Spot - or anyone - Any quick shortcuts for creating a time selection from multiple events

Former user wrote on 1/5/2005, 7:23 PM

Spot,

Just received your new book - Vegas 5 Editing Workshop - awesome! Going to make for some tasty reading. If my question is in the book - I apologize but I just started reading it today!

I use Vegas for both video and my voiceover work and wanted to know if you know key commands or shortcuts to quickly (and precisely) create a time selection (for region creation) from multiple events nested together on a single audio track.

When I use Vegas for my voicing...I will typically run through the spot or promo line by line (dry voice) and record everything to one long mono track. Then I use the Trimmer (or project window) to Split/Edit and keep those bits that make up each spot. Usually I end with 5 or 6 individual pieces butted up against each other to form the final spot. I want to create Regions from each assembled set of events to export out as individual MP3 files for my clients

I know I can double click on a single event and Vegas will automatically create a time selection for me - but how can I do this fast without resorting to "drawing" the time selection in by dragging the mouse? That method works but to get it precise - requires to much zooming etc....is there a "snap to event" setting that I am missing?

Appreciate any help you can provide.

Cheers,

VP

Comments

jetdv wrote on 1/5/2005, 8:08 PM

You can put a marker at the beginning location, put a second marker at the ending location, and then double-click between the two markers.

JohnnyRoy wrote on 1/5/2005, 8:39 PM

> how can I do this fast without resorting to "drawing" the time selection in by dragging the mouse?

At the lower right of the timeline are three Timecode readouts that are the selection start, selection end, and selection length respectively. You can also double-click on them and they become input fields to type in these Timecodes. Knowing this, here’s what you do:

1. Click on the last event you want in the selection
2. Press the ] key. This will position the cursor at the exact end of the event.
3. Make a note of the Timecode in the first box (selection start box) you will use this in step 6.
4. Click on the first event you want in the selection
5. Press the [ key. This will position the cursor at the exact beginning of the event and become the selection start point.
6. Now enter the first Timecode that you noted in step 3 into the second box (selection length) and you have the selection.

That’s it. You now have a multi-event selection that starts exactly at the beginning of the first event and ends exactly at the end of the last event without mousing around.

~jr

Former user wrote on 1/6/2005, 5:04 AM

JohnnyRoy: Too much work, my friend. I was hoping I could at least group the events and then double click the group and have Vegas create the time selection from that. With my workflow - stopping down to type in timecode values would just be too tedious.

Yours is a good suggestion but realyl I was looking for a one-two key command kind of thing.

Cheers,

VP

JohnnyRoy wrote on 1/6/2005, 6:35 AM

You could combine my suggestion with Jetdv’s i.e., press [ drop a marker, press ] drop a marker, then double-click between the markers. That gets it down to three steps but then you probably have to remove the markers since you don’t really want them. I guess there is no easy way.

~jr

Former user wrote on 1/6/2005, 7:15 AM

JohnnyRoy,

I tried JetDV's suggestion and it is pretty slick - but yes - there are markers all over the place and cleanup is definitely part of the plan.

Man - I can't believe I can't do this. You would think there would be a "Create time (or loop) selection from selected events" or something like that. Seems pretty useful in a lot of situations (not just radio spot production).

Is there anything I missing regarding the snapping of events? I would be certainly willing to "draw" the time selection by dragging the mouse over the various events (with CTRL-SHIFT held down)...but the time selection does not snap to the event edges as I drag across them.

Cheers,

VP

JohnnyRoy wrote on 1/6/2005, 11:07 AM

> but the time selection does not snap to the event edges as I drag across them.

There lies the problem. You don’t even have to drag the mouse. If you click the mouse at the beginning of the first event and Shift+Click at the end of the last event, you will get a timeline selection (no dragging). This is great when you have to scroll several screens forward to reach the last event. The only problem is snapping to the edge of the event.

It would be nice if Sony added an option to Vegas 6 that allows the Snap function to snap to event edges and not just the timeline grid and markers.

In the meantime, here’s a script that will do exactly what you want. Just select any number of events and it will place a region around them. Add it to your toolbar and this will be a one click operation.



/** 

 * Program:     MultiEventsToRegions.js

 * Description: This script will create a single region around a collection of selected events.

 *

 * Author: Johnny (Roy) Rofrano  john_rofrano at hotmail dot com

 * 

 * Date: January 6, 2005 - Initial Release

 *

 **/

import System.Windows.Forms;

import Sony.Vegas;

try

{

   // step through all selected video events:

   for (var track in Vegas.Project.Tracks) 

   {

      if( !track.Selected) continue;

      // step through all the events placing regions around selected ones

      var eventEnum = new Enumerator(track.Events);

      while (!eventEnum.atEnd()) 

      {

          var evnt = eventEnum.item();

          eventEnum.moveNext();

          if (evnt.Selected)

          {

            var regionStart : Timecode = evnt.Start;

            var regionEnd : Timecode = evnt.End;

            while (!eventEnum.atEnd()) 

            {

               evnt = eventEnum.item();

                eventEnum.moveNext();

               if (!evnt.Selected)

               {

                  break;

               }

               regionEnd = evnt.End;

            }

            var region : Region = new Region(regionStart, (regionEnd - regionStart) );

            Vegas.Project.Regions.Add(region);

          }

      }

   }

}

catch (errorMsg)

{

   MessageBox.Show(errorMsg, "Error", MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Error);

}

/*** END OF SCRIPT ***/

I just submitted this to the VASST/Sundance web site.

~jr

Former user wrote on 1/6/2005, 11:51 AM

Wow! Cool script. I cannot thank you enough...this will truely be a timesaver.

Cheers,

VP

epirb wrote on 1/6/2005, 3:01 PM

JR,
you the Man !how cool is that?...bang ! a script to do that.
I'm not worthy

winrockpost wrote on 1/6/2005, 3:19 PM

JohnnyRoy you are one genrerous computer geek

Thanks for this and the many other scripts you have given to script challenged folks like me.

JohnnyRoy wrote on 1/6/2005, 3:50 PM

You are all very welcome. It just hit me that this could be done easily with a script so I wrote one. I’ll add this capability to the next update of Ultimate S but I thought it was useful all on its own. Glad you liked it.

~jr