Nationalsolo

Hi

This problem of a faint dark line around masked areas was noted in earlier versions of VP. The Devs traced it to a glitch with the way transparency of the mask edge was created. It was corrected in recent versions.

Nat

Hi

I can only quote from what I did which worked. I simply plugged in mywebcam with its USB plug. Opened VP and went to Record Video. Selected the camera in the drop down menu (I had three listed but you may only see one) This opened the camera output in the window on the left from where it could be recorded by clicking the red button below.

Having said that I tried doing the same with my normal Video camera. However this only configures itself to upload what it has shot to the PC and VP comes up with the message you got. 

Nat

Hi

Not sure how you would connect your camera to your PC but VP does have a Record Video option under the  Red Circle Record Tab on the toolbar. Clicking this and selecting Record Video opens an interface to a camera..

Set up the file name and the destination folder and clicking the red button starts the recording. Clicking the white square stops the recording and automatically the result is processed and transferred to clip bin in VP  from where it can be dropped onto the tmeline for editing.This works OK with a USB webcam

..

Nat

Hi

If you have a long clip on the timeline that you have trimmed and wish to restore back to full length....

• Select the clip on the timeline by clicking it
• Examine the thumbnail line under the Clip Preview window. You should see your trimmed off section to the right of the blue marker shaded a darker hue
• Grab the blue marker and drag it fully to the right. The clip should then be restored to its full length.

Note.....You can't make it any longer than it actually is

Nat

Hi

"........I could go a step further and replace the blank blue clip with a video clip or image? ......"

That's perfectly feasible although the transparent text would have to be fairly large and blocky to see the image behind moving. You wouldn't need to use the black blank image clip either.

Nat

Hi Girlinlax

The Green Screen effect is used to make parts of a video clip or image transparent.  OK to explain more fully.....

• Here is an image of countryside.. I want this image as a backdrop.
• 

• Here is another  image. I want to place the man against the countryside background.  In order to do this I have to make the background to the man transparent. This means having a uniform (or nearly uniform) background colour, Normally this is green or blue but in fact it can be any colour. but it needs to be relatively uniform. He could have been filmed against a white wall...but there are caveats to this, so this man is standing against something green.
• 
• Open VP and place the backdrop clip on Video Track 1
• Place the Man on Video Track 2 directly above the backdrop.
• 
• Now we need to make the background colour of the Man transparent
• Click the FX box for Video Track 2 and select the Green Screen effect.
• 
• We need now to select the colour in the image that we wish to make transparent which in this case is the green background to the Man. It's not however the same green shown in the colour square but we can change this.
• Click the square to open the colour picker screen...
• 
• Grab the pipette icon and drag it to the background to the man in the Clip Preview screen and select the colour by clicking again. The new colour will be shown in the big square above under the word NEW.
• Click OK at the bottom and you will have selected the the correct shade to be made transparent.
• The background to the man (or indeed anything of that particular shade in the image) will now have become transparent and will show  a chequered pattern
• 
• You may notice that the edge in this case is not perfect and still shows some green. This can be removed by adjusting the Fading control or Threshold control
• Looking now at the Sequence preview (on right) you will  see the man standing in the countryside backdrop.
• 

That's the basics of using the Green Screen effect. However you must remember that the subject must not have any colour that you don't want to become transparent. For example if the man had been wearing a green hat that would have been made transparent. Hence my caveat about using a white wall....most colour images of people  contain some white (the same applies to black) both these areas would become transparent leading to some odd effects. Most people don't have green or blue faces so those colours are most often used to film against..hence the name - Green Screen. Similarly they don't wear green or blue articles of clothing. Note my "Man" is largely dressed in red or brown clothing. You will need to experiment but that's the principle.

Hope this helps

Nat

Hi

The undocked preview will only display up to full screen.

