It depends on what you mean by time lapse. If you just want to speed up existing footage, you can Ctrl-drag (hold control key) either edge of the event and make the event smaller. The speed will increase.

You can change the playback speed by right-clicking the event and choosing Properties. You will see the "playback speed" option.

You can add a velocity envelope.

If you actually want to create timelapse, you can use the timelapse feature on your camcorder, and then use my timelapse script:

Time Lapse Script

to remove the redundant frames.

Finally, if you want REAL timelapse, then you must capture one out of every "n" frames. For doing that, nothing beats Scenalyzer.

I'm loving working with timelapse of clouds and sunsets, etc.

I run my camera for an hour
Drop the one long clip onto the timeline
Set "playback" speed to 4X in clip Properties/Playback speed
Put a 300% Velocity envelope on the clip

And render

That speeds up my footage by 12X the original

If I want to speed it up even more I put the newly rendered clip back onto a timeline and repeat the steps once more

I can then have an hours' worth of footage sped up 12 x 12 times.....

Love watching the results! Especially a storm front coming in or the sun going down

Sometimes I just do the 12x render and then just add a 300% velocity envelope for a second render which gives me 12 x 3 = 36 times original speed which gives about a 1min45sec final film clip of your hours' worth of footage....

The results look really smooth and fluid

Where did the Time Lapse script go? I tried to download and it says "not found".

It got moved somewhere along the line.
Time Lapse script

Mike

So did you find it? For me it is still FILE NOT FOUND.

The link in Mike's post (just above yours) works fine for me. Maybe VASST was down for a moment. It is a pretty flaky site, and the navigation keeps getting worse. It is worth pursuing, however, because hidden away in various barely accessible corners of the site are some great gems.

I've tried Opera and Explorer and I cant get the script. Perhaps I need to try during the day? I tried to read a tutorial on pivot points and no luck there either. The internet is a new Tower of Babel.

You guys are correct. You can get to the VASST site, but the download link does nothing. Here's a link directly to the script. The link will be up for seven days:

Time Lapse Script (Vegas 7)

It seems to me like most of the possibilities with creating time lapse from a video clip is more like simply speeding up playback in one way or another. The techniques described in this forum do not account for the exposure time that adds to the time lapse effect, especially when you have many moving objects in the shot like traffic or a crowd of people. The exposure adds that nice little visual blurr in the movement that just isn't duplicated in these "time lapse" remedies described here.

I haven't attempted using a "time lapse" or multi-shot setting on the camera while using or the Time Lapse script of johnmeyer's but they will be worth a try.

How does one create the effect of a stationary (or normal) backdrop but blurred foreground movement?

I have seen several shots where they were shooting across a road, people are moving normally on the other side of the road (they are not blurred) but the traffic on the road are all blurred beyond recognition - just lines flashing by.

Thread,

Vegas has frame resampling settings. If you "disable resampling" then you'll end up with one out of every X number of original frames, left unmodified. This will retain the original sharpness, but may lack fluidity. If you "force resampling" Then X number of original frames will be blended together to create a new frame with blur. It's not completely accurate as the blur won't be from one frame to the next, but at least it should look more fluid. I've gotten good results by alternating a pass with resampling and then a pass without.

Billy d,

Often this is done with 'green screen' compositing. The background will be shot without the foreground person and then speeded up. Chromakey will then be used to put the forground person into this high speed background.

Has anyone tried a slower shutter speed and then process as per suggestions above to get a 'stationary background' with blurred movement in front?
Just a thought....
Eileen

If you want control at the shoot stage Adobe's "OnLocation" (ex DV Rack) has a great utility for automatic time-lapse.