Yes, give Twixtor a try.

http://www.revisionfx.com/products/twixtor/

Twixtor is be the best by far at time remapping. But if you don't have Twixtor and/or cannot purchase it, try another plugin that is also based on optical flow, as this approach tracks the motion of the scene's features from frame to frame in order to create the "in between ones". Some work better than others in that they produce fewer artifacts.

Peter

There is also ReSpeedr (standalone application)

Thanks for all the replies.

I had a look at Twixtor and one of their online tutorials. It certainly looks the business and seems to integrate nicely with Vegas. Unfortunately it doesn't integrate nicely with my wallet. At that price its only for the professionals IMO.

I did however stumbel across a free solution on this site - using DebugMode Frameserver in conjunction with Avisynth, MVTools, and VirtualDub. It actually produces excellent results even working with 25 fps original footage. While it's less flexible than Twixtor, and a bit of a pain to have to go outside the vegas workflow - you can't argue with the price :)

Anyone interested can find tutorials in the fourth and fifth posts in the following thread.

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=802088

A big thanks to Jerry “amendegw” for providing those tutorials.

I've found another way of getting smoother slow motion using VitualDub that I think is worth a mention. The basic process is as follows:

1. Load the clip you want to slow down directly into VirtualDub.
2. Set Video and Audio to full processing and select the codecs you want to use.
3. Open the filters dialog and double click the "Interpolate" filter.
4. Select "Target frame rate (fps):" and set the frame rate to double that of the clip you are using. Under "Interpolation mode" select "linear blending". Click OK and exit the filters dialog.
5. Select "Save as AVI", name the output file and save. The resulting output will have double the framerate of the original.
6. Drop the new clip into the timeline in Vegas and it will play at normal speed. Apply Velocity envelope and set to 50% forward. A very smooth slow motion results. Velocity envelope at speeds of down to 30% still seem to produce very good results.

There are some major benefits with this method over the Debugmode Frameserver/VirtualDub method.

The main advantage using this method is that rendering speeds are much faster. In tests I was getting 18fps with VirtualDub 1911, and 36fps with VirtualDub 64bit. Those compare with about 3.5fps frameserving to VirtualDub with DebugMode Frameserver and using an AviSynth script to encode the slow motion.

It is also easier to perform a gradual slow down in Vegas with Velocity Envelope as the new clip plays at 100% in Vegas when dropped on the timeline.

N.B. I have only tested this with one piece of footage that was at a full 30fps (not 29.97 NTSC), interpolating it to a full 60fps. So different results may be encountered if you are using media with different framerates etc.

Finally, I have to admit I don't entirely understand the technical aspects of what is going on here. All I know is that is seems to have worked for me.

Comments welcomed.

Thanks for posting various ways of slowing footage. I own Twixtor which works incredibly well when set up correctly but for those who can't afford it alternative ways are very useful. I think there might be an educational version of Twixtor for students that's reduced in price and it's sometimes on sale at Toolfarm and other online stores. It works great for speeding up footage as well. If durational effects are frequently required then it's worth buying. The latest version seems to work very well in Vegas 13 as long as it's set up correctly.

http://slowmovideo.granjow.net/index.html
https://github.com/slowmoVideo/slowmoVideo/wiki

I haven't actually used it, but downloaded it a couple of years ago. Go to the Video tab and watch the "smoke" demo. Incredible. Based on his bachelor thesis, which I skimmed. I was very, very impressed, and made sure I grabbed it for when I needed something like it.

Open Source. Uses ffmpeg

I think I tried it, and it outputs still frames, which you can import into Vegas extremely easily.

When evaluating programs that create interpolated frames, look for artefacts when things cross over one another, such as legs during walking. A car in full view at all times while moving say from left to right would be a piece of cake.