What's going on guys? I'm new to the board, but not so new to the program. I've had Vegas 7.0 for a while now, and this may seem crazy, but I never had a reason to put text on my videos! Now, I'm trying to do it, and I'm having difficulty. I know it has something to do with making the text transparent.

Can someone give me a step-by-step guide to put text on the video images? I appreciate your help.

If you want to superimpose it...Create a new video track for your text.

Always make sure your TEXT track is ABOVE the/your video track on which you want the TEXT to appear.

Creating a NEW track, by default, WILL place a track in the TRACK 1 position and demote exsisting tracks ( track 1 becomes track 2 and track 2 becomes track 3 . . etc etc .. ). This will produce TEXT "floating" on top of your number 2 track. But if you should introduce ANOTHER track, with media that doesn't have a transparent background, this will potentially "obscure" your TEXT track which would NOW be on track 2.

This question gets asked very many times, and indicates to me that the overall understanding of just HOW Vegas handles tracks needs to be appreciated.

Tracks can be regarded as LAYERS, with the TOP most - Track1 - being the FIRST visible layer. Any other tracks will be obscured by media that appears within track 1, and so on through he tracks/layers. So Track2 obscures track 3 and track 3 obscures track 4 . . etc etc . .

When I say "obscures", if you have a background to to media that IS transparent, then of course, you WILL see through to the underlying track. You will also see through IF there are gaps on the overlaying track. And if that underlying track itself has a transparent background that too will allow further underlying track being seen. In this way you can build up both complex and creative sets of video - just by layering! You could, for example, have 10 tracks and superimpose text one on top of each other, building up a complex text piece.

Once you have got a grip on layers then you can start manipulating each and every track INDEPENDANTLY of each other - PLUS you have the opportunity to manipulate these tracks within 3-D space; group tracks in Parent<>Child relationships with parent tracks controlling child tracks AND apply movement to clips/media by using Track Motion.

As I say, when I read this question it does indicate a need to appreciate just how Vegas handles track activity. However, once appreciated then the user/editor has available a massive Toolkit of further possibilities.

I hope this helps.

Thanks guys. I have this book by Douglas Spotted Eagle called "Vegas 6 Editing workshop", but I wasn't understanding the text section. He didn't mention making a new track for the text. *LOL* It's a great book though. Hell, it taught me how to make DV look like film.

Once again, thanks for the help...

Ah! You have DSE's V6 Book! You have the jump on me then .. I only have his V5 book. I learnt loads from it.

If anybody is interested I use SKYPE and sometimes have sessions with others with their Vegas issues. It is a very useful tool.

Vegas is a powerful set of NLE tools. The more you find . .. the more you find!!

G

Yeah he didn't make a Vegas 7 book, and really there is no point for him to. I love the DVD-ROM that came with it. Those Zenote plug-ins are great! I really want the full version of Magic Bullet though....

I'm trying to put together a group of video tutorials on www.metacafe.com for us Vegas users. The only one I've got done so far is my green screen one.. http://www.metacafe.com/watch/369629...effect_how_to/ I'll be happy to post any basic editing videos. Pharoah feel free to IM me and I'll do my best to walk you through. I am a rookie and I can only speak confindently on the basics. I'll leave the involved stuff to the pros on here....there's tons of them. Let me know what you want to see and I'll do my best to make it happen.


Mattie
www.apathyalliance.com

Ok so click on the text track, then on the tabs up on sony vegas, click on one of the tabs, there is about 7 tabs but on one of the seven tabs it will show a T that says Text.