Pans with panoramic stills

Laurence wrote on 7/28/2007, 10:20 AM
I have some panoramic stills that I want to animate. If I put them on the Vegas timeline and pan accross them, it looks like I'm panning accross a photograph. If I use the Sony deform filter and squeeze the middle in at the top and bottom while I'm panning, it looks very 3d and wonderful except that it has black indentations at the top and bottom.

What I can't figure out how to do is how to zoom in so you just see a complete rectangular frame when you are using the deform filter in this way. Is it possible? How do you do it?

Comments

jimmyz wrote on 7/28/2007, 11:32 AM

Use track motion and make sure the scale about center is on (button on top)
that allows a crop on the track.

Or add the deform filter then render to new track then pan and crop that maybe?
kentwolf wrote on 7/28/2007, 5:34 PM
>>...how to zoom in so you just see a complete rectangular frame ..

Maybe what I think you're talking about, if you go into Pan/Crop, right click on the image and select Match *Output* aspect or someting like that. The "Match Source" whatever is the default.

I cannot get to Vegas right now, but is that what you're talking about?
farss wrote on 7/28/2007, 7:14 PM
Use Event Pan/Crop.
Select Match Output Aspect.
Make certain the Marque never goes outside the source image.
Make certain Maintain Aspect ratio is ON.
Enlarge or shrink the marque so it's just as tall as the source.
Move it so the left hand edge of the marque lines up with the LH edge pf the source image.
Move along the Pan/Crop T/L x frames or second.
Move the marque so the right hand edge line up with the RH edge of the source.
Job done (I hope I got this right)

Be careful. If your source is from a high res DSC you may get line jitter. A tiny amount of Gaussian Blur, vertical only, will fix this. 0.002 to 0.003 should do it.

Bob.

Grazie wrote on 7/29/2007, 1:12 AM
. .and and and . .

Please don't forget the audio too! Pan the audio ! Wild birdsong drifting nicely with the pan. OOoo .. I can visualise it now!
farss wrote on 7/29/2007, 1:51 AM
Ah now Grazie, you've raised a real can of worms.
Should one pan the audio with the vision, very interesting question.
And no, I don't have a definative answer to this one.

I *think* if you had a stereo shotgun that you could pan at the same rate as the camera you'd get a really nice sound field, not certain though about a fixed stereo mic or panning a mono mic.
alltheseworlds wrote on 7/29/2007, 4:54 AM
If you really wanted to have fun with the audio you could snip out a few good sounds and place them on a new track left or right according to the imagery as it panned by...
Grazie wrote on 7/29/2007, 4:55 AM
Excellent!!
Grazie wrote on 7/29/2007, 5:02 AM
.. and Bob: Ah now Grazie, you've raised a real can of worms.

Raised? Just by summoning them up from some primeval depth?

Surely, shouldn't that be "opening a can of worms"? Or did you mean "raising a storm"?

Mind you, I never like to gnat pick.

Grazie
farss wrote on 7/29/2007, 5:35 AM
More fun than a barrel of monkeys maybe?

But seriously, it's an interesting topic.
I seem to recall that while our sense of vision pans our hearing doesn't. In other words if we turn our heads while there's someone talking in front of us we 'see' the image in front of us move but we don't 'hear' the voice move.

Bob.
Chienworks wrote on 7/29/2007, 6:43 AM
Our hearing tends to follow our vision when we see the object producing sound, particularly when it's someone speaking. When your ears tell you that the voice is coming from the same position where your eyes see the person, your brain interprets that as "the voice didn't move, it's still coming from the same place", where place = that person.

Now, if you were to produce a video of this even and leave the voice panned dead center while the person moved, your brain might think something weird happened, such as the voice moving left while the person moves right. Probably very very few people would notice it though unless they were told what to notice. On the other hand, if the voice DID move to follow the person, it would seem quite natural. Close your eyes and listen to any well mixed movie and you will hear this happening ... a lot.
richard-courtney wrote on 7/29/2007, 6:49 AM
I tried "sweetening" the sound from my still photos. Thought it was a bit flat.

