This is the beginning of a series on creating your own custom transitions in Vegas. In part one, we’re going to use a still image to cover up our cut and animate that still using Bezier masking and Vegas’ native transitions.

Figure 1: The Media

If you haven’t already, insert the two pieces of media you want to transition between. Butt them up against one another on the timeline. We won’t be applying any fades or native transitions between them, so they don’t need to overlap. I will be using clips from Stock Footage For Free — video of a trolley and video of someone jet skiing. Feel free to use your own footage, still images, or even Vegas generated media.

Insert a video track above your existing events by hitting Ctrl+Shift+Q or going to Insert > Video Track. Directly above the two events, insert a still image. I’m using a texture from stock.xchng. Again, feel free to use another image. After adding your image, size it to the length you want your custom transition to last. This includes not only the amount of time for the image to enter and exit, but also the amount of time for the image to stay on screen. My image will take half a second to enter, half a second to exit, and will be still for 1 second — for a total of two seconds.

Figure 2: Top Mask

Click the Pan / Crop button for the image’s event. First, we want to make sure this image fills the screen. Right-click inside the Pan / Crop window and choose Match Output Aspect. Now, on the bottom left, enable Bezier masking by checking the box labeled “Mask”. Enable the Anchor Creation Tool by hitting “D” on the keyboard or clicking the tool’s icon on the left side of the Pan / Crop window — and mark points in the Pan / Crop window to create your mask. I’m dividing my image into a top and bottom, so I’m going to follow along some of the diagonal lines and then finish around the top edge.

Figure 3: Bottom Mask

When you’re done creating the mask, close out of the Pan / Crop window. Now we need a copy of this image to act as the other half — in my case, the bottom half. Insert another track, then copy and paste the image’s event onto the new track. (The quick way is to hold down Ctrl while clicking and dragging the original event up to the new track.) Click the Pan / Crop icon for this new image. Under the Path heading, if the Mode is set to Positive, set it to Negative. If it’s Negative, set it to Positive. You have now cut your image in two. One half is displayed on one track and the other half on another track. You can close out the Pan / Crop window.

The last step is making the two halves move. For this, we’ll use Vegas’ transitions. Add fades to the beginning and ends of both of the images’ events. To do this, hover the mouse over the top corner of an event until the cursor becomes a quarter circle and click and drag towards the center of the event. Make this fade as long as you want the entrance and exist to last.

Figure 4: Transitions

Next go to the Transition window and choose transitions appropriate each piece of your image. The texture I’m using has been split into a top half and a bottom half, so I’m using the “Slide In, Top-Down” transition for the top half to enter, “Slide In, Bottom-Up” to bring in the bottom half, and the opposites of these two for the exits. Drag and drop the transitions you want onto the fades for both images’ events.

And that’s one way to create a custom transion in Vegas using a still image. Start there and experiment with different images, more complex Bezier masking, and other Vegas transitions. If you were following along, you should have something like this:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zicsql5zA4

www.youtube.com/watch?v=FudIXd-ltFI

www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdyPuAujgj0

Often, Sony Vegas users create their lower thirds in other programs or buy pre-made ones, but we’re going to make one entirely in Sony Vegas. It won’t be the flashiest lower third you’ve ever seen, but it will be attractive and functional. So, here we go.

Start by giving yourself three video tracks to work with by hitting Ctrl+Shift+Q three times. The first two tracks will be for text, and the third is for the background. I will be using the standard Text Media Generator and creating two lines of text. If you’re using the new ProType Titler, then feel free to use just one track and create multiple text blocks there. Just note that I’ll be saying “Track #3″ to refer to the background track and “Track #1″ and “Track #2″ to refer to the text tracks.

First we’ll add the lower third’s background. I want this to look a bit three-dimensional, so let’s make something that has highlights and shadows. A quick and effective way to do that is to use gradients. Go to the Media Generators window, select Color Gradient from the list, and drag the Fancy Wooden Board onto Track #3. (Remember, that’s Track #2 for you ProType Titler folks.) We don’t need to make any changes to this, so close the Video Media Generator window.

Figure 1: Color Gradient

At the moment, our lower thirds graphic is looking more like a middle half graphic. If we put this over our video, we’d hardly see any of the main content. Let’s resize it and move it where it belongs using track motion. Click the Track Motion button on Track #3’s header. In the Track Motion window, be sure that Lock Aspect Ratio is not enabled.

