Locking X or Y position during keyframe interpolation
 

Okay, here's another easy one for you Vegas experts...

Sometimes when I am doing a pan, the interpolated positions between the start keyframe and end keyframe somehow seem to drift enough to expose the background in the frame. Why is this happening and how can I simply lock the Y coordinate? If my start and end keyframes have the same Y, shouldn't the interpolated keyframes inbetween have the same Y value?

Thanks again,

Jim

Use the DVD Architect 24p template, but DON'T change the framerate -- leave it with the "2-3 pulldown" being added.

It's not actually adding frames; it's adding pulldown flags which allow a DVD player to insert pulldown when watching on a standard TV (which can't be avoided). Playing on a progressive-scan player, the DVD player will not add pulldown when playing to a progressive display, and you'll be watching the pure 24p frames, but you need the pulldown flags in the file in order for it to be DVD-compliant (which is why there's a re-render when you change it).

If there are no keyframes in between with different Y values, then yes, your Y value should remain constant. Check to make sure you don't have anything in between -- it's pretty easy to have something without realizing it.

Excalibur 5 setup correction
 

The setup program for Excalibur 5 was updated late 4/13/06 (CDT). It was discovered that the multi-cam tallys were being stored in the wrong place and has now been corrected. Anyone who is missing the tallys in the Sync tool, please download and install again.

You likely need to set your smoothness on the keyframes to "0". This is a fairly common problem, common enough that John Rofrano has written a script to set all smoothness to "0."
http://www.vasst.com/search.aspx?text=smoothness is where you can get it should you need it.

Interesting. I've never seen a coordinate drift before, even with smoothness at 1, and I animate a lot of stills. I'll keep an eye out.

You will probably only see this when trying to coordinate the keyframes from two events on two different tracks. Unless the keyframes are identical (cut ‘n paste) AND exactly the same distance from one another (in which case the smoothing should track properly) you will see a drift because the smoothing is done as a percentage of movement and a longer distance between keyframes means a different percentage of smoothing. That’s why I wrote the unsmooth script. It annoyed the heck out of me. ;-)

~jr

DVDA workflow
 

I have a project that I want to bring to DVD. It is a songwriter performance of 10-13 songs with interviews for each song and a few additional off topic interviews. I shot 40-50 minutes of the songs on tape with 3 cameras. would I be better off with one veg file with everything laid out in order on the timeline or should I create a veg file for each song/interview and hook them up as a play list in DVDA? I don't know how to add transitions in DVDA so when in play all mode I get a seamless flowing transition from one song to another. If I do it with one veg file in Vegas with markers, I imagine the entire render will be enormous. Any thoughts?

Jeff

You can accomplish the same thing by rendering it as a single file, but put a little space in between songs on your (Vegas) timeline, and insert chapter markers. Then, you can make a chapter menu in DVDA and people can select songs at will. Or, they can play the whole thing all at once.

Make sure you include chapter markers when you render from Vegas.

It will be a big render, but you're not saving yourself any time by rendering in chunks, and in fact, you may well take up significantly more space on the DVD by doing it that way (in chunks).

Just a way to go. Not sure one way is any better than the other, ultimately; you can establish end actions with each individual file to go on the next, so it really comes down to personal taste and if you want the "long play" to be smooth and seamless from one song to the next, or have a notable pause and DVD title switch between each. Up to you.

Render time
 

I will say that you may consider creating each song & interview as a seperate Vegas project because daily renders that include your whole project start to really fill up hard drive space. That doesn't apply if you don't have a habbit of a daily render (I come from the software industry so I have a nightly code compile habbit).

I have found it to be easier to import a single file for DVDA as opposed to a lot of little onces and then linking them all together in a playlist. Especially because of what the other poster mentioned, chapter menus. DVDA can automatically create all necessary chapter menus based just on the chapter marks. That is why it is important to render to MPEG2 for DVDA. Then creating the DVD is about 1/2 the time. Or less. I learned the hard way.

jason

One other thing I thought of. Nesting. I'm not sure I understand this but is nesting the ability to add individual veg files in order on a new parent veg file? The reason I am leaning to individual renders is that if I ever want to mix my compilations at a future time, I can easily mix and match. I am producing a series of these performances and just shot the material. I am looking for a consistant workflow that works easily and consistently.

Jeff

Now I get it, very confusing but I get it. I am projecting this project on Saturday so I wanted to make sure it will play at 24p on a progressive DVD player.

Apparently Sony changed their page organization around, the link above is dead this morning.

Looks like this one might be the book Ron reviewed:
http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/pro...t.asp?PID=1003

Help with batch render - need new script?
 

As I continue to polish my workflow in Vegas, a nagging item has come to the top.

The Batch Render script that ships with V5 and V6 is a wonderful tool for automating export, which I frequently do "by regions".

However, when I come back after lunch or the next morning, Vegas has assigned file names to the output based on a prefix I selected, followed by something like "region_002_wmv9template" or words to that effect.

Does anyone know of a similar script that would incorporate the region name into the exported file name?

My life would be easier if I came back to find "region_002_regionname_Mary_wmv9template" or some such.

I did search VASST without success...

Thanks,
Seth

Yep, that did the trick...changing the smoothness to 0. Thanks again guys!