no drop shadow option
 

Why in track motion, do I have no drop shadow option? All I have is position, not shadow or glow...

I'm doing a picture in picture effect with the picture rotated 51 degrees and I want a shadow to be thrown behind it. I've got a shadow from text with a similar orientation and want it behind an image/picture.

Re: no drop shadow option
 

Issue solved...

Re: no drop shadow option
 

Renton, for the benefit of someone who may have the same problem in the future, what was your solution?

Re: no drop shadow option
 

Apparently as soon as you click '3D source' from the drop down menu at the top left of the 'track motion' window, the drop shadow/glow options of the 2D window disappear. I'm not aware if they can be got back or not - presume not...

For the shadow I put a black event of the same length under the picture, first of all using exactly the same numbers used for the picture in the track motion window, then moved it to where I wanted it as a shadow. I also used a composite envelope to reduce opacity of the 'shadow' by about 50% or so...

I also wanted to round the corners of the picture and shadow...so...I went on the web and found a short tutorial -
- which gave me the basic idea of how to do this...through 'Video Event fx >Soft contrast'. I did this to both the picture and the shadow events...fiddling with the parameters till I had what I wanted. Screen shot below...It's fairly subtle but there...

Re: no drop shadow option
 

For completeness, if you want a simple drop shadow when using 3d alpha, just create a track above your 3d alpha track (with nothing in it), make it a parent of the 3d alpha track and apply your shadow to the parent.

Re: no drop shadow option
 

Thanks Ian. I just haven't got a grip on this parent/child track thingi...don't understand it...but it seems like I should.

Re: no drop shadow option
 

It's well worth reading up on Parenting - lots you can do with it! As a simple example, I often find myself overlaying bullet points in a production. Creating an empty parent track then adding the individual bullet points as child tracks allows me to apply track motion changes (using the Parent Motion button) to the whole group at once, rather than individually. And then there's the whole compositing thing . . . unbelievably useful!

What would be really great would be if a Parent Track could act as a kind of adjustment layer, like in Photoshop/AE, to allow you to add effects en masse to a group of child tracks.

Re: no drop shadow option
 

Erm.... ? Maybe I misunderstood your "wishes", I've added FXs Black and White & Lens Flare to a Parent Track, and they are affecting the underlying 3xChild Tracks.

Grazie

Re: no drop shadow option
 

So you can! My "wishes" have been granted.

I've realised where I was going wrong - you need to add the effects AFTER the Composite point in the chain, whereas by default they are placed BEFORE. Excellent news.

Re: no drop shadow option
 

Sadly, though, I don't think that changes to the opacity level of a parent track will affect its children (and therefore the 'strength' of the effects chain that is applied to the child tracks). Unless Grazie has any more tricks up his sleeve?

Re: no drop shadow option
 

Oooohhhhh yes, that's a marvellous idea. The info about compositing point duly noted but ditto Ian's comment about opacity.

And, I also wish you could expand and collapse individual events into their own compositing "multi-tracks", that would help keep my timelines neater (I know you can group tracks and then collapse them but I don't always want to use an entire chunk of tracks for the occasional bit of compositing).

Cheers
Dave

Re: no drop shadow option
 

Hi Ian .... I have been trying to replicate your suggested solution .... but with no luck?
If I read your suggestion correctly .... I create a track immediately above the track to which I have applied 3D Source Alpha (using track motion) .... use track motion (source alpha) to apply a 2D shadow and finally make the 3D Source Alpha track (below) a compositing child? ie the track above is the parent?
Do I have this correct ... Graham

Re: no drop shadow option
 

Almost, but not quite ;-)

When you have created the parent track, THEN make the track below it a child, not at the end of the process.

As soon as you click the 'Make Compositing Child' arrow to do this, you will see two new icons appear in the parent track title strip, just below the minimize/maximise icons on the left.

The bottom icon is Parent Compositing Mode and the top one is Parent Motion. It's Parent Motion that you need to click in order to apply the shadow to child tracks. You were clicking the regular Track Motion icon on the parent track which would affect that track only.

Hope that helps.

Re: no drop shadow option
 

That was quick .... many thanks Ian .... after further fiddling I had just spotted it .... icon doesnt appear 'till after the compositing child button set ... great ... could have used this shadow many times in the past ....
Graham

Re: no drop shadow option
 

Pleasure, Graham. I must confess I don't quite get why the shadow function stops working as soon as you go into 3d alpha though!

Re: no drop shadow option
 

To resurrect this thread...

I don't get this Parent/Child deal that Ian you talked about...I've tried it (I think) but it hasn't worked...whatever 'it' was I did...

So...what I have...is nine images stacked up on top of each other in 3D space with what appears to be be about 5 or 10 mms between them...you can see they are separate 'images' one on top of the other at an angle (25 degrees + or -) to the screen.

I'm going to zip each image off in turn with a transition - probably 'push' - but would like to have a drop shadow underneath each one to accentuate the layering and make the transition a bit more distinct.

Thus I need to get a drop shadow on each image which moves away with the image when its turn comes to go...

Can you walk me through how I would do this with the parent/child relationship thingi...appreciated it if you could... :-)

EDIT: Actually...I would also like to zoom in on the images as a stack during the sequences...maybe that can be done with P/C stuff also...

Re: no drop shadow option
 

So, you have nine tracks, all of which are 3d alpha. We already know that you cannot apply drop shadow to a 3d track.