Nat

Hi

Trying to add a mask to the Clip preview window can be difficult and more so if you are using dual preview windows. It can be made easier if you Undock and enlarge the clip preview window...

e.g. Normal size....  Not that easy to see the outline and points get quite close together and not very precise.........

By clicking the little diagonal arrow in the top right hand corner of the window you can expand the preview window and even make it full screen. The points of the mask can then be much more detailed......

This is the SAME mask in normal Clip preview....This would almost impossible to do at this size.......

Hope this helps

Nat

Hi

OR...Use the blue  Undo/Redo arrows on the top toolbar.   

Nat

Hi

OK it seems to actually work. It doesn't play direct from this post but instead it downloads to my PC from where I can play it.

@Borate  Your attachments (mp4) aren't recognized here for some reason. Does this download for you from here?

Nat

Hi

Test post with attached video clip.....

Hi John

Note that the higher video tracks will play over and hide tracks below them so the top track is always the one that is seen. If you haven't done the swapping during editing (which is really what should have happened,) and the sequence you see in preview is in synch then the first thing is to Save Project As giving it a recognizable name. This gives you something to come back to if things go drastically wrong. In fact as you proceed to change things repeat Save Project As regularly using another name.

Now If you want to swap a section from lower track where it is hidden you need to move it up, so split out the section you want. Use the track options associated with the Split button under the Sequence Preview pane and only split the track in question.  Drag the section you split vertically up to the next free track. You can move the cursor line to the first split and use it to align the section you decide to move. It will now play over the lower ones. This will leave a gap in its former place but leave this alone as it will be hidden, and closing it will probably alter the synch.

If you're still not sure come back and we'll try again. Remember, you can easily restore your project if you have Saved it.

Nat

Hi

To add files to VP you can....

Click on the tab labelled Add Files which will open a browser window from which you can navigate to a suitable folder. You then click the clip/file you want (or highlight a group) and they will load to the Clip Bin of VP. That's the area at the top left side of the main screen.They will appear in the bin as thumbnails. 

From here you can drag and drop them (or select the Place options) to the specific timeline track you want.

An alternative is to simply drag and drop the files directly to the Clip bin or even Copy/Paste them from their folder of origin.

You must have them placed in the Clip bin before putting them on the timeline.

Nat

Hi

Yup, that's one way!  You might however be able to resolve this dilemma if you load a restore point from a date prior to when you updated.

Nat

Hi

Hang on!  I've had another  look at this and something is possible . (Can't play Borates clip so cant see what he came up with) but nevertheless try this..

• Create a blank white clip and place it on Video track 1
• Create a blue blank clip and place it Video Track 2
• Crop the blue clip to a long rectangle about 1/2 the height of your proposed text.
• Create your text clip with Text in White and with  Full background Black
• Place the text on Video Track 3
• Add a Green screen effect to Video track 3 (the text) and set the colour of this to White.(The text colour)  This makes the text itself transparent against a black background but it will appear to be white due to the blank clip on Video Track 1 which will show through.
• Use the Position effect with keyframes to animate your blue bar.
• You will then see the bar pass across the white text only. (In fact it passes between the "hollow" text, which behaves like a stencil,  and the white background on track 1.)

I think this is something like you were after.

Nat

Hi

Although it is perhaps a bit late to say so but it is always a good idea to save your project and better still to Save Project As. regularly using a separate name each time and using a safe destination folder..even the desktop. This produces a .vpj file which will recreate your work in the event of a crash. VP will not delete this file or any of the component clips. A crash or closing VP without saving the project first will lose both the project and all the editing you did, meaning you will have to start over again. In some circumstances VP will save a copy but obviously this doesn't seem to have occurred.

You say you had been saving your sequence..How were you doing this please?

Why you seem to have lost your clips is a mystery

Nat

Hi

Ctrl + Alt + Delete     Open task Manager  / Applications     Click Application and End Task

Nat

Hi Try this... Check you have your version setup.exe file and your license code available

• Save Project As.
• Close VP
• Re-run your setup.exe file
• Open VP and see if the problem remains.
• If you still get the message then do this..
• Close VP
• Goto...Users/your name/ Appdata/Roaming/NCH Software
• Delete the Components folder.
• Open VP again. (The folder should regenerate.)
• Check the problem.

