Help fully understanding the composite modes and child/parent relation

[Kristian Tigersjäl]

I guess I am abit snowed in on a narrow topic here with my composition questions. As a relatively high level coder I’m just not used to leaving topics in the gray because of lack of information but I guess I’m going to have to make an exception here. Yes Vegas is a very deep software in a very clever way because it seems so simple but the more you use it the more you realize how complicated and deep it really is. Composition DETAILS isn’t really THAT important for any current project I am doing etc, I’m just used to another level of documentation and speed of education because of this 😉

[John Rofrano]

nobody has yet compiled a comprehensive and comprehensible “How To” manual for the technically disabled. I’m not talking about your great “Basics to This”, or “The Beginners Bundle to That”, I’m talking about a “How To” guide…not a training guide.

Can you elaborate on the difference between a “How To Guide” and “Training Guide”. What would you expect to see that you can’t find now? How would it be presented? We have the Vegas Pro 9 Editing Workshop. Have you read that?

~jr

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

[Kristian Tigersjäl]

I could imagine a “how-to” guide regards one single task and is usually pretty quick to watch just to learn how to do one single thing. A training video in my book is more of an area, such as composition. Also how-to’s are usually short and free while training videos are comprehensive and usually not free.

[John Rofrano]

Also how-to’s are usually short and free while training videos are comprehensive and usually not free.

So, “How To’s” are like what I’ve tried to do on the Video Tutorials section of my web site. And “Training” are the DVD’s that “pay the rent”. 😉

~jr

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

[Kristian Tigersjäl]

I think you nailed that one perfectly 😉 Nothing wrong with training videos, they generally give you a very complete knowledge that allows for creativity and your own ideas while quick tutorials merely gets the job done of a specific task without adding much understanding to the process 😉

[Bruce Quayle]

Hi Bob and John,
Thanks for your input here. It is interesting that Kristian and myself appear to be at opposite ends of the technical spectrum, but have similar questions.

Yes John – your “How To” videos are exactly what I believe people like me are looking for…and I have really appreciated them. I just would really like to see a comprehensive compilation of this sort of thing so that I don’t have to spend hours looking around for the effect, transition or composite I need. I would pay good money for a DVD with all this stuff on it. Now by ‘transition’, I don’t mean a simple wipe or dissolve, I mean something using an explosion or a matt as a transition. Now, we Luddites aren’t completely lacking in lateral thinking – I mean we can see when a specific transition can be used with different sources and therefor, make the necessary changes to achieve our particular goal. This means these How To lessons don’t have to cover every imaginable circumstance.

I suspect that, if you think parent-child is the “big” issue that is not fully explained, that you have not yet begun to grasp the capabilities of Vegas. There is a LOT to understand…

Exactly my point Bob. I will be the first to admit that I haven’t grasped the capabilities of Vegas…but I just want to be able to use it as a professional tool.

I once owned a production house with very expensive edit suits and hired editors to do what I can now do myself (within reason) on a laptop. The industry has changed to such a degree that this is now possible.

I’m simply suggesting that folks like myself (the technically disabled) would benefit enormously from “How To” videos rather than the excellent in-depth tutorials that are available.

We don’t want to know how it gets done – we just want to know how to do it!

Thanks again for your input.
Cheers,

Bruce Quayle

[Kristian Tigersjäl]

Just some minor comments on this one.

I’m coming from the coding world coding 5 languages, so I’m used to tough learning but the thing with vegas is that things often enough aren’t documented properly in the manual. Like someone here said, it’s a way of reducing costs and offer the software at a more competitive price. This may very well be true but is still a strange thing to me coming from the coding world where even open-source software with no money involved at all usually is so well documented you can find the information you are looking for within minutes.

I still love vegas however, it’s the best video editor in my world. Premiere is a slow, fat, beast that takes half an hour to install and basically needs half your harddrive for some video editing. Vegas is such a smooth ride compared to that so I’m certainly willing to hunt down the pieces of information I need to use it. It’s still strange however that group out there did a site about vegas fully documenting the parts that are left out in the manual.

Kristian

[John Rofrano]

We don’t want to know how it gets done – we just want to know how to do it!

Understood. Thanks for the feedback. That will help in making future tutorial works.

~jr

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