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A common question from new users of Sony Vegas Pro is how to create a “news ticker” — simply a line of text that scrolls across the bottom of the screen, usually over a black background. It’s very easy to do using Vegas’ text generated media, and this tutorial will show you how.

1. Start by inserting a new video track above your main video by right-clicking an empty area of the timeline and choosing Insert Video Track or by hitting Ctrl+Shift+Q. You’ll want to have at least some content in your project already so that you can see how the ticker looks in context.
2. Go to the Media Generators window, select the Text from the list, and drag one of the presets onto the new track. Most tickers have white text over a solid background, so I’ll use the Solid Background preset.
3. By default, a pieced of generated media has a length of about 10 seconds. Decide how long you want your ticker — meaning, how long between when the first letter appears and when the last letter scrolls off? — and type that into the Length textbox at the top of the Video Media Generator window. You’ll also need to resize the event on the timeline. Drag the right edge until you reach the notch where it starts to loop.
4. Now we can enter and format the text for our ticker. On the Edit tab, delete the “Sample Text” and type the text for your ticker on a single line. Don’t worry if there’s too much to fit on the screen — that’s why you’re making a ticker instead of a static title. Select your text and choose an appropriate font and size.
5. Next, switch to the Placement tab. This is where we turn a static line of text into a scrolling ticker. Position the cursor at the beginning of the keyframe timeline if it’s not already there. On this tab, you’ll see your text in a mock screen with a red box. (The red box indicates the title safe zone, where text is least likely to be cut off on a television.) Drag the text down to the level you want the ticker to scroll — usually at the bottom of the safe area — and then all the way to right side. Drag it all the way off the “screen” so that the ticker will start with no text showing on screen. Make note of the Y value because you’ll need this in the next step.
6. You’ve just edited the first keyframe. Now you’ll create a second keyframe, thus creating an animation. Below the keyframe timeline, click the Next keyframe button — this moves the cursor to the end of the keyframe timeline. Now click the Add Keyframe button. Finally, drag your text from the right side of the screen over to the left side. Again, move it all the way off the “screen.” With these two keyframes set, Vegas will scroll your text from the right side to the left.
7. You’ve made all necessary changes to your text. Unless you want to change the colors, spacing, or text style, you can close the Video Media Generator window. But wait, we only wanted a thin strip of color behind our ticker — this background covers the whole screen! Let’s use Pan/Crop to fix that.
8. Click the Pan/Crop icon on the text’s event. Before you crop the event, you’ll need to change a few other things. first, make sure that Lock Aspect Ratio and Size About Center are disabled. Then in the Source section of settings, change Stretch to fill frame to “No”.
9. Now, crop around the line of text. Generally, you’ll only need to crop the top and bottom until you wind up with thin strip along the bottom of the screen. When the background is the size and shape you like, close out the Event Pan/Crop window.
10. As a final touch, you might like to have your news ticker fade in as the text starts and fade out as it finishes. Grab the top left corner of the text event and drag it in to create a fade. Do the same with the on the top right corner.

And that’s the gist of creating a news ticker in Sony Vegas. Add your own touches so it’s suitable for your project — change the colors, maybe use a slightly transparent background, maybe a different font. Your imagination is the limit.

Tags: pan/crop, text, track motion