Making animation “like-stop-motion” through Vegas + Inkscape

[John Rofrano]

[Carlos Silva] “a) So, would Vegas (studio 11) able to do this kind of animation? Could I call it “stop motion”? “

You would really need Vegas Pro for this because there is a lot of Masking going on in that video and Movie Studio doesn’t have a Mask tool. 🙁 So some of it could be done but not all of it.

[Carlos Silva] “b) Does plugins/software as “StepTime (Pixelan)” or “ScenalyzerLIVE” offer any additional improvement to Vegas to make this kind of creation easier? “

I don’t think stop motion is the solution. This is straight animation of images which is best done with Track Motion in Movie Studio.

[Carlos Silva] “c) To create the images I thought to use the software Inkscape (it is similar to Corel Draw). What would be the best export image format (file type) to use in Vegas?”

I would save them as PNG with Transparency. There are a lot of transparent overlays in that video.

~jr

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

[Carlos Silva]

Hi John,

Thanks for answer. I would appreciate additional help. To be more exactly, I am looking for a kind of animation that could be “executable” without much complexity, using as basic as possible resources from video editing software + image editing software. The purpose are two: (a) to add “fun” + “information” +”infograph” to common video footage in an amateur academic documentary; (b) to teach it to students.

In this way, I found in Gimp image software the plugin GAP (the GIMP Animation Package). Follow bellow some animation generated by GAP:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G19HK_VpS_M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2nPpBvH6kA&feature=related
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr8eduixa3k&feature=related
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BHRKlzRr9M&feature=related

a) Considering images generated previously, could just the animation be done directly in Vegas? It is because what I read about GAP/GIMP is that it is hard-work to make animation.

b) If yes, what you told about the use of Vegas Pro because “masking”, would it be applied as well? Or Vegas Movie Studio is able to do that?

Best,
Cadu

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[John Rofrano]

[Carlos Silva] “a) Considering images generated previously, could just the animation be done directly in Vegas?”

Yes, The easiest way to add animation would be to use animated GIF files. These will play back in Vegas and then you could use Track Motion to move them around the screen. Many animated GIFs like the butterflies and flying Pegasus in your video examples can be found on the internet. Just drop them on the timeline, resize them with Pan/Crop and preposition them with Track Motion.

[Carlos Silva] “b) If yes, what you told about the use of Vegas Pro because “masking”, would it be applied as well? Or Vegas Movie Studio is able to do that?”

You wouldn’t need to use masking with files like animated GIFs because they have an alpha channel and will mask themselves.

~jr

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

[Dave Haynie]

There are several things you can do with animation, and Vegas can be pretty powerful, but it’s not always the whole piece. Basically, Vegas can work in layers, allowing you control over which elements appear over/under the others. If you use graphics or video with alpha layer, you can build overlays that allow some things to show up underneath…. this is typically RAW video (which you might create in a smaller Vegas project), PNG or GIF stills, or small GIF animations.

There are any number of programs that can create small GIF animations. In your original linked video, that would be a good way, for example, to create the walking guy. You can find animated clipart, make your own using a drawing program, etc.

Here’s one I did with most of the animation being done just with animated GIFs and pan/zoom controls in Vegas:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNmfm-BAwzs

(the “second copy” of me required masking).

The things Vegas does for you, like generating frames for moving objects, is called “tweening” in animation. I think technically, stop motion animation is when you bring in real-world elements: I set up my camera, put a subject in front, take a shot, change the subject a little, take another shot, repeat until frothy. If you’re moving drawings around, that’s pretty much just animation — not that the technical term matters all that much.

For drawing alone, you might find a program like Inkscape better than the GIMP/Photoshop for animating an object, simply because a structured drawing is easier to tweak. You might also check out Pencil (https://www.pencil-animation.org), which is pretty nice for working in bitmaps or vectors, and as well, is specifically designed as a animation tool.

