Vegas Pro 18 - I cannot move the bezier mask frame to frame

Jack-Tasker wrote on 1/3/2022, 10:12 PM

I am adding a special effect using the bezier mask, and while I can create the mask defined by points in various locations, when I move forward a few frames and move the mask points to their location in the new frame, the mask points also move on the original frame. I don't want them to do that. I want the original frame to have the original mask, and the new frame to have the new mask point locations, and so on (creating an effect in a stop motion movie). This is not motion tracking, but moving the location and shape of the mask from frame to frame. After updating the mask on several future frames, I find that the updated mask shape and position changes carried through to all the previous frames too, ruining the work I did in each of those frames. How can I accomplish this? I've seen no videos online to explain what I need to do in Vegas Pro 18. I did see one where a person did this exact thing in Adobe After Effects, and I have to believe it is possible to do it in Vegas Pro, but I can't figure out how.

Comments

Former user wrote on 1/3/2022, 10:28 PM

@Jack-Tasker Hi have you clicked on the blue symbol at the end, turning it red means it'll create keyframes with each move you make.

Jack-Tasker wrote on 1/3/2022, 11:43 PM

That did not work. It allows me to move the entire mask around the screen, but does not maintain the original mask shape in earlier frames. I am creating an effect such as a Godzilla breathing fire for my son. I start with an small mask showing it starting to come out of his mouth just a little, and with each new set of frames i lengthen the mask and make new key frames. I also change the shape of the mask, making the breath wider and then narrower as it goes. But when I’m done, the shape of the mask in the last frame I made is constant through all the frames. It doesn’t keep the shape of any of the previous masks on the earlier frames. I have no clue how to make this work, and there are no instructions other than videos and internet info from random people. I have not found anything to address this at all. I need a very detailed description of what I need to do. I’ve tried everything I can think of, but without taking a college level course on how to use this software it is impossible.

Former user wrote on 1/4/2022, 12:26 AM

@Jack-Tasker Can you post a full screen capture like this,

If it's a curve mask, there's no keyframes for the mask shape points, just the width, height, location...

gary-rebholz wrote on 1/4/2022, 7:25 AM

@Jack-Tasker, You're right, you can't do what you want with the Bezier Mask FX. But you can do it with the Mask tools in the Event Pan/Crop window. And you don't need a college-level course to figure it out. It's pretty much as straight forward as you were thinking about it.

  1. Open the Event Pan/Crop window for the event that holds the video clip you're working with
  2. Select the Mask checkbox in the animation timeline at the bottom
  3. Create your mask shape
  4. Move to another point in the animation timeline (make sure the Mask track retains focus throughout the process), add a keyframe, and adjust the mask as needed
  5. Repeat step 4 as many times as necessary

I might start in step 3 with the last shape you want to create and work backward (if I understand correctly that the last shape is the largest and requires the most points). That way you'll know how many points on the mask you ultimately need and can adjust all of them as you work backward toward the smaller initial mask.

Jack-Tasker wrote on 1/13/2022, 12:02 PM

Thank you Gary. That worked beautifully. May I ask, since the pan/crop mask has a mask function, what is the purpose of the Bezier Mask? It clearly doesn't do what the other does, but what exactly is it's function? It must have a purpose aside from the Pan/Crop mask.

Former user wrote on 1/13/2022, 12:38 PM

@Jack-Tasker Add an @ symbol to the start of your reply/comment, you'll have a pop-up with options to tag someone like Gary who will then get a notification & it helps indicate who you're replying to in a thread 👍

gary-rebholz wrote on 1/13/2022, 12:40 PM

It's inteded to be a simpler, easier-to-use tool. But I readily agree that it is not as complete as it needs to be even for a simplified tool. It's on my list...Still, it's useful in many situations where you just need a quick mask and don't want the complexity of the Event Pan/Crop window.

Jack-Tasker wrote on 7/23/2022, 7:52 PM

Gary, I just had to reinstall Vegas Pro 18, build 527, due to an issue. I may have had a previous build before. Now, with the new install, I only see Intel QSV options for rendering. None of the previous options for using NVENC are available. I ran into this once before, and fixed it by disabling Legacy AVC and HEVC decoding in the File I/O preferences. I went back into the new install, and disabled them again, restarted everything, but the NVENC rendering options are still not there. They are much faster than using Intel QSV so I'd really like to restore them. Can you shed any light on what I need to do? My graphics card is a GeForce RTX 2060 with Max-Q.

Thanks for any help you can provide