For the Height setting, type 125. You can leave Width as is. (If the width changes automatically, you didn’t disable Lock Aspect Ratio like I told you.) Then, within the Track Motion workspace, drag the selection box down where you want your lower third to appear. Ideally, this is at or just above the bottom edge of the title safe zone (the inner dotted-line box in your Video Preview window). (If you don’t see the safe zones in your preview, there is a button at the top of that window for toggling them.)

Figure 2: Track Motion

I like the general look of of this gradient, but I’m not wild about the color scheme. I could have changed each of the colors one by one back in the Video Media Generator window, but let’s try something a bit quicker. Find the Video FX window and select Color Corrector (Secondary) from the list. Grab the Reset to None preset, and drop it onto our event with the Fancy Wooden Board gradient. Vegas will open the Video Event FX window. Start by moving the Rotate Hue slider to find the color you really want for your lower thirds background. I want a blue, so I’m using a value of 200. You also may need to adjust some of the other settings. By default, this blue was a little too blue for my taste, so I dragged the saturation down to .500. I also dragged the Gamma down to 0. When you’re through adjusting the color for your background, close out the Video Event FX window.

Figure 3: Color Corrector (Secondary) FX

Okay, this is starting to shape up. You should now have what kind of looks like a blue tray. But you know what? Our text’s not going that long, so we don’t need this graphic to run all the way across the screen. Let’s show a little more of the screen by way of of Bezier Masking. Right-click the event for the background graphic and choose Pan / Crop. In the Event Pan / Crop window, enable the Mask tool (bottom left, checkbox next to the word Mask). Select the Anchor Creation tool (hit D on the keyboard or click the icon that looks like a pen tip) and create a mask around part of the background graphic. Leave the left half (and a bit more) and make the right edge slanted. Imagine you’re creating a rectangle but with a corner sliced off. Now soften up that edge by changing the Feather Type to Out and give the Feather (%) a value that looks good to you. I’m using 30%. What I want is for the background graphic to fade out on one side. Once you add the fade, you may need to adjust the mask’s points so that the graphic extends as far as you want. Once you’re done, close out the Event Pan / Crop window.

Figure 4: Masking using Pan/Crop

(Note that the Event Pan/Crop window will still show the orange-ish “fancy wooden board” graphic instead of our new cool blue tray. Don’t be concerned — the Event Pan/Crop window just doesn’t know about the Video FX we’ve applied.)

The last thing we’ll with the background graphic is add some texture and motion. Go to the Video FX window, select TV Simulator from the list, and drag the TV Look present onto your background’s event. This effect has animation “built in,” so we don’t need to add any keyframes or adjust any settings. But feel free to play around with the settings if you like. When you’re finished, close out the Video Event FX window.

Figure 5: TV Simulator FX

Finally, we’re getting to the text. Return to the Media Generators window, select Text from the list, and drag the Default Text preset up to Track #2. In the Video Media Generator window, replace “Sample Text” with the text you want on the bottom line of your lower thirds graphic. This could be a company name, or the interviewee’s title, or the name of a website. Adjust the font so that it can be read easily and that you can fit it (and another line of text) over the background graphic. Ariel Black, 16pt, and bold works very well. Now go to the Placement tab and choose “Bottom Left” from the dropdown box. This will place your text just inside the title safe zone. To fine tune the placement, click once on the text’s textbox within the Placement tab’s workspace and use the arrow keys to move it in small increments. Once the bottom line looks right, add another Text event to Track #1 and create the first line of text in the same way. This could your name, the interviewee’s name, or — for example — the name of a tutorial being given. When it comes time for the Placement tab, you can still use the Bottom Left option and then adjust as needed with the arrow keys.

Figure 6: Adding the Text

And with that, you’re essentially done. Go to File > Save, and save this as a Vegas project (VEG) file. Through the magic of nested VEG files (introduced in Sony Vegas 7), you can drop this VEG file into any project, and Vegas will treat it as an event. So when it comes time to add your lower third to a video, just create a new track at the top of that video, locate your lower third VEG, and drag it to that new track. To make the lower third fade in, adjust it’s fade offset as you would any other event — or add a transition to make its entrance a little more interesting.

Your results may look something like this (though with better encoding):

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejvPKGF3ZdI

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ToG3lVk4Q8

www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlsWV0t1SDk