I've never written a Vegas script and probably never will. But the fact that Excaliber and the many free scripts can be written and used with Vegas seems to make Vegas one the most powerful editors out there. Nearly anything seems to be possible now.
Oh yesssss . .! Try out the StillsToMarkers and the one that grabs stills at a predetermined time space. Used in conjunction with each other, I use this to good effect by:
1 - Have a vid clip and, say, a music sound track
2 - Listen to the music and tap the M [Markers] key which places Markers on the beat - depends how good your music skills are! Dead easy really.
3 - Say the music track is 2 mins long, this is 120 seconds, maybe you've got 240 plus markers, use the Grab stills at intervals of say 0.5 seconds which will give 240 stills - you don't have to be too retentive about this.
4 - Use the StillsToMarkers script - and Hey Presto - all the individual stills will be placed at the individual marker positons - great stuff.
The STM script will place the newly created "Slideshow" on a brand new track called "Slideshow", excellent!
NB:
1 - Once you get your head around this you can use less markers and add some overlap so there is a dissolve between each still. Remember to make sure the Marker "beats" are spaced enough apart to make use of the dissolve.
2 - You may want to put up less Markers, so not to get too "crowded".
3 - Everytime you do a STM another "Slideshow" will be created - keep an eye on how many you proiduce otherwise things get a bit messy.
Using these 2 srcipts has really lifted the pressure and work needed to do this manually. Before it would have been a hell of a job. Now, I can suck 'n see if something works, and if not, I haven't wasted a lot of time in trying.
Where do I get the "StillsToMarkers" script? Or are you referring to the "Slideshow to Markers" script. I am very currious about this scripting idea. Thanks.
Hey, while we're here (and while the "king of scripting" is present ;) ) , I went on the Microsoft site to get an idea of HOW to create scripts and boom, got into this endless pages of stuff concerning the subject. So many pages in fact that I lost interest.
SO, my question is: jetdv, what would be the most efficient and short way to get *started* at writing scripts for Vegas ? Any program/language in particular ?
Start at the second link I posted above. At that link you will find both the Vegas API and a FAQ page. Read through the FAQ page which gives some of the basics. It also provides links to the JavaScript language at Microsoft. Also look through the sample scripts to see how others have done things. Finally, look at the scripting articles in the Vegas Tips, Tricks, and Scripts Newsletters.
"suck'n see if something works" - LOL! A perfect description of my editing process. You can do so many things with Vegas, and the costs (eg, undo time) and risks (eg, destructive editing) of trying things are nearing zero with each version.