Begin/End Event Fade Precision?

Maestro wrote on 7/12/2008, 4:55 PM

Hi,

I've been a long-time user of Vegas, and am now on version 6. I've downloaded 8 in the hopes of finally seeing a way to do one of the most commonly frustrating aspects of video editing for me thus far with Vegas--adjusting the fade times at the beginning or end of an event (audio or video).

Right now, the precision of the fade depends on how far you're zoomed in on the timeline. For example, if I want to make and event fade time go from 1:29 to 2:00 even, if I'm zoomed out relatively far by grabbing the ends of the event and trying to change it, the time will jump by a large amount; grabbing and moving the mouse will go from 1:29 to 2:17, 3:13, 4:05, etc. Or if the cursor is anywhere near it, the fade will lock on the cursor and refuse to move unless you move the mouse a large amount, thereby throwing the event fade time off completely.

So the current way around this is as soon as my blood pressure is going up and I see myself getting annyoed by having to spend more time than is necessary to accomplish this for many events, I have to zoom WAY in on the event, fix the fade, and zoom WAY back out.

I'm hoping this is something simple I'm just missing. It seems to me that if you could grab the end of the fade event, hold down <CTRL> and move the mouse, the fade time would then move with more precision. Right now, that functionality exists with Vegas, but only on event envelopes: grab the envelope, hold down <CTRL> and you've got the precision movements no matter how large the track is or regardless of your zoom level.

Am I missing something here? Can I do this somehow, or for the love of Pete why doesn't this exist yet after eight versions?

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 7/12/2008, 5:14 PM

On timeline edges Ctrl is used for timestretching. Try F8. This will disable snapping and may help, though you'll still have to be zoomed in somewhat.

Personally what i do is move the cursor where i want the fade point to be, adjusting with Alt-arrows as necessary, then i let the fade snap to the cursor.

TheHappyFriar wrote on 7/12/2008, 5:42 PM

I just flick the mouse wheel up & then use the difference data to figure out how much I am moved.

not sure how far you're zoomed out but it's based on the pixel's. if you're zoomed out to more then 1:1 pixel/frame ratio, it skips frames.

Maestro wrote on 7/13/2008, 1:13 AM

Yup, on the timeline *edges*, that's true. But Vegas is smart enough to know when you're trying to change the edge of an event as you say or change the fade times. Therefore Ctrl could be used for added precision on this function.

Ah well, maybe I'm the only one bothered by this. I just find it to be one of the most frustrating parts of editing in Vegas, maybe because I know it could be so much better with about three lines of code since the same feature already exists for envelopes.

Thanks for the responses.

JohnnyRoy wrote on 7/13/2008, 8:56 AM

You can do this very easily with a script. You can use a free one like my Fade Event In Out or purchase a script productivity tool like Ultimate S Pro or Excalibur, both of which are chock full of helpful functions to improve your editing productivity. If you're not editing with scripts, you're only getting a fraction of the productivity you could be with Vegas. IMHO, this is what sets Vegas apart from all the rest.

~jr

VaultComplex wrote on 7/13/2008, 9:45 AM

I agree. I too get frustrated having to zoom in and out just to make a precise fade. Also, when you have tracks grouped (like say some 5.1 stems) and I want to fade in, I have to do it for each track. You'd think it would be a no-brainer to have those functions integrated with your "group."

TheHappyFriar wrote on 7/13/2008, 10:13 AM

odds are most people don't want everything to fade at the same time. that's why it's not part of grouping. You can have media all over the timeline grouped together, I'd hate it if everything faded.

VaultComplex wrote on 7/13/2008, 11:19 AM

Perhaps an option to toggle between the two? It seems odd that you'd group together audio tracks that are spread out all over the timeline.

Maestro wrote on 7/13/2008, 12:24 PM

Maestro wrote on 7/13/2008, 12:26 PM

...or multi-select the tracks/events and fading one fades them all. If you're thinking the same thing I am, I've thought of this many times too.

johnmeyer wrote on 7/13/2008, 2:33 PM

Oh yeah, I use scripting all the time. I've written several myself and indeed, they are a tremendous time saver. But all of mine, like yours, set the fade time to a preprogrammed length. That's great if I want all of the events to be a set length, but if I'm trying to time fades to music in a one-off project, it's not any help.You might want to look at this post by jetdv, author of lots of scripts and the heart and soul behind Excalibur:

Preset timeline zoom?

One of the earlier posts in this thread mentioned using the mouse wheel to zoom in when you need the precision to control the fades one frame at a time. Once you are zoomed in enough, this is easy to do and, if I understand the request in your initial post, is what you want to do. Ideally you'd be able to do this without zooming, in much the same way as you can move the cursor one frame at a time on the timeline simply by pressing and holding the ALT key and then pressing the arrow keys. I think what you want is to have some key that would restrict the movement much the way the ALT key does, or the way the Ctrl key does inside of some Vegas dialogs. Lacking that, however, I think that Ed's (jetdv's) script which lets you toggle to a one-frame-at-a-time zoom and then back out again may get you what you want, even if it isn't the exact implementation you originally envisioned: You press a key to get the zoom; do your adjustments; and then press another key to return to your original view.

Former user wrote on 7/13/2008, 2:39 PM

My first version of Vegas Movie Studio would allow you to numerically set fade durations. They took that out in later versions. Never could figure out why.

Dave T2

MSmart wrote on 7/15/2008, 11:46 PM

VMS user here (8P). This is something I also struggle with.

SCS gave us event snapping across tracks in v8, here's to hoping v9 will bring us Fade offset snapping to a value set in Editing Preferences. (Or return them as Dave suggests).

JohnnyRoy wrote on 7/17/2008, 5:45 AM

> But all of mine, like yours, set the fade time to a preprogrammed length. That's great if I want all of the events to be a set length, but if I'm trying to time fades to music in a one-off project, it's not any help.

If you purchase a script like Ultimate S Pro or Excalibur you'll get all of the editing flexibility you want. Ultimate S Pro allows you to control the fade in and out independently (i.e. you can do one or the other or both and their timing can be different values) and also select the fade curve and optionally apply a Transitional FX. Quite flexible and powerful.

~jr