I've started a new thread - I think it is necessary!
After much, much thought and playing with the FX and Pan/Crop settings I have at last discovered what needs to be done to get a “wandering” PiP working “easily” without the needing to employ a cumbersome and ineffective synchronization procedure. It is fairly lengthy but it does, at least for me, work. There nearly 40 procedures and within these are a few subsets. So, are you listening at the back there! Sit up, pay attention and take notice [it has taken me the best part of 4 hours to write it and 5 days in experimentation – I must get out more!]…
Ahem….
1. Using the Video FX Tab I can adjust a multitude of Colour settings and PiP framing shapes and these can be set for “Begin”ning of the PiP and gradually adjust them to the “End” of the PiP. In the Pan/Crop device I am setting the size and panning/rotation activity of PiP for “Begin”ning of the PiP and gradually adjust them to the “End” of the PiP.
2. For the sake of brevity I’m classifying the PiP as being Video 2 – “Picture-In”[V2] over the Video 1 “The Picture”[V1].
3. Okay, in the FX menu locate “Begin”.Click on it and uncheck the check box – leave it blank.
4. Locate the tiny brown box in the large white pane – there is no name to this pane – at least there is not one in my VF 2.0c. I presume this box represents V2, its framing and colour adjustment Begin and End adjustments position-vector. But as we are not going to alter the look and feel of the Cookie Cutter during its passage across the “screen”, I won’t be dealing with this here.
5. Now adjust the FX settings for V2.
6. Move all the Color settings over to the far right – i.e. creating a white Cookie Cutter frame.
7. Now set the Cookie Cutter frame “look” & actions
8. I have the following:
9. Shape: “Rectangle”
10. Method: “Cut away all but section”
11. Feather: 0.00
12. Border: 0.00
13. Repeat X: 1
14. Repeat Y: 1
15. Size: 1.000
16. Center X: 0.481 [I don’t think these matter as the next part “Working In Pan/Crop” I think overrides these]
17. Center Y: 0.511 [I don’t think these matter as the next part “Working In Pan/Crop” I think overrides these]
18. Now select the Pan/Crop tab.
19. Working in Pan/Crop, reduce the size of V2 by grabbing hold of a corner of the “F” tool’s expand and reduce facility. Dragging this “away” from the centre of V2 will make the “F” tool bigger and consequently “reduce” the size of V2. Conversely, on dragging the “F” tool corner towards its centre, I can “increase” the size of V2. This is I presume because F means the actual video frame & size. So Drag/pull out from center of V2, V2 becomes smaller. Drag/pull towards centre of V2, V2 gets bigger. Keep this in mind because what you do with the Pan/Crop “F” tool has the converse effect – this is the clue!
20. Okay, using method in 19. above, reduce the size of V2 to say 10-20% of its original size.
21. Now, here’s the cute thing, in the top left-hand corner of the Pan/Crop grid – where the x and y coords collide, you will notice a tiny black square with what looks like a “gun-site” cross hair. Click on this and you will see the overall grid zoom out and in! You may have to manually “zoom” out the “F” tool edit grid area. You can do this by manually adjusting the setting for this zooming. You would need to adjust “zoom” settings. You do this in the “Properties” pane. If you can’t see this Properties Pane click on “Properties” box [this is directly under the word “Preset”. If you move your cursor over this Properties box you should see a “Show Properties” statement on the end of your mouse cursor.
22. Click on this box.
23. Having the Properties displayed you will notice to major panes – “Position” & “View”.
24. Go to View
25. Go to Magnify View (%)
26. Select say “12.5%”
27. Voila!
28. I now have a view of the whole Pan/Crop grid area to play with – neat eh!
29. Okay – You should now see the “F” tool and V2 in the centre of the grid.
30. “Grab” the “F” tool and move the whole “F” tool, say to the Left of V2 and completely away from V2, so that there is a gap between the “F” tool and V2.
31. Wanting to just have V2 to wander in a straight line say from Right to Left, and keep its size throughout, I NOW use the “Begin”ing and “End” check boxes.
32. With the “F” tool in its “Begin” position [i.e. as of 30.], click on the “Begin” check box. This sets the beginning of the “F” tool Pan.
