VegasVideoHelp.com

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While reading my Custom Transition Using Generated Media tutorial, a reader noticed some similarities between the resulting video and an effect she’d seen and has been trying to duplicate. The general idea of the effect is to start out with a video in black and white; have a tinted area “move” across the screen; and for that tinted area to act as a “swipe” that turns the footage to color as it passes over. The visitor does not know what program was used to create the video she saw, but asked if I knew how to achieve a similar effect in Vegas. It took a bit of experimenting, but I believe I’ve got it pretty figured out.

I’ll start out by showing the end result so you know what you’re aiming for.

Setting Up the Footage

For this example, I’ll be using some footage of the Washington Monument from StockFootageForFree.com. Registering with them is free and allows you to download all the sample clips you want.

Create a new project and insert two video tracks by going to Insert > Video Track or hitting Ctrl+Shift+Q twice. Using the Explorer window or other method to add media, bring in the video you want to work with and put it onto Track #1. Vegas will create an event to hold your video. We need two copies, so hold down Ctrl on the keyboard while you click and drag the event down to Track #2. Per Windows conventions, clicking and dragging an event in Vegas moves it; Holding down Ctrl while clicking and dragging an event makes a copy.

So now we have two events with exactly the same content. And if that didn’t have enough potential for confusion, I want you to select the event on Track #2, place the cursor somewhere in the middle of it, and hit “S” on the keyboard to split it. (If Vegas splits the event on Track #1 as well, then you didn’t select the other event first. Hit Ctrl+Z to undo and try again.) This gives us three events with exactly the same content.

“But, Rob,” you say, “the two events on Track #2 have different content — one has the first half of the video, the other has the second half of the video.” To which I reply, “Back to Vegas 101 with you! Both events have the entire video within them since an event is just a window into the video file. We just happen to have each window small enough so that you can only see part of what’s inside. If you drag an edge of an event to lengthen that event, more of that video will be revealed.”

I know that sounds nit-picky, but it will be important a little later. For now, just understand that we now have three events that point to the same video. Before we start working with these events, let’s do a couple things that will make the following instructions more clear:

1. Let’s give ourselves an easy way to refer to each event on the timeline. Go to View > Active Take Information and make sure that it’s enabled. Once it is, you will see a label at the head of each event. Now instead of saying, “Select the second event on Track #2, I can simply tell you the name of the event to select. Hm, but wait. The default take name for an event from a video file is the name of that file. And since all three events are based on the same file, they all get the same take name. That’s not very helpful, is it? Which leads to workflow tip #2.

2. Luckily, you can change the take name for an event in your project, and it will have no effect on the file from which it comes. Right-click the event on Track #1 and choose Properties. In the Properties window, type the words “Swipe” into the box labeled “Active Take Information,” and click OK. Using the same method, name the first event on Track #2 “B&W” and the second event on Track #2 “Color”.

Figure 1: Editing Take Names

There. Those two steps alone will make the rest of this simple for you to follow (and for me to write!).

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Tags: fx, pan/crop, transitions