Can You Have an ‘Object’ in Vegas

[Stephen Mann]

Don’t use .gif for this. Just make a small JPG file with a transparent background in Photoshop. Put this file on a track above our background track and use event Pan Crop and keyframes to move your “object”.

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

[Dave Haynie]

You can’t actually make a JPEG file with a transparent background. Transparency is supported by Photoship .PSD files, GIFs, PNGs, and a few other file formats.

It doesn’t much matter which graphics format you use — there’s nothing magical about a PNG or JPEG versus a GIF. GIFs are limited in color, so that’s one thing to be concerned about, but other than that, one’s going to animate about as well as another. On the other hand, a GIF itself can be an animation, which makes this easier to accomplish, sometimes.

Of course, a JPEG or any other image type can be chroma-keyed. Some of the small graphics animations I’ve done were using GIF clip-art, usually designed for web pages, without transparent background. If the GIF was a little weird on its own, I could get it better, resized perhaps, etc. as a video clip, then use that and key out the background.

One concern, particularly if you’re animating in interlaced video, is that a very “computery” image, something with prominent horizontal lines, is going to flicker in the interlacing. You’ll also see flicker if you move an object too quickly without adding motion blur (I use BCC for this, these days).

Here’s a video I did a few years ago, with all kinds of graphics animation:

-Dave

[Alex Kerezy]

Hi,
I didn’t think (realize) jpeg could have a transparent background???!!!????

This is why I have used gif (or png) files.

I did a google search, and can’t find anything on this, that is I can’t find anything that successfully shows how to make a jpg with a transparent background.

I can make it transparent inside Photoshop, but as you save it to a jpg or jpeg file, it seems to me/my knowledge it MUST have a background color and it will default to white.

PLEASE – Let me know if I’m missing something!!

Thanks
Alex

[Alex Kerezy]

Hi,

Thanks for your helpful ideas and movie example. I also noted to the other gentleman who posted that jpegs do not support transparency.

I guess I can use a small size gif or png file – after seeing your video.

Especially thanks for the thoughts on blurring if I ‘animate’ the gif. My animation will be planes flying by, and space ships flying by….. so there aren’t any moving parts (like legs walking etc.)

Thanks Again!!
Blessings
Alex

[Scott Francis]

I use PNGs because of the transparent background as well…I have had VERY good results with PNGs. Also, if you are using a lot of pics, be sure they are not to big for Vegas. I try to keep them near the aspect ratio I am using and around 72dpi. If you are doing pan-zooming I double that. In the past I have had a TON of trouble when using pics and having them be too large….crashes galore! Then I found out about the size thing and Vegas, when I do a Ken Burns style video, using almost all pics I re-size them all in Photoshop before I edit.
Good Luck!

Scott Francis
Mind’s Eye Audio/Video Productions

[Stephen Mann]

You are correct – JPG files do not support transparency.

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

[John Rofrano]

[Alex Kerezy] “Is there a way in Sony Vegas Pro to create an “object” that IS NOT the complete size, or doesn’t take up the complete frame width of the film???”

You have to undo the resizing that Vegas does. Unfortunately, the default behavior is to make everything scale to fill the screen. To undo this, simply open the Pan/Crop window and make the Width and Height match the width and height of your project and the object will be shown at it’s original resolution.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Alex Kerezy]

Interesting…. yep, Vegas DOES resize everything.

Thanks for the tip!!
Alex