Dumb Vegas Question re time lapse
 

I have about 50 still images and I want to make a video with smooth disolves from frame to frame and then adjust the total length of the clip to about 10 seconds.

I've tried dragging the individual pictures so they overlap about 50% (cross fade) but I still get abrupt transitions. I also can't figure out how to stetch or compress the overal duration. I can stretch or compress an individual image's duration, but I want to adjust the total length of the clip which would stretc or shrink the duration of each image proportinally..

I know I'll get it someday but...

I think this has to be fairly simple to do, but so far haven't been able to break the code.

Edit...

Aha! I found that the frame to frame transitions actally were smooth when rendered to video clip - I was being fooled by the preview.

So the only question is how to adjust the duration of the set of still images.

Select all-then right click and select group -create new- hit control and click the edge of first or last event and when the little squiggle shows under it drag to shorten or extend all all.

Jim,

Thanks much! This is a lot better than what I was doing which was rendering the clip, then reading in the rendered clip and using CTRL drag. I knew there had to be a better way, but breaking the code as to what the help file calls what is - interesting!

Jim Ohair, you can shorten that a little bit by selecting all, pressing "G" to group them, and then CTRL-dragging to resize.

Scripts can also be used to adjust the length/overlap of the events on the timeline as well.

images
 

Some times vegas has problems with large still images and correctly (and smoothly) applying transitions between them, mainly because stills have far more data in them per frame than video. A 10MP camera can create some massive stills.

Sometimes bumping your preview window down a few quality settings will show you the smoothness you desire, at a cost of detail. Draft will look horrible, but might help. You could also do a ram-render using Ctl-B (I think) after double clicking on the transition to highlight it. Then you can playback at full quality and full speed.

Thanks for all the comments.

A couple of other questions have occurred to me though relative to stills on the timeline

Is it possible to set the timeline to read in frames instead of seconds?

And how can you set the time (or preferably the number of frames) that a still image should take when dropped into the time line?

Each of the stills is a 4MB JPEG, so I can understand why Vegas may bog down a bit.

I was thinking to set each still to last for a set number of frames with a crossfade to the next still such that each image is about 50% overlapped with both the preceding and succeeding images.

The camera is locked down and running on a timer taking one exposure every 20 minutes for a full day and i want to use this as the view through the window of a CG room showing how the view changes smoothly through the day. It's to help visualize the effects of a major remodel.

Right-click on the timecode above the track headers, choose "Time Format", and pick "Absolute Frames". You can also right-click the timecode running above the timeline as well and get there.

Options - Preferences - New Still Image Length

If you want them to all be ONE frame, you should insert them as an "Image Sequence" instead.

Is it possible to set a duration for when text from the media generator is dropped onto the timeline ?

My texts are always 10 seconds long, which is too long and i have to keep shortening them by dragging.


Thank.
Paul.

Edward,

Thanks much.

Actually I want them to each be about 10 frames overlapping by 5 frames, at least as a starting point. This would make the total animation about 8 to 10 seconds.

Options - Preferences - Editing tab, change the "New Still Image Length" to 10 frames. You actually have to enter a number of seconds but it will tell you the number of frames that it corresponds to. Plus if you know it's 10 frames, that's 1/3 of a second at 30 fps.

Then in the "Cut to overlap conversion" section, change the amount to 5 frames (once again, you have to enter it in seconds)

Now select all the images in the Explorer window and drag the first one to the timeline. That should put them all on the timeline at the designated length and overlap.

If they're already on the timeline and you don't want to delete/re-add, you'll need to use a script that can set the length and overlap amount. There are multiple scripts that can do that task.

I just did that.
New still image length (seconds) 5.000 .. 250 frames at 50.000fps.
The text's are still 10 seconds long when i drag them onto the timeline.

Paul.

Edward,

Thanks so much!

I was going to try it right away, but just remembered that the memory card is back in the camera which will run until about 8PM tonight so I'll just have to wait.

Paul, changing that setting should also change all future added generated medias. It won't do anything to already existing ones, though.

What should I resize the jpegs to? Each is about 3 mb.

Thanks,

Unless you're doing a deep zoom on an image, twice your project size is more than sufficient.
For an SD NTSC project, that would be 1440 x 960.
IrfanView has a very quick batch processor built into it.
BTW, Vegas seems to prefer the PNG format over JPEG so, when I do a batch conversion, I also change the images to PNG at the same time.