Suggestion: Improvement of Vegas Keyframe System

lan-mLMC wrote on 2/21/2022, 1:16 AM

Note: This is a post from elsewhere and I duplicate it here because I want to see how many of the average users would have the same opinion on this.

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Recently, I used Premiere in a project with partners so that I was able to compare the advantages and disadvantages of Premiere and Vegas in depth. Vegas can position the playhead at any point in the timeline, zoom and center the timeline around the playhead , which is much more efficient than Pr. Premiere scales the timeline around the mouse cursor, which is imprecise because the mouse is not guaranteed to stay still while the wheel is rolling, and it can't be centered meanwhile; In order for Premiere to position the playhead, you need to click on the calibration area in the top of timeline, which requires you to focus on this area, instead of the work in the main editing area of timeline. Vegas can directly position the playhead in everywhere you want in the timeline, which is also much more efficient than Premiere.

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However, Premiere does a much better job in keyframe system than Vegas.

For more than a decade, Vegas has been criticized by Editors for its inability to have a real Bezier keyframe curve, which greatly limits the realization of creators' imaginations. This also makes the Keyframe animation in Vegas look as stiff and boring like PPT. All the animations in Vegas work in a nearly linear way, even the several built-in interpolations (including Tangent-locked keyframe curve) are also close to linear, unable to create agreeable smooth super-fast/slow animations freely.

Today, this agreeable smooth animation is ubiquitous in commercial videos ( for example: ), and hobbyist videos ( for example: ), and has become a standard accessory. However, this ubiquitous effect is still impossible to achieve in Vegas. You indeed can imitate these animations with the Vegas built-in keyframe interpolations or Vegas built-in tangent-locked keyframe curve, but the result is far less smooth and agreeable than a real Beziser keyframe curve ( for example, Vegas rigid, linear keyframe animation: ) .

Vegasaur has seized on this weakness of Vegas, then launched Tweener plugin that is of limited help ( because tweener can't be freely adjuted like Bezier keyframe curve). Vegasaur has also done a lot of Agreeable, Smooth animation templates based on Tweener plugin ( ). But in other NLEs these are gratis and easy to do, and more freely.

It is the agreeable smooth animation curves that make it look more advanced and unique.

This is a systemic flaw that prevents OFXs (both built-in and third-party) from performing as well as they should. Really need to be taken seriously!

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Based on these above, I would like to make some feature suggestions. I'd like to see how many people are going to get the same idea.

1. Add real Bezier keyframe curve for OFX/DXT, 3D parent/child Track Motion, Mask (in Pan/Crop), Transition Progress; Add camera shake/jitter expression for 3D parent/child track motion:

●1. OFX/DXT is where the Bezier Curve is most commonly used, many animations of effects without real Bezier Curve would be very boring and linear; Example :

●2. 3D parent/child Track Motion is one of the unique features of VEGAS (among NLEs), its keyframe also needs Bezier Curve to finish smooth agreeable parallex camera animations and 3D motions; Example:

●3. Add smooth camera shake/jitter expression for 3D parent/child track motion keyframes. Example at 00:01, 00:03: Example at 00:13, 00:20, 00:26 :

●4. Mask (in Pan/Crop) also needs Bezier keyframe Curve to be competent in agreeable and smooth Motion Graphics/Lower third animation. Example:

●5. Transition Progress is another unique feature of VEGAS. But without Bezier Curve, its usefulness is limited. Example : Vegas Transition Progress (00:00-00:40) VS BCC Built-in Bezier Transition Progress (00:40-01:17):

6. Add Spatial Interpolation and Velocity for position parameters (ParamTypeDouble2D) of OFX, so that all position path can be adjusted to all kinds of custom Bezier curves. Example :

7. Add adaptive height adjustment for Keyframe window. The current Keyframe window of VEGAS will hide the curves when some values are rather high. Example :

8. Add keyframe recording for position parameters of OFX, so that we can get custom position path. Example at 04:05 :

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These improvements of decade-old problems will bring VEGAS to next level, greatly liberates the creator's limitation, enables the creativity to unleash freely.

Comments

lan-mLMC wrote on 2/21/2022, 1:17 AM

Another ubiquitous proof is that this smooth Agreeable keyframe animations have become wildly popular on TikTok, Instagram, etc. People use mobile apps to make them, like Capcut and Alight Motion. And Vegas should really try to keep its advantage and professionalism in this keyframe feature.

Example:

At 00:29：

At 00:04：

At 00:15：

At 00:25：

At 01:47：

At 00:29：

At 00:07：

At 03:01：

At 02:30：

John-Ivar wrote on 2/21/2022, 8:52 AM

Excellent post! I really appreciate the length you went to post examples and comparisons.

An overhauling of the keyframe system in VEGAS has definitely been on the top of my wish list for the last 5 years.

lan-mLMC wrote on 2/21/2022, 8:11 PM

An overhauling of the keyframe system in VEGAS has definitely been on the top of my wish list for the last 5 years.

