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This tutorial is part of a series on creating custom transitions in Sony Vegas. In part one, created a transition that “closes” an image over one clip and then opens to reveal a new clip. And in part two, we used Vegas generated media to create an animated mask. Here in part three, we’ll do something that is a cross between the two: With the help of a third-party plug-in, we’ll create an image and use that as the basis for an animated mask. Curious? Then let’s get started!

First thing’s first, you’ll need the third party plug-in. It’s a transition called SMLuminance, which you can download from the author’s website. Once the plug-in is installed, load Vegas (or exit and reload Vegas if it’s already open), and you’ll see new item in your Transition window — Luminance. This transition blends one clip with another based on luminance values — either that of the clips involved in the transition or that of an image that you provide. It’s this second method that we’ll be using.

For this tutorial, I’ll be using two video clips (Times Square and Caribbean Beach) from Stock Footage For Free. I’m going to create a transition made up of random shapes. One by one, each shape will reveal another part of the incoming clip. I will be using Adobe Photoshop to create the image, but you should be able to create something similar in most graphics applications. Load your application and start a new image appropriate for your Vegas project size. My Vegas project will be 720x480, so I’m making my image 655x480. (Read up on pixel aspect ratios if that sounds strange to you.)

Figure 1: Creating the Mask

This next step will be familiar to anyone who’s taken more than a couple Photoshop tutorials: Set your foreground and background colors to the default of black and white (by hitting “D” on the keyboard) and go to Filter > Render > Clouds. That gives us a random mix of black, white, and shades of gray.

To turn that random mix into something a little more structured, go to Filter > Pixelate > Crystalize. Set the cell size to whatever looks good to you; I’m using 75. When you’re ready to apply the effect, click OK. Save this image to a file and start up Vegas.

Figure 2: The Media, Crossfaded

In Vegas, start a new project with the settings you want, add your two clips, and overlap them on the same video track for the length of time you want the transition to last. Then go to the Transitions window, find Luminance in the list (you did download and install the SMLuminance plugin, right?). Grab the Bitmap present and drop into on the overlapped area of your clips. This applies the transition and presents you with the Video Event FX window to adjust the Luminance transition settings.

Figure 3: The Transition

Make sure that the Use Bitmap radio button is selected, since we’re using an external image, and then hit the Browse button next to the Bitmap textbox in order to find the image you just created. After locating the image and clicking Open, you can tick the Show Bitmap checkbox to see a thumbnail of your image just to be sure the correct one is loaded. We’ll keep the rest of the values in this window as they are. Close the Video Event FX window and you are done. Preview your new transition and make any changes you like. Here’s is an example video using the image mask we created as well as a couple others.

Using the SMLuminance plug-in and your imagination, you have an endless supply of transitions you could create. Here are a few image masks you can try out and perhaps take inspiration from:

Tags: masks, transitions