Sound recorded from outdoors has a certain "feel". Sorry I can't put it into words.
Chienworks wrote on 7/29/2007, 6:58 AM
That too is a bizarre, interesting, and annoying thing. Listen to outdoor sounds and your brain hears what it wants to hear ... birds singing, church bells ringing, crickets chirping, etc. Your brain filters out the wind and the trucks rumbling by. Record that outdoor sound and then listen to the recording inside. You have almost exactly the same sound coming into your ears as you did when you were outside, yet now, for some dastardly reason, your brain now not only doesn't filter out the garbage, but focuses on it!

Any time you hear good "outdoor" sound in a movie or on TV you can rest assured that the sound was not recorded outdoors. It was manufactured in the studio to give you the impression of what your brain enjoys hearing outdoors.
alltheseworlds wrote on 7/29/2007, 7:04 AM
So true ! I've worked a lot with audio and have found that even the slightest "miscellaneous" noise will ruin a good background track. It just leaps out and screams "I'm here, I'm here !"
farss wrote on 7/29/2007, 7:21 AM
Interesting input.
Now I've never tried any of this and am pretty unlikely to ever mix a soundtrack for cinema but Jay Rose is pretty specific on the point that cinema dialogue should always be in the centre channel, even if the talent is way over one side of the screen. But that might be for other reasons.

Bob.
Chienworks wrote on 7/29/2007, 9:25 AM
Well, center channel dialog makes for the best listening experience. Panning the voice completely to one side would make it harder for the audience on the other side of the theatre to hear it. And as i noted before most people probably wouldn't notice that the audio wasn't coming from the speaker's position.
Laurence wrote on 7/29/2007, 2:28 PM
Getting this thread back on course, the Event Pan/Crop tool seems to be "post deform effect" so to speak. In other words, the border I select seems to be deformed by the deform tool as well as the video and when I try to zoom in to avoid the black, the zoomed in image border is deformed the same as it was before I zoomed. This should be really easy, but I can't seem to make it work no matter what I try.
farss wrote on 7/29/2007, 4:44 PM
Why are you using the Deform FX?
Unless you're trying to warp the image you don't need it.
Bob.
Chienworks wrote on 7/29/2007, 5:45 PM
I think Laurence is trying to duplicate the look of the 360° pans that deform the image so that what is straight ahead looks smaller and what's on the sides looks stretched out. It's an eerie look that makes me a bit dizzy and personally i'd be happy to not have it happen. But, it is a well known and recognized effect so trying to duplicate it has it's uses.

Laurence, actually the problem you're having is that pan/crop is PRE deform. However, you can change the deform effect to be post. In the deform effect window look for the triangle before the word "Deform" on the keyframe timeline that is pointing to the right. Click on it to make it point to the left. That will force it to happen before pan/crop.
jimmyz wrote on 7/29/2007, 6:59 PM
Vegas has so many of these little switches or check boxes, it cam probably do my taxes.....
Laurence wrote on 7/29/2007, 7:17 PM
Kelly's right. I am trying for that "cheesy 360 panorama" look, except that I am hopefully going to do it subtly enough that it isn't quite so cheesy. ;-)

Anyway, the little pre/post triangle was a good idea, but it doesn't give me what I want. What happens when I check it to "pre" is that it applies the deform accross the whole width of the panorama instead of just the part that is in the preview window. It might be useful sometime, and I'm glad that you informed me of it's existence, but it is not what I need for this case.

I just got back from the Galapagos and I have stitched together some panoramic shots of some absolutely huge and magnificent lava fields. I am hoping to animate some pans across the panoramic photos, and the compression in the middle looks really good except for the black indentations that I can't get rid of at the top and bottom of the screen.