[Renton Maclachlan]

Hmmm…seems like it was something to do with ‘Use Project Pixel Aspect’. I had unchecked it. Why? Good question.
Anyway, checked – with a resolution of 720 x 576, it has produced a file which has been imported to Vegas…

[Renton Maclachlan]

Hi James

The program does meet expectations…it is clearly very powerful…but I’m not using it all the time and one forgets how to do things..leading to frustrations. I worked out how to produce a typewriter effect typing on text last year but when I came to use that effect the other day, I had forgotten how to do it. I’ve rediscovered the procedure but it took me a while…have to write it down! Doing the type on effect was as simple as in RED (once you know/remember how to do it), compared with other suggestions people have offered to get the same result.

But in terms of this tranparency thing, the solution was not obvious…I very much doubt I could have found it. I looked through the various settings in RED and still don’t know if what I did was necessary or correct. I’ve got the checker board up as a background but can’t even remember how I got that…but at least it told me I had transparency…I think! I will experiment with trying to get the typewriter effect through vegas, but I can do it through the stand alone version ok now. Just need to work out all the suitable parameters.

I’ve looked through a variety of tutorials and have found them helpful, especially the one on chromakeying. Interestingly, for the project I’m doing (four angles all chromakeyed), I’ve use RED but one of the angles I found very hard to get right, so flipped over the the Vegas CK and it did the keying perfect, straight off…yet it wouldn’t on the other angles!!

Thanks again for the help. Much appreciated.

Renton

[Renton Maclachlan]

Thanks so much James. I now have both the ability to cut and paste (as per editing on my other post) and also get transparency.

I could not export as uncompressed 32 bit as you suggested as that was not an option…I’m on a 64 bit machine using the 64 bit RED, so I suppose that is why. I exported as ‘Full frames (uncompressed).

After importing into Vegas, and right clicking on the clip in the Project Media window, then selecting the ‘straight alpha’ option under the media tab as you suggested, the clip came onto my time line with transparency! Great. I have a lot of this to do!!!

Thanks so much for the help. It is really very much appreciated. It is not that intuitive however. 🙁 Pity.

Sometimes when I start RED from within Vegas, Vegas crashes…

[Renton Maclachlan]

Thanks for the welcome Philip…and the suggestions. I’ve already used pan/crop in vegas to alter the PI image I made so I realise things can be added to it. Appreciate the ideas.

[Renton Maclachlan]

Thanks so much. I’ll try that tonight. Appreciated.

[Renton Maclachlan]

Thanks so much Allan. That did it…a lot better.

One other question. The cartoon of the car is output from the animation program ‘Animate 2’ as a 350 frame png sequence. When I try to put this sequence on a layer in PI, a box comes up saying that the first image of the sequence which I had selected, appeared to be in a sequence of 9. Well clearly it was the first of sequence though not of 9 but of 350. Thus I wasn’t able to place this sequence on the layer so as to place my exhaust smoke accurately. What I did to get my smoke location correct was place two single images on PI layers with the car at defining locations and place my smoke on a path between them. It worked, but it would have been better if I could have placed the whole sequence. How do I do that?

Additionally (but not related to PI), when I had brought the smoke into Vegas, I pan/cropped it to make it bigger than it was output from PI.

[Renton Maclachlan]

Have found that by exporting as a png with transparency and then importing into Vegas as a sequence is simple…I’m just about there…

[Renton Maclachlan]

One other question. I have my smoke looking quite good – coming out from behind a car. The car stops and the cloud ceases moving because the car has stopped.

But then the engine stops so I want the emitter to stop but the cloud of smoke to carry on. I can’t see how to stop the emitter with its emission of new smoke.

Sorry if I’m being a pain…

[Renton Maclachlan]

Hi again Alan…another question…sorry to bother you…I’m getting there!!

So…I come to Save Output. My production is going to be used as a layer in a video. So when I output it, I’m faced with the transparency question again.

In Tutorial 5>Output Options I’m told I can output in avi and then am given a list of codecs which support alpha channel. No where that I can see do the codecs listed appear and when I select avi, transparency is greyed out. I’m aware that I could output as png then import images as a sequence into my video (using Sony Vegas Pro) but I wonder if I can output as a video and thus import into Vegas as a video.

[Renton Maclachlan]

Thanks so much. As you can guess I’m new to this. 🙂 Appreciated.