Spacebars
vs. Enter Keys
If you're used to FCP (and most other video playing
programs), you're accustomed to being able to press the
space bar to start and stop playback on the timeline.
When you first load up Vegas, you will undoubtedly
press the space bar and it will appear to work the same
way. However, when you press the bar again, you will find
that your playhead has mysteriously gone back to its previous
location. This is known as play/stop (rather than play/pause,
which you're used to) and is a previewing option that
Vegas retains from its audio roots which allows
you to return precisely to the place you started on your
timeline after listening a little ways ahead. This is
handy for synching audio, because, by returning the playhead
to the starting place, you can tweak things more easily.
(Vegas actually has a bunch of tools for ADR and
synching which we will cover in our issue on ADR in a
couple of months!) However, this isn't useful for most
video editing needs. Instead, if you want to use the default
Vegas settings, then the Enter key will perform
in Vegas the way the spacebar does in Final
Cut Pro, allowing you to start and pause your playback.
(If you want to customize your Vegas program to
make it behave more like FCP, there is an option
in 'Options>Preferences>General' to switch your
space bar from play/stop to play/pause.)
Drag
Selects vs. Selection Edit Tools
Another thing that confuses Final Cut users is how you
select multiple clips on the timeline. In FCP,
you can just hold down the mouse button and drag around
clips and you're good to go. In Vegas, you need
to select the 'Selection Edit Tool' in the upper toolbar,
which will then allow you to select multiple clips. (If
you don't do this, you'll simply create loop points on
your timeline from where you start dragging to where you
stop. This is very useful for ADR and many audio applications,
but a bit confusing for more traditional video editors.)
After you select your items, you'll need to press 'Cntrl
+ D' in order to return to your 'Normal Edit Tool' which
will then allow you to move the items you've now selected.
(You
can also write a script that will allow you to select
things in the way that makes the most sense to you. Edward
has a fair amount of information about scripting for Vegas
at JetDV.com)
Option
+ Mouse Drags vs. Cntrl + Mouse Drags
For folks who needed to be able to duplicate video clips
or still images in FCP, being able to press the
'Option' key and drag a duplicate of a clip anywhere on
the timeline was a great help. Vegas will let you
do the same thing for both audio and video clips by simply
selecting a clip, holding the 'Cntrl' button, and then
dragging the now duplicated clip to a new location. If
you've never used this feature in either program, it's
actually surprisingly useful.
Motion
vs. Event Pan/Crops & Envelopes
Final Cut users are used to being able to control everything
from the movement of a clip to its size to its opacity
in the Motion controls, which are easily accessible behind
the clip viewer. As Vegas doesn't utilize a clip
viewer, it has to put these options in a couple of different
places. For most of the options you're used to using in
FCP's Motion controls, with the exception of opacity,
you will use 'Event Pan/Crop'. This is a symbol that's
actually located on each video clip on the timeline and
resembles the 'Crop' tool in Photoshop. Click this symbol
and many of the motion and timeline controls you're used
to will pop-up in a stand-alone view screen.
In
order to change the opacity, you will create a 'composite
envelope'. To add a composite envelope, you simply need
to right-click the track itself, choose 'Insert/Remove
Envelopes>Composite Level'. (You must click on a blank
section of the track to get the option for 'Composite
Level'. If you click on a clip, you will only get the
option for 'Velocity', which we'll cover after this, and
'Transition Properties'.) Once you've created the composite
level line, you can right-click at any point on the line
to get the option to 'Add Point', which adds a keyframe
node which you can adjust to any level or position by
simply dragging it with your mouse.
In
addition to the composite envelope, you can create 'Velocity
Envelopes' by right clicking on a clip and selecting 'