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Emulating the zoom system of Camtasia Editor in VEGAS – a script that copy the last keyframe and add a new one (1 second later)
Hi
I’m trying to do animated zooms in the way Camtasia Editor is doing for videotutorials. In Camtasia, you never insert a single keyframe, you always insert two keyframes. Why two keyframes? Very simple.Let’s imagine you have a keyframe A in the minute 1
Let’s imagine you do a zoom inserting a new keyframe in the minute 4
Your zoom will be very slow, it will expand from minute 1 to minute 4 (3 minutes of slow animated zoom)Now let’s imagine you want to add a zoom in the minute 4… but you only want it takes a second
Then, you will have your keyframe A in the minute 1
In the minute 4, you have to add, again a new keyframe (but you won’t zoom the screen) you only add a copy of the keyframe A, so again, you add the keyframe A
Now, you move the cursor 1 second to the right, and now yes, you insert the new keyframe B (which contains the zoom)
So basically you wont have keyframe A to B, what you have is keyframe A (1 min) to A (4 min) to B (1 second later)So basically, I need a script that to the following
Copy and paste the last keyframe used and add, 1 second later, a new keyframeCould you help me with this please?
This script would save my lifeCheers
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34 Replies
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No replies? Is this impossible?
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Of course, it can be done. The question is whether anyone is willing to make the effort to create that script. What you are asking for is really pretty simple and can already be accomplished with just a few keystrokes. Right-click, copy the keyframe, run the script I provided you in an earlier thread to move cursor 1 sec, click the pan/crop window to regain focus, hit the insert button to create new keyframe, and then Ctrl-v to paste the keyframe–no more than a few seconds.
Moreover, your lack of any acknowledgement for “saving your life” last time makes me, for one, reluctant to provide such assistance in the future since creating scripts does take time and effort. Perhaps someone else may be willing. Even better–take the time to learn to cobble together the script yourself, like many of us have done. Good luck.
wwaag
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Hi wwaag, it’s all clear, you don’t want to help, fine. You are not obligated, however this question was directed to the forum, not just to you exclusively. This forum is big… it has many members…
Regarding moral lesson (you can do as we did, you can learn yourself, etc.) A forum is to give help for those who want to give help in the measure they want to give help, but not for beg. We all already have the users manual, but we all still using the forum. As soon we beg or supplicate, we reduce the human condition. Colaborate, help yes. Beg, never. There are different moral views to understand the problem.
Additionally, I consider important to clarify several things of why this script is very important.
Again, this is not exclusively to you and I am not willing to convince you, this is to anyone that read this and is willing to help.– This script would help MILLIONS OF PEOPLE uploading videotutorials to youtube.
– Actually any video editing software in the world works with a double keyframe system.
– Copying and pasting keyframes manually, involve around 5 to 10 seconds in each operation. For a videotutorial with around 200 zooms… we have (in the bast case) 5 seconds x 200 zooms = 1000 seconds. That would be 16 minutes wasted in video editing. That is copy, paste, press ctrl + c, press ctrl +v again… press ctrl + c, press ctrl +v again… press ctrl + c, press ctrl +v again… press ctrl + c, press ctrl +v again… press ctrl + c, press ctrl +v again… and so on.
– With the double keyframe system you would save those 16 minutes.
– Having in mind videotutorials need to use extensively the zoom feature, we are talking about hours and hours of video editingTo understand why a double keyframe system works better for videotutorials is very necessary to take a look to this picture.
– Camtasia never insert a single keyframe. In other words, when you insert a keyframe in Camtasia, you would never have an odd number, you always have an even number.
– And why groups of two? To have zooms already created with a fixed period of time (very useful for videotutorials). Here this start (1) Here this end (2)…To understand this better and see how it save time in the workflow, please, watch this video.
For those willing to help, just remind this statistics:
– There are 400 million videos in Youtube
– Many of them are videotutorialsJust think about how a script of this kind could help the global VEGAS community
Cheers
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I think I understand why double-keyframes are useful because I also make video tutorials.
