Drop shadow on a video layer?

VEGAS Pro

Drop shadow on a video layer?

Posted by Ryan Mcrobb on February 19, 2013 at 8:47 am

I have been doing projects with young kids in Vegas Movie Studio, the kids have been drawing characters and cutting them out in Photoshop Elements and exporting them as a png file so they can be animated on the Vegas timeline in front of backgrounds they have drawn and scanned.
Is there a way a drop shadow can be added to this png image on the Vegas timeline?
Cheers

Stephen Mann replied 13 years, 2 months ago 5 Members · 7 Replies
7 Replies

Graham Bernard
February 19, 2013 at 9:21 am

Rob? ANy chance of a PNG that you are wanting to do this with? And explain where the DS is to be created. I have ideas and solutions, but it is always better to get a clearer direction first.

Cheers

Grazie

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Ryan Mcrobb
February 19, 2013 at 10:37 am

Hi Graham,

At it’s simplest form, I would like to add a drop shadow to a png, of say, a person cut out and hence the area around the person is transparent. I would like to add shadow to the area around the person, so the drop shadow would ignore the alpha contents of the png.

The purpose for the drop shadow is to create depth of field when putting the png cutout of a person(or anything) in front of a background.
I hope that is clearer!
Cheers
Paul Beller
February 19, 2013 at 11:29 am

NewBlue V4 – drop shadow plugin will do exactly what you want. I don’t see any other way. Animating masks – it is the hell of a job when you want to do it manually. Only a plugin can count all that and move the mask with the object.
or….
if you plan to animate pngs… i don’t know your project but it may be possible to copy animation data from the pngs onto the shadow event which would be the same png but tilted… i don’t know the project, just a kinda brainstorm. new blue drop shadow will do it for sure.
Mike Kujbida
February 19, 2013 at 11:53 am

Ryan, try the 2D Shadow option found in Track Motion and see if that’s good enough for you.
Ryan Mcrobb
February 19, 2013 at 12:29 pm

Thanks Paul, New Blue drop shadow is exactly what I am talking about.
I figured it was possible to create a drop shadow video track by duplicating the layer and making it black, transparent and at whatever angle behind the first layer needed to be, but it sounds like too much trouble, and the kids I was working with had enough trouble with keyframing their png’s.

thanks for your help, i just wish i didn’t have to fork out $130 for the plugin set!
Ryan Mcrobb
February 19, 2013 at 12:30 pm

Never thought of that one, I will give it a go.
Cheers
Stephen Mann
February 19, 2013 at 4:13 pm

Why wouldn’t a drop shadow on the PNG image work?

Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com

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