Spot? Gary K? Anyone? Workflow tips for Software Tutorial assembly in Vegas?

Former user wrote on 7/23/2004, 5:26 AM
All,

I have been on these boards for a long time using Vegas for many audio tasks but I am now (finally!) starting to explore Vegas from a video angle as well. I recently completed my first ever "photo montage" for a wedding recently and the presentation was very well received. Vegas was a standout in making that project a breeze!

I have now been asked to "step it up" a notch and produce a showreel/ demo for a potential series of software tutorials for software products produced at the company I work for during my day gig (I have my own voiceover/digital media company as a side gig).

Primary tools used will be using Vegas, Camtasia Studio, some graphic stills/elements from Photoshop/Illustrator elements and of course my voiceover to assemble these tutorials.

Can anyone share any tried and true workflow tips before I fall into the deep end? Advice from the field would be most appreciated since I am chasing a contract for up to a half dozen of these tutorials from this company alone. If this flies like I think it will - I live in Calgary, Alberta where technical training for the oil and gas sector among other things is a huge opportunity - I would like to establish an efficient workflow to keep my assembly hours reasonable for the price I will quote to produce the segments.

And of course - one "newby" question for the group - I was very impressed with the nice "pan and zoom" effects I could apply to selected still images with Vegas when I built my photo montage. I would like to use this effect selectively in my software tutorials when appropriate. But for my first test - I brought in a 3 minute Camtasia clip and placed it on the Vegas timeline. Of course, since this is one long clip - when I click the little Pan/Crop button at the very right side of the clip - Vegas wants to apply my pan/zoom/crop to the entire three minute segment wherever I place a key frame.

Is this the best way to do this? Or should I highlight a specific segement within this long clip (using Trimmer or define a region on the Project window) then do a Split? I did finally figure out that this method creates a new event - which I can then apply Pan/Zoom to separately from the rest of the larger clip. Sorry for the grade 1 question but hey - gotta start somewhere...:)

Any help would be appreciated!

Cheers,

Cuzin B

Comments

jetdv wrote on 7/23/2004, 7:17 AM
Vegas will only apply my pan/zoom/crop to the entire three minute segment wherever I place a key frame.

No. Vegas will apply the pan/zoom/crop settings beginning at wherever you placed the keyframe - NOT the entire 3 minute period (unless this is the first and only keyframe)

I would keep it as one big clip. That way, moving between areas of the screen would look natural - no sudden jumps to other locations. You'll need two keyframes at each move location: one at the original settings and one for the new location settings. Vegas will automatically slide the image to the new section.
Former user wrote on 7/23/2004, 7:23 AM
JetDV,

Cool! I was hoping this is what I could do. I guess I never explored the Pan/Crop dialog enough. With the still images, I was only dealing with 7 seconds or so or length....So - within the Pan/Crop dialog...can I move along the entire length of the clip to set my keyframes with decent precision?

This would eliminate a ton of extra editing. Update when you can.

Cheers,

Cuzin B
jetdv wrote on 7/23/2004, 8:12 AM
Yes. You can set keyframes anywhere along that 3 minute period of time. You may want to turn on the sync cursor button so that the main timeline and pan/crop timeline remain in sync. Remember you can zoom in on the pan/crop timeline for frame accurate placing of the keyframes.
Spot|DSE wrote on 7/23/2004, 10:29 AM
One thing I often do, particularly with stills and titles, is to CTRL+drag to create a new copy of the title or still. Then I either modify the title or add media to the still as a take. This way, I've got consistent keyframes, consistent fonts/sizes/placements, etc for everything that goes up. I usually create a copy of a main text item and put one at the head and one at the tail of the project so I can easily draw from it as I work. Consider it a 'palette' if you will. Saves me a ton of time and error, maybe it will help you too.
Former user wrote on 7/23/2004, 1:07 PM
Spot,

Cool tip. Something I will look into for this project.

One other question I had is with respect to screen resolution for the actual raw screen footage. What is the most optimum capture resolution (800x600, 704x480 for NTSC DV etc) to use with Camtasia so I get the best quality in the final product?

My intended output format will most likely be exclusively computer based (overhead projector within our training facilities). The marketing department also has indicated that they would probably like to put the entire series onto CD-ROM to hand out at trade shows or have our sales force distribute the disc to clients.

Correct me if I am wrong but I understand that Vegas puts out 800x600 resolution at the max. Logically - if I capture all my raw footage at 800x600 and import all my stills, titles, logos at the same res - I should end up with the highest quality render at the end?

I have searched high and low both here and over the web and this topic is still real fuzzy to me. Any tips on this would be most appreciated.

Cheers!

Cuzin B
JaysonHolovacs wrote on 7/23/2004, 1:15 PM
As for stills, leave them at there native resolution. If you pan/crop something at 800x600, the output won't be 800x600 native. So, I import all my still at full resolution(most are pics from 5mp camera). If I zoom in, media is still sharp(within reason). For exampe, if your still is 1600x1200, you can zoom in to a quarter of the still and still be getting full 800x600 res.

Video is different because hi-res video will take up MUCH more space than a few hi-res stills, so some tradeoffs must be made. That's your call.

-Jayson
sbloombaum wrote on 7/23/2004, 1:52 PM
By no means are you limited to 800x600. I recently used camtasia to capture at 1024x768, edited and synched audio within Vegas using the camtasia codec, and outputted to WMV screen codec at the same rez. Outstanding results!

I think the answers to rez questions will come from examining your audience's playback capabilities and your client's software. What's the minimum resolution that will show what the client wants to show?

What are the required distribution media, and what rez can they handle? If projected, what resolution can the projector handle natively?
Former user wrote on 7/23/2004, 2:13 PM
Seth,

Thanks for the update and that's exactly what I thought. I musta been suckered into the whole NTSC DV (720x480) output for DVD etc etc...

So I could bring in 1024x768 and output the same? Again - my audience will be 100% computer based (no DVD or TV playback etc etc). The capabilities of our internal projector is 1024x768 (and I believe we do all our training classes at that res).

Distribution media will be via file (avi, wmv etc) and same files will be set to CD-ROM and /or our website (maybe in Flash format).

Can you tell me more about the WMV screen codec....is this natively selectable from within Vegas? Any tips on this codec and your suggested settings would be great.

I really want this showreel/demo to shine...if it is in the pocket and of real high quality - I will nail this contract.

Cheers!

Cuzin B