Solved Splitting off part of a screen of a whole project for lyrics to go

Hi All
Sorry but I have another beginners question here. I'm sure the answer to this one is a simple one. I'm doing a simple video to a song, with various bits of footage and pics in most of the screen, but I want to have a section of the screen at the bottom reserved for the lyrics of the song. I've used event pan and crop to zoom in on footage to it leaves a suitable space at the bottom for the lyrics, and I've saved that as a preset so I can reuse it.

When I try to then include still images, things are getting more confusing. I want to zoon in on the top of the image, but I still want to leave black space at the bottom of the screen for the words. Is there a name for what I want to do and / or could you point me to a tutorial on it? Ideally I'd like to just set things at the project level so that I have this area at the bottom of the screen for lyrics.

Thanks
Paul

I recommend you read and watch this tutorial first.
www.moviestudiozen.com/free-tutorials/sony-vegas-pro/546-multi-screen-video-fx-sony-vegas-pro

In this tutorial, I show/explain how to combine the Event Pan/Crop window and the Track Motion window.
This is one of those areas in Vegas that often confuses people, but once you understand the differences it should start to make sense.
If this tutorial does not help, then I can go deeper with more complex solutions.

Remember you can add many more Video Tracks, so that you can control videos individually.
CTRL + Shift + Q is the shortcut for adding Video Tracks
CTRL + Q is the shortcut for adding Audio Tracks

Thanks Derek!
Just what I needed to learn. I am well on my way now with this project.

Paul

Hi Derek
My ambitions are now more than keeping up with my meagre skills...

For a part of the song, if possible, I want to have the main screen move off (say to the top right), to take up 1/4 of the screen, to then be joined by three other clips in the other quarters, for about 30 seconds, and then I'd like to reverse that process.

Guessing from the little I know, I'd say that that way to do this would be to use keyframing on the main video track itself (through the track motion window) to have that main video track move over to the 1/4 right right position, and then have a seperate video track for each of the other four quarters like in your tutorial. Those tracks will be placed under the main one and anyway they will only have clips in place for that section. At the end of the period I'll use keyframing again to take the track back to the dimensions that it currrently has. Is that about right?

Thanks

Paul

 

Yes you need to add key-frames to the Track Motion window.
Just remember that when you add key-frames to any Video Track, everything sitting on that track will be affected.

Add a key-frame at the beginning of a section you want to move.
Then add a second key-frame a few second after, and this is the key-frame you apply changes to.
As it plays from #1 to #2, that will be the transition zone.
Repeat the reverse when you want to bring window back.

 

Hi Derek
I noticed something the other day when I tried to do this. I suspected I knew why, but I don't.

When I go into the track motion field for the track, I can only place keyframes up to about 1m.40, but there is stuff on the track way later thanthis, and I need to change the track dimensions at a much later point than this. Would you know what could be limiting the range of time over which I can place keyframes?

Thanks

Paul

Sorry, here is a pic to show what I mean.

 

The timeline scale showing in your Track Motion window is actually saying 1 hour and 42 minutes !
You need to go way, way back and then use the wheel on your mouse to zoom right in.
If you activate the Sync to Cursor button (bottom left corner), wherever you are located back on the main Vegas Timeline, will be synced to the Track Motion window.
*Please note: be careful note to accidentally create key-frames by accident - this is a very common mistake that can cause confusion.

You also need to be careful to select the Position key-frame track and not the Shadow or Glow tracks.

 

Argh, sorry. Thanks!...

Hi Derek / all
Could I please trouble you for another bit of direction? I'm progressing well with this now. I've gone back to v13 fo rthe time being and have been recreating on that what I had been doing on v17. I've got the section completed going into 4 screens and coming back again. Satisfying. I have one other thing that I am sure must be simple but I don't know how to do. I am using the text track for the main lyrics. In a few parts of the song I want to also add words / messages over the video. I know I can't add another text track. So what I've done is right clicked on the video track and selected "insert text media". That gives me the option of adding text, but it takes over the whole area of the video. I can't seem to find any option to making the background transparent. I've looked via "edit generated media" and tried through other routes, but I can't see where / how to make it transparent, so that the text shows over the video in the track. Can this be done?

Thanks

Paul