Split screen into 4 quadrants

Gatman wrote on 10/14/2005, 6:28 PM
hi everyone,

I'm trying to do an effect where I show four still shots at once, with each one taking up 25% of the screen. I have four video tracks showing, and I put a still on each one. I then pick the "Track Motion" button for one track and shrink the view down to take up 25% of the screen and move it to one corner. I do that for all the other tracks, too.

This works fine for every track _except_ the track originally called the overlay track. No matter what I do I can't get that one to shrink down. What am I doing wrong?

Hopefully I've explained this clearly. I'm basically trying to get an effect similar to the beginning of the Brady Bunch, but with 4 pictures instead of 9.

Thanks,

Gary

Comments

GerryLeacock wrote on 10/15/2005, 7:29 AM
Basically, I do this "by the numbers". Open the Event Pan/Crop for each of the 4 tracks one at a time. On opening the first one, you will see that the Width = 720 Height = 480, X Center = 360, Y Center = 240.

First change the Zoom to 25% so you can see what you are doing.

Then change the four tracks to read:

W=1440 H=960 XC = 0 YC = 480 (top right)

W=1440 H=960 XC = 720 YC = 480 (top left)

W=1440 H=960 XC = 720 YC = 0 (bottom left)

W=1440 H=960 XC = 0 YC = 0 (bottom right)

This will put them EXACTLY in the right place.
Lawrence SIN wrote on 10/17/2005, 12:58 PM
Check that the prevent scaling on X and Y are not activated on the
overlay track.
GerryLeacock wrote on 10/17/2005, 2:01 PM
Lawrence, I'm having trouble locating the "prevent scaling on X and Y". Could you please point me in the right direction. Thanks!
Gatman wrote on 10/19/2005, 5:15 PM
Hi Gerry,

I tried what you suggested, but ended up tweaking it a little bit. It worked beautifully. If I read your suggestion correctly, I would have had to do that adjustment to each and every still in the production. Since I wanted four quadrants for the entire production, that was more work than I wanted to do. Also, my stills in the slide show weren't exactly 720x480, so I was having to do a lot of math to make it work. ;-)

You did inspire me though! I went into the "Track Motion" settings for each track individually. I changed the 720 and 480 to 360 and 240, and then put my x and y coordinates to 120, 180 or some variation thereof for each quarter of the screen.

Worked like a charm. Now I just drop the stills onto each of the four tracks and they're already sized and put in one corner. Thanks for the idea!

Regards,

Gary