What you need to do FOR EACH 3D TRACK is to create a parent track. In your case you will need to create nine parent tracks. This won't work if you just create one parent and make the nine original tracks children of it, they each must have their own parent.

To do this, insert a new video track above each of your nine tracks, then press the parenting icon (it's a little downward pointing right angled arrow in the track header). You do this on your original tracks, not the newly created ones. You'll see that the original track is then indented slightly, showing that it is now a child of the track above. You will now have a total of 18 tracks - 9 originals, plus 9 parents.

Now, on each of the parent tracks, click on the parent motion icon. This is found on the left side of the track header and looks just like the track motion icon (except that the colour is slightly different). Note that you do not want to click on track motion on the parent track - it won't work.

A new window will open, and it looks rather like the track motion window, except the guide box is square rather than rectangular. Now you can select 2d shadow. You need to do this on each of the nine parent tracks.

To keep things relatively tidy I tend to minimise the parent track after I've done this.

Now, the zooming in part - not sure if you want to do that to the whole stack on nine simultaneously or if you want to zoom in on each individually.

If it's as a stack, then you need to create another parent track at the top of the eighteen you've just created, then go down through each of your eighteen tracks and click the make child icon once for each track. Vegas doesn't remember parent/child relationships if you add new parents into the hierarchy and you will need to 'remind' it that the original tracks with your media are grandchildren of the new top level track (i.e. your master parent).

What you should end up with is a structure that looks like this

PARENT (of the entire group)
----- PARENT (of the original media) - this level is also a child of the 'master' parent
---------- CHILD (your original media) - this level is also a grandchild of the 'master' parent
----- PARENT (of the original media)
---------- CHILD (your original media)
----- PARENT (of the original media)
---------- CHILD (your original media)
----- PARENT (of the original media)
---------- CHILD (your original media)
----- PARENT (of the original media)
---------- CHILD (your original media)
----- PARENT (of the original media)
---------- CHILD (your original media)
----- PARENT (of the original media)
---------- CHILD (your original media)
----- PARENT (of the original media)
---------- CHILD (your original media)
----- PARENT (of the original media)
---------- CHILD (your original media)

So, using parent motion on your 'master' parent, you can adjust the frame size to give the impression of zooming in or out of the whole stack uniformly.

If you want to affect the zoom on each individual track then do that using track motion on each individual track (doesn't matter if you do this on the parent or child, just make sure you do it the same way for each track otherwise you will end up with a very confusing project!).

Hope that helps, Renton. The concept is simple but it can become unwieldy very quickly when you have multiple tracks like you're describing. One tip is to name your tracks. I am the worst at doing this, but it really is a habit you will benefit from in complex scenarios like this. Also, when you've created your structure, minimise the parent tracks to keep things tidy (well, tidier).

Good luck!

Re: no drop shadow option
 

Hi Renton
I tried to replicate the essentials of what you have indicated in your post i.e. stack 9x jpgs in 3D space and make each a child of a 'parent' track at the time ... used a basic 'push' transition between each and created a steady zoom at the parent level over all 9x jpg from beginning to end zoomed ... no problem to create a drop shadow on each ... seems to work per the instructions to me by Ian Stark back in 2012 ...
Regards
Graham Budd (up in Auckland)
Too slow .... Ian has provided a complete answer .............

Re: no drop shadow option
 

Thanks Ian and Graham.

I'll go to it and see if I can make it work.

Actually the transition I was going to use was not push but 'slide out - left right' ...but that is neither here nor there re the parent child system...just want to make sure you didn't get the wrong idea about my aesthetics!! :-)

Renton (down in Porirua)

Re: no drop shadow option
 

Hmmm...followed your instructions Ian and ended up with only the bottom image showing as per screen shot below:

All the other ones appear to be there but are transparent (?) except for the tops and right hand ends. Shadows are there also...sort of...

Re: no drop shadow option
 

You're not going to get much shadow showing against a black background ;-)

Having said that you can see the shadow on the layers below so it looks like you've set it up correctly.

As for the transparent issue - not sure what you mean by that. I can't see any transparency in the screenshot you posted, and surely all you would expect to see in a stack of images would be just the edges of the images below?

Can you give some more detail as to what it is that's not working how you'd expect it to?

Re: no drop shadow option
 

The curser is at a place where the top image should be showing and only the left hand edge of all the other ones. Then when the transition occurs the image is slid out of the eay to the right exposing the second in the stack...and so on down to the bottom one - the one in the image already posted.

I've just undone all the parent child stuff and here is what it should look like at the start before any of them are slid away...only I don't have shadows...I'm wanting the shadows on the lower images, not on the background :-)

Off to bed...it's midnight...zzzzzzzzz

Re: no drop shadow option
 

As soon as I insert a new video track in the stack of tracks with images on, I wipe out all tracks below the new track. The way I have the various tracks stacked up as seen in the sg in comment above, eack track has its image reduced in size relative to the one above it to produce the stack effect. By inserting a blank video track say in the middle of the stack, all images above that are wiped out for the area of the image around that level in the stack. Thus because the higher images are larger than the lower ones, some area of the higher images show. It's a bit hard to see because all the SG look similar around the edges, but in the image below you can see part of the very top image (a spread sheet image) at the right.

Re: no drop shadow option
 

Can you post a screengrab of your Vegas workspace? Not sure I am going to be able to hep much for a while as I'm off on a week long job, but someone else might spot something.