantage is that these effects do not snap to the grid and for precise sizing/repositioning you need a calculator.

I very seldom use Track Motion. I have gotten very comfortable with Pan/Crop and its operation. You just have to think differently. I like it because it is event specific whereas Track Motion means you have to dedicate a whole track for one event effect.

I very seldom use Track Motion. I have gotten very comfortable with Pan/Crop and its operation. You just have to think differently. I like it because it is event specific whereas Track Motion means you have to dedicate a whole track for one event effect.

I think the same way - and we also have the picture in picture FX.
Every tool has its own purpose - and there are several in Vegas.
It also helps a lot to deal with the various possibilities of the program, to read the manual and to watch tutorials, instead of just scolding like a sparrow.

@Former user whereas Track Motion means you have to dedicate a whole track for one event effect.

With respect, that's not entirely true. You can set reset keyframes at either end of the event so that the rest of the track isn't affected.

@Jack S Yes, I forgot that option, but in my workflow that is just asking for trouble. One rogue keyframe is hard to find sometimes. :)

@Former user Point taken. However, if the keyframes are placed on the first and next to last frame of the event, they move around with the event. But, again, I take your point. I'm a great believer in 'whatever works for the individual concerned'. 🙂

Normally you use the pan/crop tool for panning/cropping an event. For resizing and repositioning you use the track motion tool.

Since version 15 (I think) two FX have been added Crop FX and Picture in Picture FX, which achieve the same.

Advantage of last two effects is that settings can be directly made in the preview window, disadvantage is that these effects do not snap to the grid and for precise sizing/repositioning you need a calculator.

I encountered 2 major problems with scaling with motion tracker to fit ones desired picture size etc.

1. It seems VP has serious quality issues if you resize with motion tracker, mainly the resizes seems very bad (Bicubic vs Lanczos etc.) and i have no clue what VP uses and does not obviously how to change or select the method.

2. It demands way more performance instead of Pan/Crop.

What i really hate about VP it gives you not simply an option to crop a whole track or the whole project. If i want to export something to 21:9 for example i am glad i have HappyOtterScripts which can do at least the cropping for the rendering in the end.

For a long time i prefered VP for the grouping and fast cutting ability, and it had in my opinion way better performance than adobe premiere. Now it only has still the same cutting advantage but in every other part vegas pro it sucks. i really need to learn to switch.

Track motion treats the source at Project Resolution, Pan/Crop treats it at Native Resolution.

Does it mean that with track motion the resolution will be bad ?

Only if you try to enlarge.

I guess it's fine, track motion sounded complicated anyway...
I can't get for now picture in picture to do some precise work making sure my two videos on top one another have equal size (height) so I'm starting to try Bézier mask, but I don't even know what it is.

Edit : It's probably this : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bézier_curve

Edit 2 : I'm trying to use Bézier, but I still can't move the picture where I want it to be. I just want to be able to enlarge and crop the two videos and then place them precisely where I want so that there's a separation between them precisely in the middle of the rendered video.

All I want is to be able to do something like this :
Equal separation between two video files in the middle of a 16/9 (1080p by 1920p), with the ability to crop/zoom/maybe squeeze/desqueeze on what part of the two source videos I want to keep. (The crop wont change with time, but I have to do it with many couples of source videos and each time the separation must be in the middle so that it looks good in general and between transitions.


Very simple thing, I don't know why it's complicated.

Let's take it step by step : What does actually move an image anywhere you want in the project's frame ? No cropping, no squeezing, just moving. (I mean except for the crop that obviously occurs due to the fact that when you move a picture a part of it goes beyond the frame).

As said Trackmotion or the newly PIP FX

Picture in picture seem pretty dull too, it's either fixed shape or free parallelogram, there should be a rectangle option in between in order to work without hassle. And track motion kills your image quality.

 

What i really hate about VP it gives you not simply an option to crop a whole track or the whole project. If i want to export something to 21:9 for example

You cannot blame Vegas when you don't know how to use it tools. Cropping a whole track for 21:9 or a whole project is just adding a Cookie Cutter FX or Crop FX to a track or to a whole project.

And track motion kills your image quality.

Nonsense, track motion should only not be used to enlarge a picture, only to make it smaller and to reposition.

Picture in picture seem pretty dull too, it's either fixed shape or free parallelogram, there should be a rectangle option in between in order to work without hassle.

You can combine PIP FX and Crop FX, for other shapes you can use Cookie Cutter FX or Bezier Masking FX.

Where can I get that cookie ? :)
Well I need to enlarge the picture obviously, to zoom in, so zooming in will give a less sharp image that's unavoidable. I just don't want tracking motion to add even more sharpness loss to that. Will it be the case ?

I'm trying Bézier, messing with it's effect settings, trying them all, but for now I don't really see how it can help me to do what I want.