Hello people, welcome to this video! Let's see how to use the awesome
effects and transitions inside Vegas Pro 14!
Leave us comments below to help us improve our future guides for Vegas Pro!
Let's start with the effects. Effects are added to the clips inside the
timeline in order to make them cooler and effective.
There are two main kinds of effects: the Video Effects, that are applied
on video, image and text clips; and the Audio Effects, applied to audio
clips only.
All Video Effects available inside Vegas Pro are collected inside the
Video FX panel. If you have it closed, you can open it by going to View,
Window, and then to Video FX. This panel is quite useful. For each effect
selected on the left, several ready-made templates are shown, that you can
check by hovering on them with your pointer. Then, you can simply drag and
drop the selected template to the interested clip on the timeline to add
such effect. After that, a new window called Video Event FX appears, which
is used to fully edit and customize the final effect applied to your clip.
Depending on the effect added, the interface changes, through which you
can adjust all the effect settings, while checking the Video Preview.
Also, in case you want to save a fixed setting (or Preset) for the chosen
effect, you can rename it and then go to Save Preset to save it. This will
be listed under Preset with its name.
Once you close the Video Event FX window, all settings will be saved. You
can open this interface again by clicking on the Event FX... icon on the
clip, or right-clicking on the clip and going to Video Event FX...
To understand how to manage the effects, let's see in detail how this Video
Event FX window works.
At the very top, this window shows the effect chain that is applied on the
chosen clip. This is a list that shows, from the left to the right, all
the effects applied in order. You can change it by clicking and dragging
an effect through the chain. Depending on the order, the overall clip
appearance changes.
By default, any clip has one effect, called Pan/Crop, that is used to
regulate the basic clip appearance on your Preview, such as its position,
scaling and inclination, by editing the rectangle shown.
To learn more about the Event Pan/Crop effect, check out our related video
inside this guide!
Then, when you add other effects, these will be listed inside this chain,
one after another. The Video Event FX interface will show the selected
effect inside the chain, highlighted in blue, but you can check and edit
other effects by selecting them. Also, you can enable or disable an effect
by checking and unchecking it, or remove it from the clip by selecting it
and going to Remove Selected Plug-In.
To add new effects to the chain, you can use Plug-In Chain... on the right,
choosing inside the whole list, and going to Add and then to OK to apply.
Besides Video Effects, you also have Audio Effects for your audio clips.
However, these are not listed inside the Video FX panel. To add them, you
have to open the Video Event FX window from the clips, and search for
your audio effects in the list. Some of these effects are digital, and
show an orange icon on the left; some others are fully analog, showing a
blue icon. As seen for the Video Effects, also the Audio Effects are
organized inside a chain and can be managed and modified in the same way.
Even more, Video and Audio Effects can be also applied on whole Video and
Audio Tracks respectively. If you add effects by using the Track FX...
icon on the Tracks, you will add effects that will be applied on the whole
Track content.
Differently from the singular clips, inside Video Tracks you do not have
any default Event Pan/Crop effect applied. To move, scale and rotate the
whole track content, you have to use the Track Motion... feature.
Check out our related video to see how to use the Track Motion effect!
Let's now see the Transitions. These are special effects used to make a
clip appear and disappear in a cool way.
Let's take for example a visible clip, which can be any video, picture or
text. If you approach its top corners, and click and drag, you will create
a fade transition, which is a simple transition that changes the clip
opacity in time, according to the envelope line shown on the clip.
You can change the duration of the transition by dragging its extreme
edge on the left or right. If you shorten its duration to zero, you will
remove the transition.
line and going to Fade Type.
You can also apply transitions between clips that do overlap in time. If
you have the Automatic Crossfades... feature enabled, and overlap two
clips on a same track in time, a crossfade is created. This is a smooth
fade transition where you go from the first clip to the second one. This
will last as much as the clips overlap in time, and is removed if the two
clips are put far enough.
You can apply special transitions by using the Transitions panel. If
closed, you can find it under View, Window, Transitions. As seen for the
effects, this panel lists all the transitions available inside Vegas,
including several ready-made templates for your video, image and text
clips. To apply one, just drag and drop it on the extreme edges of a
single clip, or directly on a crossfade if you have clips overlapping.
In this case you won't see any opacity line, since these kind of
transitions use special effects instead of fades.
Once added, the Video Event FX window opens, which is used to customize
your transition as you like. With respect to what is seen for the effects,
you can't build any transition chain in this case. You can just apply one
kind of transition per fade-in, fade-out and crossfade per time. In fact,
if you drag and drop a second transition on an existing one, the old one
will be replaced.
To adjust the transition settings again, you can open the Video Event FX
window by going to Transition Properties.... If you want to remove any
special transition and come back to the simple fade one, just right-click
on the transition, go to Transition, and then to Change to Crossfade.
Inside Vegas, you can apply Audio Transitions as well, although these are
quite simple, and work by applying a volume fade in time. You can edit
it by right-clicking on it, and going to Fade Type to change the volume
envelope shape.
You can also personalize both effects and transitions in time by using the
keyframes and the local timeline inside Video Event FX.
For example, let's pick an effect called Gradient Map. On the Video Event
FX window, you have the Animate button below. If you click on it, a local
timeline appears, that lasts as much as the clip is, and welcomes the
keyframes used to apply variable settings in time.
Each keyframe saves a fixed setting of your effect or transition in the
instant of time they are placed on the local timeline. So that, when two
keyframes, with different settings saved, are placed in two different
instants of time, a transition is made, where the effect or transition
appearance changes by passing from the first keyframe to the second one.
By default, you have a single keyframe on the local timeline, representing
the effect settings you start from. As long as you don't add other
keyframes, the effect remains static in time.
You can add other keyframes by placing the local playhead in another
instant of time, and then changing the settings above. In this way, a new
keyframe will be automatically created. To check the effect, playback the
interested clip from the main timeline.
You can also move a keyframe in time by clicking and dragging it on the
local timeline. To delete the keyframe, or change the transition fade
created with the next keyframes, just right-click on it.
Pay attention on the local timeline. This changes depending on the kind of
effect you are changing in time. In the oldest effects, like the Gradient
Map, you have to click on the Animate button, and you have a local timeline
showing the effect on one row only. This means that all the keyframes added
to this track do save all the settings you see above. But, in the most
recent effects, like the VEGAS ones, or the effects coming from third-party
plugins, you have these effects that are composed by multiple rows, one
for each single effect property you see on the Video Event FX interface,
that have their watch icon enabled besides them. So, in this case, each
keyframe, inside a particular property track, does not save all the effect
settings, just the settings related to that property.
Do not confuse the tracks dedicated to properties and the ones dedicated
to the different effects applied to the clip. The properties are always
contained inside the main effect track on the local timeline.
To fully remove all the keyframes applied to a single property, just
disable its watch icon.
This is all you need to know to start with effects and transitions on
Vegas Pro 14! Check out our full guide for more amazing video tutorials!