33. “Grab” the “F” tool and move the whole “F” tool, say to the Right of V2 and completely away from V2, so that there is a gap between the “F” tool and V2.
34. With the “F” tool now in its “End” position, click on the “End” check box. This sets the end of the “F” tool Pan.
35. NB: If you find it difficult to align the Begin and End position – I did! – use the “Size” and “Center” manual settings to exactly get what you want. Of course you can play with the Rotation tool to have V2 “twist” about its axis as it Pans across V1…. Oh too much…
36. Now “Preview” what you have done by clicking on the little arrow in the bottom left hand portion of the Pan/Crop or FX editing pane. Use the little square to stop the motion.
37. I now see a small V2 moving across V1 – both clips are moving and if the sound is activated on both – messy! – I can hear both audio channels.
My apologies for the mixed spelling UK/US for centre and center, but being UK my MS Word is set-up for UK. There are other misspellings as well.
Anyway, I promised y’ll my experience in getting PiP wandering – now you’ve got it! What this does mean is that I don’t need to “synchronize” the panning to the Cookie Cutter. You can also try layering over and over again the same piece of wandering V2, but set at different frame heights. The effect is quite truly stunning. If you change V2’s size or its opacity or its colour etc etc, you can get close to many of the high-end package effects. It has given me a rethink on much that I do now and convinced me of the following:
VF is “function/feature” rich. I’m creating formats to make my NLE-work, work more flexibly for me. In understanding the scope of this package, it has “forced” me to truly “unpack” all the bits ‘n pieces that make it operate, and, hopefully allowing me to get on with the creative part of film editing. What am I saying here? I want to get past the techie [look what I can do!] bit and proceed to faster and more intuitive working. For example I’ve tried to “save” this effect as a Grazie PiP, but it will not. If y’ll can come up with that procedure – let’s hear it.
This procedure I’ve worked out for myself and may not be at present the prettiest of methods, but with most things the more I do it, the easy it will become.
As with all my postings, these are only my suggested solutions and opinions. If you find they work, great. As with all posts I/we make here on this Forum I/we employ them at my own risk.
Grazie
After much, much thought and playing with the FX and Pan/Crop settings I have at last discovered what needs to be done to get a “wandering” PiP working “easily” without the needing to employ a cumbersome and ineffective synchronization procedure. It is fairly lengthy but it does, at least for me, work. There nearly 40 procedures and within these are a few subsets. So, are you listening at the back there! Sit up, pay attention and take notice [it has taken me the best part of 4 hours to write it and 5 days in experimentation – I must get out more!]…
Ahem….
1. Using the Video FX Tab I can adjust a multitude of Colour settings and PiP framing shapes and these can be set for “Begin”ning of the PiP and gradually adjust them to the “End” of the PiP. In the Pan/Crop device I am setting the size and panning/rotation activity of PiP for “Begin”ning of the PiP and gradually adjust them to the “End” of the PiP.
2. For the sake of brevity I’m classifying the PiP as being Video 2 – “Picture-In”[V2] over the Video 1 “The Picture”[V1].
3. Okay, in the FX menu locate “Begin”.Click on it and uncheck the check box – leave it blank.
4. Locate the tiny brown box in the large white pane – there is no name to this pane – at least there is not one in my VF 2.0c. I presume this box represents V2, its framing and colour adjustment Begin and End adjustments position-vector. But as we are not going to alter the look and feel of the Cookie Cutter during its passage across the “screen”, I won’t be dealing with this here.
5. Now adjust the FX settings for V2.
6. Move all the Color settings over to the far right – i.e. creating a white Cookie Cutter frame.
7. Now set the Cookie Cutter frame “look” & actions
8. I have the following:
9. Shape: “Rectangle”
10. Method: “Cut away all but section”
11. Feather: 0.00
12. Border: 0.00
13. Repeat X: 1
14. Repeat Y: 1
15. Size: 1.000
16. Center X: 0.481 [I don’t think these matter as the next part “Working In Pan/Crop” I think overrides these]
17. Center Y: 0.511 [I don’t think these matter as the next part “Working In Pan/Crop” I think overrides these]
18. Now select the Pan/Crop tab.
19. Working in Pan/Crop, reduce the size of V2 by grabbing hold of a corner of the “F” tool’s expand and reduce facility. Dragging this “away” from the centre of V2 will make the “F” tool bigger and consequently “reduce” the size of V2. Conversely, on dragging the “F” tool corner towards its centre, I can “increase” the size of V2. This is I presume because F means the actual video frame & size. So Drag/pull out from center of V2, V2 becomes smaller. Drag/pull towards centre of V2, V2 gets bigger. Keep this in mind because what you do with the Pan/Crop “F” tool has the converse effect – this is the clue!
