Question on track grouping, zooming, and resolution

daniel-t wrote on 8/20/2021, 8:52 PM

Sorry if this is a silly question - but I’m currently out of commission with a broken ankle, on pain meds, and the issue cropped up in my head.

I’ve been working on a project that involves many nested/grouped images that are then manipulated using different levels of track motion. Assuming my original image files are “infinite” resolution, and I never zoom outside of the original image’s track, I can render the project to any resolution and the finished product will be tack sharp.

The issue I’m dealing with is if I take a nested group of images and then zoom in using track motion, I’m technically zooming in on the processed composite, which will be rendered at maximum to the project’s native resolution, meaning a 50% zoom would halve my finished resolution of that scene. More zoom would equal even less resolution, even if the originating image files have more than enough resolution in them.

Correct?

Is there a smart way around this? I thought about rendering the entire project to a “way higher than needed” resolution, but that seems rather brute force (and slow)

Comments

Musicvid wrote on 8/20/2021, 9:02 PM

Is there a smart way around this? I thought about rendering the entire project to a “way higher than needed” resolution, but that seems rather brute force (and slow)

Nor does it work. You can't make a silk purse from a pig's ear.

The issue I’m dealing with is if I take a nested group of images and then zoom in using track motion, 

Track Motion works at project resolution, not source resolution, so you've already handcuffed yourself.

Assuming my original image files are “infinite” resolution, and I never zoom outside of the original image’s track, I can render the project to any resolution and the finished product will be tack sharp.

No such luck. The only "infinite" resolution graphics are vector graphics, which Vegas does not support, nor does any NLE that I know of.

Your solution is in shooting your stills in greater resolutions (4-8k), and then "zooming" in to isolate the subject, using pan/crop.

Keep your foot elevated!

daniel-t wrote on 8/20/2021, 10:40 PM

Nor does it work. You can't make a silk purse from a pig's ear.

Why not, at least not conceptually? If my desired output is 1080p, a 50% track zoom on a 1080p project would result in a minimum outputted resolution of 540p. But if I bump the project up to 4K, all calculations double, meaning my minimum outputted resolution would then be... 1080p.

No such luck. The only "infinite" resolution graphics are vector graphics, which Vegas does not support, nor does any NLE that I know of.

Okay, but I put "infinite" in quotes and used "assuming" just to keep the discussion simple. I can render my source files to 50 pixels or 50,000; they're not the limitation here.

Your solution is in shooting your stills in greater resolutions (4-8k), and then "zooming" in to isolate the subject, using pan/crop.

For the sake of conversation, let's say I have 20 images all composted on top of each other. Those images will be always changing to infinite combinations, so this isn't something that can be prerendered in advance - that's what Vegas is being used for. Then, I want to take that processed composite and move, zoom, rotate and so forth. I really don't see how I could do that with individual event pan/crops in a manner that would be sane or easily editable. That's why I'm using nested tracks and track motion - the finished workflow is very sane and easy to manage; I'm just trying to figure out the resolution catch.

Is there some other method this should / could be used? You have no idea the bizarre and nasty rendering bugs I got in V13 using complex event pan/crops when I first started this. Yeah, I'm still stuck in V13, but I will be upgrading to V19 for the next project. This was more of a proof of concept.

Keep your foot elevated!

Thanks! Had surgery this week and I'm supposed to be non-weight-bearing for like the next 6-8 weeks. It's a nightmare for someone used to doing everything themselves. I haven't even wanted to think about work, but all the emails about V19 coming out got me thinking about what I was doing before the accident.