HDV:What You NEED to Know

 

No, this doesn't have anything to do with being a great mom or dad, but it does have a lot to do with Parenting in Sony Vegas software.

Like other compositing tools, Sony Vegas has a feature known as "parenting" where a single track may control certain attributes of another video track. This can save a lot of time, and provide a lot of capability in Sony Vegas for titling, image sequences, depth of image placement, and a whole lot more. Every track can act as a child, and every track can act as a parent. In Sony Vegas, you'll determine which is which for each track.

For example, did you know that one single track can control the position, shadow, glow, and movement of hundreds of tracks of video? Or that parent tracks may be used as displacement maps, height maps, or bump map controllers in Sony Vegas? There are many other things you can do with Parent masks in Sony Vegas, and in this tutorial we'll discover one of them.

The first parenting technique is to start with two tracks of video. You'll always need at least two tracks of video to have a parent/child relationship.

On the first track, we're going to insert text. Type in "Parent Track" in the Text tool and your screen should look like the image seen below:

 

Now, we'll insert the information in the Child track found below the Parent track. For this exercise, you can use either Generated Media or video. Choose your method. In this tutorial, and the download that accompanies it, I'll be using Generated Media. Feel free to substitute.

In this event, I've used Gradients from the presets to create keyframes. After inserting 7 keyframes, I copy/pasted them to the end of the keyframing timeline. This will cause the colors of the Generated Media to shift and move, giving life to the text that we have inserted to the timeline.

Now we need to make the Text/parent track be the parent, and make the Child/Generated Media track be the Child to the parent.
On the Child track. You'll need to select the Down Arrow found in the track header of the track containing the video or Generated Media track.

You'll also need to convert the compositing mode of the parent track to become a Multiply/Mask mode track. Click the Compositing Mode button to achieve this. It's the small green "filmstrip" looking button. Choose Multiply/Mask from the menu that opens up.

This will cause the gradient to be inside the letters. The white area of the letters defines where the Gradient will appear.

That's all there is to it. This is basic compositing. You can insert video in place of the Generated Media, and use it as a means of transitioning from an opening with video in letters to the actual video itself, as just one example.

In Vegas, you can have one track be a controller for several other tracks. Consider a mother walking through a grocery store; she's got three kids holding her left hand. Mother still has one free hand to do what she needs to do, while each of the three children have a free hand as well, all capable of doing what they need to do. However, Mother can direct what each of the children do. This is similar to how nested compositing, or parented tracks can work in Vegas.

Create a new project that contains four video tracks. You can download the demo project here.
Hold the CTRL key and select tracks 2, 3, and 4. Select the parenting button in any one of the three selected tracks. This will make all three of the selected tracks as children to Track 1.

On each of the four tracks, create a fade in and drop your favorite transitions on each one. This is just one of the individual behaviors of the separate tracks.

Now, to start understanding the power of parenting, we can put a shadow beneath all four tracks with only the parent track being used for this.
In track one (the parent track) look to the left side of the track header. Note the second Parent Motion button that none of the Child Tracks have. This will control the Parent Track as well as all the child tracks. You may need to insert a new track for a background so that you'll be able to see the shadow.

Click the Parent Motion button, and notice that a dialog similar to Track Motion opens up. Select the 2D shadow. A shadow will appear beneath all text.

 After you've created the shadow, your screen should look like this:

Now we'll start applying other behaviors to the tracks.

In Track 4, change the Track Motion mode from Source Alpha to 3D Source Alpha. This will give you the ability to make the project have 3D motion and depth.

Use the Z plane to push the text on Track 4 backwards or forwards. Repeat this on tracks 3, 2, and 1 When you get to Track 1, you'll likely receive a message that you're converting the track, and you'll lose your shadow generated by the parent of the track. No worries, we'll bring them back soon. Therefore, if you see the below message, proceed by clicking OK.

Now that all four tracks have 3D placement, it's time to move the tracks around using the parent track as a 3D controller. You will likely see the same message as seen above. Press OK and move on.
 

The Parent Motion dialog is a little different now. Take note of the 3D box indicator, and note that there is no shadow or glow option in the dialog. When you move the Parent controller in this dialog, all four tracks will follow it, but will maintain their transitions and positions individually.

After rotating the 3D object box in the Perspective Window, you should have a screen that approximates the below image.

Now we'll reapply the shadow to all four titled video tracks. To do this, we'll need to create a new track, which in the downloadable veg file is labelled as "papa." Insert the new track (CTRL+SHIFT+Q) and  don't put anything on this particular track.
Select  tracks 2-5 by holding the CTRL key as you click each track. Then press the Child mode button on one of the four tracks, to have them become child tracks to the new Papa track. Notice the heirarchy of the Parent/Child tracks now. The original 3 video tracks parented beneath the "Mama" track are still children to that track, but now "Mama" is subjugated to the "Papa" track.

In the "Papa" track, open the Parent Motion, and use the Shadow option by checking the checkbox, just as we did earlier in this tutorial. Your Preview Window should look similar to what you see below.

Play around with keyframes and other 3D and compositing moves, you'll find that Vegas offers some creative tools that are fast, easy, and timesaving. We'll revisit more compositing options in future tutorials. Until then, I hope this gets you started down a road of compositing. You can find some fun "floating boxes" and other 3D composites on the VASST site. Use the Search box found below to locate more 3D and other compositing options.

Happy creating,