Multicam editing tips in Vegas Pro 8?
 

Hey all,

In multicam editing I simply mouse-click on the track in the preview window to determine which cam I cut to.

Thing is when you click it's a hard cut unless you hold ctrl, THEN it's a cross-fade.

I looked but couldn't find any info on making the mouse-click (without the ctrl press) as the cross-fade between cams.

Any ideas? It would make things a lot quicker in my editing.

BTW. I say this because my left hand is busy with my Contour controller and I do a LOT of cross-fades so I'm constantly having to reach over and hold ctrl with my edits.

Thanks for any assistance.


ian

My suggestion is of no immediate help, but I would submit you try the Ultimate S multicam tool, I love it. Ultimate S is available as a free download. It's worth every penney.

Ian,

I use the Contour as well. I actually have one of my buttons mapped to a 'Ctrl'. (In my case that is the bottom right - button 13) That way I can keep my hands in place -- one on the Contour, the other on the mouse.

marks

In the same vein as what Jeff said, another option is Excalibur. Both will add flexible multi-cam editing in Vegas.

With regards to having to hold down the CTRL key, I don't know of a way to make the crossfades automatic other than to use one of the scripting versions. Of course you could always use a script after the multi-cam edit was complete to add crossfades at each cut.

Ian,

Thanks for asking the very questions I needed answered also! I am amazed that with as many options and settings Vegas Pro 8 has you cannot pre select for the takes in Multicam to be crossfades.

It is a big pain in the butt to have to hold down the control key while selecting camera takes.

I wonder if by any chance this has been addressed in Vegas 9 ?

Nothing has changed as far as I can see in vegas 9, I still do it the slow way, at each point when switching between cameras I choose what fade or transition I want, of course when filming concerts I use very little fades, mainly I just snap from one camera to the next, now on slow choir concerts fades and dissolves are a must.....I just wish vegas would fix the runup time in the preview window in 9, it really makes it difficult when switching between cameras, and I have a i7core setup.....

I struggled with the lack of crossfades in my last multicam edit too until I remembered that placing the cursor on the edit point and pressing the / key (the one on the numeric keypad please) changes the cut to a one sec. dissolve.
Hope this helps someone.

I don't see where it is free. The only thing that is free is a limited time trial version. To buy a licensed copy cost $169. Of course I'm looking at v. 4.1. Is there an earlier version that does most of the multicam functionality which is free?

Am I missing something. I'm a bit tired of spending money on upgrades and plug-ins to try to get this software to work properly.

Both Ultimate S and Excalibur do cost. However, they both are more flexible in doing multi-cam edits than the built-in version. The built-in version does work well, though.

I'm sorry I meant as a demo it is available, it is not free.

It is worth every penny especially if you make photomontages and use multicam.

It has many features that few NLEs have natively.

The demo costs nothing and is fully functional. I edit full time and wouldn't be without it.

I put up a slide show detailing a work flow I use in editing multi-camera ice skating shoots here:

Document Index: Mindtography Multi-Camera Edits Using Vegas and VASST UltimateS Pro

I use VASST quadcam scripts, not Vegas multicam, so it may not be so relevant in this discussion.

Chip

Thanks for the slideshow Chip that was interesting.

I will have to download the demo and see if it does what I need it to do. It just seems like the Vegas developers could have included some of this functionality, like creating a way to not lose color correction changes when creating the multicamera track.