I’ve done some “whiteboard” animation, where I’m actually drawing things on a whiteboard, in some cases very stop-motion style (eg, shoot, draw, shoot, draw). I other cases, I can get a similar effect by taking the complete drawing into Photoshop (or any other editor), and then selectively erasing bits of the drawing, saving each off as a PNG (or whatever you like to work with). Then, you bring in each in as a frame or two, in reverse order, and it looks like the object is building/growing. Panning with motion blur can make things move, etc. Here are a couple, which use alpha channel between layers, but not much in the way of masking (the second one has some live video turned into animation that was masked a bit, and some BCC7 plug-ins for lighting effects, but the rest is pretty basic stuff that still looks pretty decent):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCrUrOQkJSw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bzh1f4OjVYI

-Dave

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[Carlos Silva]

Hi,

Thanks everybody for clarify Vegas animation usage. Pretty cool the videos, mainly the song video clip!!!

I would ask for an additional help from you to finish my “quest” with this subject. I need to take more confidence on some Vegas capabilities…

I already ask in other thread in this forum (https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/24/941896) about creating infographs like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKxDxA5cR-s

and John answered me that Vegas could handle it, although After Effects would provide more powerful tools to support this kind of development.

a) So, considering I need just to create interesting animation with infographs (not necessarily as sophisticated as this one I mentioned above, but as close as possible) I am thinking to change from Vegas Studio to Vegas Pro bearing in mind the use of masks and plus features to deal better with animation/infographics. And it seems that Vegas Pro 11 + image software (as Inkscape or even Gimp) would be sufficient. What do you think?

b) On the other hand, is worth investing in learn After Effects to achieve better results about what I intend to make?

Which of this possibilities could provide good results in shorter time?

Thanks in advance! Amazing New Year!
Cadu

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[John Rofrano]

You can get pretty far just using Vegas Pro and InkScape or Gimp. No need for After Effects unless you want to get really fancy and have things wiggle and stuff (which would be a LOT of keyframing in Vegas). Those basic 3D moves should be too hard to do although they will take you some time to line up correctly (which would also be easier in After Effects).

~jr

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

[Carlos Silva]

Many thanks. I am ready to go ahead with my first project! Soon I hope offer some help to other noobs!

[John Rofrano]

[Carlos Silva] “a) So, considering I need just to create interesting animation with infographs (not necessarily as sophisticated as this one I mentioned above, but as close as possible) I am thinking to change from Vegas Studio to Vegas Pro bearing in mind the use of masks and plus features to deal better with animation/infographics. And it seems that Vegas Pro 11 + image software (as Inkscape or even Gimp) would be sufficient. What do you think?”

As I said, you can get pretty far using Vegas Pro and GIMP or InkScape. All you need is time and patience. 😉

~jr

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

[Carlos Silva]

I made an animated graph through GIMP (using GIF) and I inserted it in Vegas. GIFF image in one track; video in other track with a little of pan/zoom. Pretty cool!

But I think there are other improved ways to try. I just found a software called Draw (OpenOffice package). It is a vectorial draw tool (simpler than Inkscape), but with a plenty of resources yet. Morover, Draw supports charts/graphs creation easily and it can generate flash animations as well. In youtube I found tutorials about use GIMP + DRAW to animation. I think I am almost there.

Considering a Flash animation with white background, is there any tool in Vegas to remove white and create transparency? The idea is the same of I tried to GIFF image, but with flash I am looking forward for better results.

Best,
Cadu

[John Rofrano]

[Carlos Silva] “Considering a Flash animation with white background, is there any tool in Vegas to remove white and create transparency? The idea is the same of I tried to GIFF image, but with flash I am looking forward for better results.”

If you are creating the flash animation, just leave out the white background. Vegas will import SWF files and play them on the timeline. I show you how to do this using SWISHmax in my tutorial:

How to make an animated title in Vegas using SWISHmax

I assume you could make all sorts of flash animations to use in Vegas this way.

~jr

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