Panning and cropping

lwill wrote on 5/17/2009, 2:42 PM
I have been playing a lot with the pan/crop tool and I seem to be missing some important pieces of know how. When I do play around and make a mess I right click on in the pan/crop window to select restore and it doesn't seem to put my picture back to where it started. How do I do that?

Also, I am confused as to what are the 2 dots in the center of the picture, obviously one shows the center focus point but the other moves a circle out and around from the picture and I can't figure what I can or should do with that or what effect it is doing as a result of my moving it.

Next I would like to move the picture out of the center of the viewing area but my attempts have not worked so well. If I get anything out of center it is not the part of the picture I want.

Basically I need some in depth pan/crop lesson. I have gone over the tutorials but they don't give the answers to the above questions. Can somehow help me or lead me to help.

Thanks.

Comments

mickbadal wrote on 5/17/2009, 5:12 PM
trial and error my friend, trial and error. Best tutorial out there.

A couple tips while you do...make sure you understand keyframes. Those are the diamond things that you can drop onto the event for pan/crop, FX, etc. that will allow you to define a behavior or attribute of that effect at that point in time. keyframes are the "key" (pun intended) that allow you to create shifting behaviors and interpolated effects. Most likely when you set certain pan/crop attributes, VMS automatically created a keyframe. When you later tried to restore, you probably did it at a different keyframe. Which is why you didn't see everything just "go back to normal". In order to do that, you would have to delete all keyframes where attributes have been customized.

Sounds complicated, but once you get used to these little keyframe guys, they're pretty straightforward to use, and very powerful.
lwill wrote on 5/17/2009, 5:45 PM
I thought I had a handle on keyframes but I think what was happening was as you mentioned and I wasn't on one that was created automatically so it wasn't getting deleted.

Having said that I am still confused on how to move the picture out of the center of the screen without having to do track motion on the whole track. I would prefer to adjust pictures individually and have them in different places on the screen.

Also, I still can't figure out what the big circle thing does that you can move off the picture in all directions. The circle moves, the picture stays where it is so what suppose to be happening. I understand the rotate but what I am talking about is the circle that doesn't do the rotate.
mickbadal wrote on 5/18/2009, 3:56 PM
"Having said that I am still confused on how to move the picture out of the center of the screen without having to do track motion on the whole track."

You should be able to do that...in pan/crop, enlarge the pan rectangle (thus shrinking the actual frame), then move the frame to where you want it on the screen. This should work. Might have to play with the settings on the left that have to do with stretching to fill frame or not.

"Also, I still can't figure out what the big circle thing does that you can move off the picture in all directions. The circle moves, the picture stays where it is so what suppose to be happening."

I'm not sure actually, and I don't have VMS in front of me, so I'm unable to experiment in order to jog my memory. Sorry.