Nat

Hi

OK. Gottit!  but Sorry I don't think that is possible in VP

The blue bar can pass behind the letters as outlined in the previous post but this animation of the characters themselves where a band of color passes through the letters is not possible. (It's bit like the Shader app that was available for text in chat rooms text years ago.) Text is one colour only. How did you get that?

Make a suggestion, it might get implemented... Add a link to this forum page.

https://www.nch.com.au/suggestions/index.html?software=VideoPad

Nat

Hi

Difficult to advise without seeing at least one of the clips (or 4 different ones).

Assuming you are wanting to arrange these side by side on the screen then depending on the actual image position and  assuming you have the image 16:9 portrait centered in a horizontal 16:9 frame like the image examples below, one suggestion is..

• Switch into Dual preview modes in Options/Display as both views make it easier to see what is happening.
• Place Clip 1 on Video track 1....Clip 2 on Video Track 2....Clip 3  on Video Track 3 and Clip 4 on Video track 4 so they are one above the other. (I have used colored backgrounds in this example.)
• 
• Monitoring what you are doing in the Sequence Preview screen Starting with Video Track 4 Use the Crop effect to to outline the image area in  each clip. The background to each frame will become transparent.
• 
• Now starting with Video Track 4, use the Position effect to move each image to the required position. In this example only three clips can be positioned side by side with there current width as the screen is not wide enough for all 4 clips....
• 
• If you cant get them all to fit in the frame from side to side like this then you could Crop the sides a little more if possible or use Position to overlap them a little.... 4 clips may then just fit.....
• 
• Note that you might think you could scale each down more but that effect controls the whole image frame and not just the image area.

An alternative which is quicker but has no controls regarding size is to Crop the images as above and then to add a Horizontal 4 in line  Split Screen effect to each clip .......

Other matrix (like 2 x 2) may not work in a satisfactory way with this image format.

Nat

Hi

Try this....

Switch into Dual Previews under Options/Display. This makes it easier to see what you are doing.

1. Place a blank Black clip (Add Objects tab)  on Video Track 1 and drag it out to required duration
2. Place a blank Blue clip  (Add Objects tab) on Video Track 2 and drag it out to the required duration.
3. Create a text frame containing your lines of text and place it on Video Track 3
4. Add a Crop effect to the Blue blank clip on Video Track 2 (Click FX and select Crop)
5. Using both the  Preview windows adjust the frame in the Clip preview window until the blue frame  is a narrow band behind the first line of your text.  Your screen  will all look a bit like this..........
6. 
7. When you want to move the blue bar down Add a Position effect toVideo Track 2 and adjust the position of the blue bar. Use  Keyframes to time the movements.

Nat

Hi

You can also use the Undo  and Redo arrows on the top toolbar....

Nat

Hi

The image size is not connected to the Audio in any way. Upload a small project that displays this following Borat'es instructions and someone can take a look.

Nat

Hi

Re positioning the camera is not controlled by VP. However you can use the Position effect to move the overlay footage to a different place in the frame. Place the clip to be moved on Video Track 2 with the (presumably) the gameplay clipcon Video Track 1.

Click the FX on the upper track and Add a Scale effect to reduce the size of the clip. Add the Position effect to move the reduced clip to a corner of the main image. This creates a picture in picture.

Nat

Hi

It is always a good idea to use an image which has the same AR as the clip you are overlaying. Assuming they do have the same AR then you can use the Zoom effect set with the AR  at 16:9.  This will enlarge the image and it will then cover the underlying clip. If the image has a different AR then you can still use the zoom effect but will have to put up with some loss of image. You can also Scale up the image with various AR settings.

Nat