Workflow for the following...

newUzer wrote on 10/12/2005, 12:13 PM
Hello,

I'm looking for ideas on a workflow that would accomplish the following: Let's say I have some footage of a product that involves moving around it and so on. I would like to freeze the footage at some time, point out various features of the product using callouts with arrows, turn these annotations off, continue with the video, freeze, point out more stuff, turn these annotations off, continue with the video, etc. Any thoughts?

Comments

Spot|DSE wrote on 10/12/2005, 12:20 PM
Use a velocity envelope.
Right click the event/clip you wish to freeze, and chooseInsert/ velocity envelope. A green line will appear. Double click to insert nodes/envelope points. Setting the envelope point to "0" will give you a frozen frame.

You can also extract a still from the timeline, and use that, if you aren't interested in slowing down the video. Park the cursor on the frame you wish to extract, set the Preview window settings to Best/full, and then press the icon that looks like a floppy disk in the upper right of the Preview window. This will create a default jpg or png image, depending on what you select as the file format. This new image will appear in your Project Properties or Media Pool. Drag it to the timeline, pull it out to the length of time you want it to appear, add arrows, and you're done.
busterkeaton wrote on 10/12/2005, 12:25 PM
This is very simple.

Preproduction
1 Film product in the way you wish.
2 Plan ahead on the points you want to stop on, pause there during filming, so that you will have clear frames to pause on.

Editing
2 Freeze the frame by using velocity envelopes and keyframes on the clip. Going from 100% to 0% Velocity will pause the footage. Go back to 100% velocity to continue.
3 Create the callout text using the Text Generator. Place this on the track above your product video. Use the transparent background.
3 Create your arrows in a graphics program like Photoshop or Paint Sho Pro. Make sure you make the background transparent. Place these picture at the appropriate places on a track above your product footage. You probably will have to turn the Alpha Channel on.
4. The length of the arrows and annotation text can be any length you choose.

Use the search feature on this board to research anything you didn't understand from the above like "velocity" or "alpha channel."

newUzer wrote on 10/12/2005, 12:27 PM
Dumb question - the add arrows part - I didn't think Vegas could add arrows - am I missing something? If not , how would I do the arrow and assocaited text part?
busterkeaton wrote on 10/12/2005, 12:43 PM
You can create arrows by using the text generator and a font that contains arrows like Wingdings, but you don't have much control.

You can create picture of arrows outside Vegas and bring them into the project.

If you are skilled with the media generator, you can create arrows in Vegas. If you have Vegas 5 or 6 you can create arrows by using bezier masks on generated media.