I can’t help coding a script but actually – for the way I work – I didn’t really needed it. Such a script or any kind of automation would apply a fixed duration/speed to the zoom which isn’t what I needed. I want duration/speed to be dependend on sizes (of start and end position) and content. So this method whould need me to touch and move one of the double-keyframe again to modify zoom speed.
My workflow is to manually set first keyframe where zoom starts (by pressing “Insert” key). Then moving cursor to where zooms will end and applying the zoom here, which automatically will insert a new keyframe. It’s a two-second-workflow (including the zoom) while preserving my need to individually select zoom speeds.
I find this way isn’t slower nor does it take more steps to apply desired zooming with desired speed.
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Hi Marco, I can demonstrate you the way you suggest is slower with a chronometer. In fact, it is 13 seconds slower, to add the workflow you use. 13 seconds, for every zoom.
I don’t know what kind of videotutorials you upload to youtube, but, for large videotutorials (3 hours or video or more) we can be talking about 400 or 500 zooms. We are talking about a delay of 45 minutes or even more per video, adding keyframes.
If you want me to, I’ll be glad to upload a video in the following conditions.
Camtasia, on the left side, applying a zoom.
Vegas on the right side, applying a zoom by inserting manually all the keyframes.
And the clock on each sides, to see the delay.
You’ll see VEGAS is 13 seconds slower or even more. -
What I don’t understand is that if using Camtasia is so much quicker, then why not use it? I do a lot of stills animation and while it could be done in Vegas by writing many special purpose scripts, it’s much faster to use software specifically designed for that purpose, in my case, Proshow Producer. I’m sure that the latest versions of Camtasia enables you to render to a format which could be imported easily into Vegas–at least the older versions of Camtasia supported that.
wwaag
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Not sure how it could be 13 seconds slower if it only takes me 2 seconds.
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why not to use it?
Some reasons here:
- Closed system. You never would have Boris red, Newblue FX, etc.
- Camtasia produce a .trec file, a closed system you wouldn’t be able to open anywhere. You cannot export your timeline from Camtasia to VEGAS.
- A closed system won’t allow you to do justified text… if you produce a videotutorial and you have to explain things, you have to present the things nicely, justification is something you wouldn’t find in Camtasia. With VEGAS, you have thousands of plugins doing this. Using a close system as Camtasia, have those problems.
- By the way, Camtasia 32 bits, VEGAS 64 bits…
- Camtasia, zero options to correct the color of your movies, VEGAS, all the options, nice plugins… For gamers for example, uploading videos to youtube, they need color correction, you wouldn’t find that in Camtasia…
- And the latest versions from Camtasia 8.6 (don’t dream with a major update, we are waiting 3 years… 3 long years…) won’t allow you to export to VEGAS. Camtasia use a propietary codec tsc2 and it cannot be used with third party applications (again, it is a closed system). After many complains from the customers, version 8.6 added the capability to extract media streams from TREC recordings. However, you will find only a video file, you won’t find the applied zooms, and so on, so we cannot export the timeline.
- Callouts and titles are the same in Camtasia the last 3 years, with VEGAS you can use New Blue Titler Pro 4 and do amazing things that captivate the audience and create amazing videos.
Camtasia is so old, that videos looks “hicks” (sorry).
These are just some reasons… if we continue we can have a bigger list…
We have to use it, because we have the dual keyframe system and there are no options outside to finally be free and jump to other platform. It is sad. If we all have the same keyframe system in VEGAS, for sure people would jump immediately.
And finally, why not a new release in 3 years? That is a big mistery.
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Can you demonstrate that with a video?
I am willing to see those 2 seconds.
I can demonstrate with a video (if you want) that you need at least 13 seconds.
But please, be precise, use chronometer to measure the time it takes you to apply those keyframes. -
You are right, it’s more than 2 seconds. It is 7 seconds and it includes zooming and positioning which itself takes 4 seconds. See here.
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