@John-Ivar I've been also looking forward to this for years.

Grazie wrote on 2/21/2022, 10:27 PM

@lan-mLMC - Keep it going. Your enthusiasm for VegasPro must certainly have received attention by Team-Vegas and hopefully this would be translated/converted into gaining traction from Team-Vegas. My concern is that there may not be enough people resources to turn your ideas/wishes into reality. We’ve been here before and under SONY I was hoping that there would/could have been such resources available. We now know the result of that. This was made worse when SONY had to globally retrench. If I’m wrong then maybe Team-Vegas could correct me.

lan-mLMC wrote on 2/22/2022, 5:35 AM

@Grazie Yes, Vegas Team is already doing one of these, it is a great team, but unfortunately, there are too few human resources.

fwtep wrote on 3/23/2022, 8:44 PM

Thanks for posting this! I've run up against this problem before, but today it became crucial to the point where I had to abandon doing the project in Vegas. For me the problem was that Track Motion doesn't even offer what limited motion graph options are in other parts of Vegas.

lan-mLMC wrote on 3/24/2022, 12:01 AM

Thanks for posting this! I've run up against this problem before, but today it became crucial to the point where I had to abandon doing the project in Vegas. For me the problem was that Track Motion doesn't even offer what limited motion graph options are in other parts of Vegas.

@fwtep If you have bought Vegas Effects, the temporary solution is to make your project in Vegas Effects (possessing full Bezier Keyframe Curve & Graph) and wait for Vegas Team to improve Vegas keyframe/envelop-point system.

If you don't have Vegas Effects, another temporary solution is to try the free Hitfilm Express, which also possesses full Bezier KeyFrame Curve & Graph, and its project files can interact with Vegas (without rendering).

Dexcon wrote on 3/24/2022, 6:13 AM

... another temporary solution is to try the free Hitfilm Express, which also possesses full Bezier KeyFrame Curve & Graph, and its project files can interact with Vegas (without rendering).

If HitFilm Express is wanted, it will be better to do this sooner rather than later because the current version of HitFilm Express (and HitFilm Pro also) is the last version that will have integration with Vegas Pro.

https://fxhome.com/product/hitfilm-express/updates

Features no longer available from the next update

Integration between HitFilm and VEGAS Pro.

fwtep wrote on 3/24/2022, 8:56 AM

Thanks for the HitFilm tip!

Ady-Ward wrote on 4/8/2022, 9:09 AM

I have been doing animated wording for music vids for years and some of the old software which I cant recall name had bespoke lettering with textures as well as colouring and animation, and that was 2004. No excuses Vegas.

Reyfox wrote on 4/8/2022, 9:32 AM

...many "consumer" editors have a better text editor than Vegas. It's one area where there needs to be improvement. We can all agree on this.

So.... in the mean time, I have Boris and NBFX for titling software. They should be an option, not a necessity.

m3lquixd wrote on 12/6/2022, 2:12 PM

team vegas we need this!!!

lan-mLMC wrote on 12/6/2022, 8:00 PM

@m3lquixd

Two of the 8 suggestions in this post have already been implemented to a limited extent.

One is:

●1. OFX/DXT is where the Bezier Curve is most commonly used, many animations of effects without real Bezier Curve would be very boring and linear; Example :

This is implemented in Vegas Pro 19 build 636. But only OFX gets the Bezier Keyframe , DXT does not.

Another is:

●5. Transition Progress is another unique feature of VEGAS. But without Bezier Curve, its usefulness is limited. Example : Vegas Transition Progress (00:00-00:40) VS BCC Built-in Bezier Transition Progress (00:40-01:17):

This is implemented in Vegas Pro 20 build 139. Vegas Team adopted a workaround that adding a "Progress" parameter inside each OFX transition, but not directly upgrading the legacy transition progress envelop. At present, this works for most plugins but not all, for example, not for Boris FX Continuum transitions. ( Legacy transition progress envelop can work for all plugins, include BCC or DXT transitions )

m3lquixd wrote on 12/6/2022, 10:35 PM

@lan-mLMC the curves are still not good to use, it needs a lot of improvement

lan-mLMC wrote on 12/7/2022, 1:43 AM

@lan-mLMC the curves are still not good to use, it needs a lot of improvement

@m3lquixd There's a serious shortage of engineers, so developers seem to be very busy. Can you post detailed improvement notes along with a operation demo of other softwares, such as AE, PR. So that they can understand exactly what you're saying in the first place.

m3lquixd wrote on 12/7/2022, 5:15 PM

@lan-mLMC Dude, I'm writing a huge improvement letter and plan to include screenshots and screen recordings. The problem is having people to support the ideas, I think Magix won't care so much if they don't see many people supporting these improvements.