20. Okay, using method in 19. above, reduce the size of V2 to say 10-20% of its original size.
21. Now, here’s the cute thing, in the top left-hand corner of the Pan/Crop grid – where the x and y coords collide, you will notice a tiny black square with what looks like a “gun-site” cross hair. Click on this and you will see the overall grid zoom out and in! You may have to manually “zoom” out the “F” tool edit grid area. You can do this by manually adjusting the setting for this zooming. You would need to adjust “zoom” settings. You do this in the “Properties” pane. If you can’t see this Properties Pane click on “Properties” box [this is directly under the word “Preset”. If you move your cursor over this Properties box you should see a “Show Properties” statement on the end of your mouse cursor.
22. Click on this box.
23. Having the Properties displayed you will notice to major panes – “Position” & “View”.
24. Go to View
25. Go to Magnify View (%)
26. Select say “12.5%”
27. Voila!
28. I now have a view of the whole Pan/Crop grid area to play with – neat eh!
29. Okay – You should now see the “F” tool and V2 in the centre of the grid.
30. “Grab” the “F” tool and move the whole “F” tool, say to the Left of V2 and completely away from V2, so that there is a gap between the “F” tool and V2.
31. Wanting to just have V2 to wander in a straight line say from Right to Left, and keep its size throughout, I NOW use the “Begin”ing and “End” check boxes.
32. With the “F” tool in its “Begin” position [i.e. as of 30.], click on the “Begin” check box. This sets the beginning of the “F” tool Pan.
33. “Grab” the “F” tool and move the whole “F” tool, say to the Right of V2 and completely away from V2, so that there is a gap between the “F” tool and V2.
34. With the “F” tool now in its “End” position, click on the “End” check box. This sets the end of the “F” tool Pan.
35. NB: If you find it difficult to align the Begin and End position – I did! – use the “Size” and “Center” manual settings to exactly get what you want. Of course you can play with the Rotation tool to have V2 “twist” about its axis as it Pans across V1…. Oh too much…
36. Now “Preview” what you have done by clicking on the little arrow in the bottom left hand portion of the Pan/Crop or FX editing pane. Use the little square to stop the motion.
37. I now see a small V2 moving across V1 – both clips are moving and if the sound is activated on both – messy! – I can hear both audio channels.
My apologies for the mixed spelling UK/US for centre and center, but being UK my MS Word is set-up for UK. There are other misspellings as well.
Anyway, I promised y’ll my experience in getting PiP wandering – now you’ve got it! What this does mean is that I don’t need to “synchronize” the panning to the Cookie Cutter. You can also try layering over and over again the same piece of wandering V2, but set at different frame heights. The effect is quite truly stunning. If you change V2’s size or its opacity or its colour etc etc, you can get close to many of the high-end package effects. It has given me a rethink on much that I do now and convinced me of the following:
VF is “function/feature” rich. I’m creating formats to make my NLE-work, work more flexibly for me. In understanding the scope of this package, it has “forced” me to truly “unpack” all the bits ‘n pieces that make it operate, and, hopefully allowing me to get on with the creative part of film editing. What am I saying here? I want to get past the techie [look what I can do!] bit and proceed to faster and more intuitive working. For example I’ve tried to “save” this effect as a Grazie PiP, but it will not. If y’ll can come up with that procedure – let’s hear it.
This procedure I’ve worked out for myself and may not be at present the prettiest of methods, but with most things the more I do it, the easy it will become.
As with all my postings, these are only my suggested solutions and opinions. If you find they work, great. As with all posts I/we make here on this Forum I/we employ them at my own risk.
Grazie