@Mindmatter

I did what you are talking about . a Sprite Bot , kind-a sorta . Yeah , I have done that . Think about "Inverse Kinematics" . No math needed when working with Vegas , but the principles are fully applicable . Yes , I moved head , legs separate to walk . and the Torso was the Root of it all , as is typically done when using Inverse Kinematics for a bot . I can post a screen shot of the Vegas tracks structure . I will have to find that project .

That would be much more difficult to do in Hitfilm . Vegas can do things that others can't .

your Parent Track FX . you need to move that FX to the Right Side of the Big Blue Composite Button , to make that FX "Post Composite" . when FX is on the Left side it is "Pre-Composite"

in Vegas F1 Help , search "Video Signal Flow Diagram" , and study the Track Compositing diagram .

P.S. there was an additional trick to it . after the pieces were moved in place to make the bot . the legs needed a Rotator ,. the Torso needed a Rotator . Also , the frame of reference needed adjusting at the Rotation point( a starting Orientation ) , so that when the torso was moved , the other pieces accurately followed . It works ! I have done it ! A fully functional Sprite bot can be made in Vegas .

Thanks all, learning new stuff all the time here!

I'm surprised though that there are so many "hidden" functions in vegas. Like when Marco told me the 2D shadow function had a rightclick function where you could inverse / mirror the shadow. or just now the thing with the FX before the blue composite button. Would there be no way to have those hidden or secundary functions that are not obvious at first sight clearly hinted at in some way? Like, say, a popup or something? Or clearly give them a button or icon somewhere. As far as my approach to learning a software is concerned, I find that those are things you can't find because you wouldn't even know how and where to look for them in the manual. Even there, there could be a section dedicated to hidden functions.

pic is from Vegas 5.0 manual , showing pre-post composite buttons .

No , not really . Example : that Big Blue Composite button that is in the FX chain . well , in pervious versions of Vegas , I think there used to be a very , very , very tiny triangle to click on . Left facing was Pre-composite and Right facing was Post-composite . The triangle was so small , it didn't even look like a button . So , if you think it could be a button , click it , to find out what happens . Or , read the manual , and grind thru it .

Search Vegas Help F1 "Video Signal Flow Diagram" . study those diagrams , and later if you must , ask questions about those diagrams if need be .

Just as an aside, I recently animated a leprechaun graphic for this video with hitfilm. I used the puppet tool. You put it on, generate mesh, then put the control points and then you can move them limbs around. I made a short looping animation by having it go back to the start point and animated the rest of the movement just by keyframe position and rotation. Skip to the 9 minute mark.

Here is a tutorial on the puppet tool, it may not be what you need at the moment but it's nice for creating easy animation

Thanks, I actually bought that one a while ago but at that time I found it to be more of a deform / distort tool that for precise animation of limbs and precise movements. Maybe I shoud revisit it though, I now remember that tutorial, it might atually simplify the workflow quie a bit compared to dissecting single limbs to layers etc.

Back to one of the initial points: "[…] why does moving the main body track not affect the child tracks to exactly move with it?"

For a parent-child-composite when you want Track Motion to affect the whole composite you need to use Parent Motion instead of Track Motion.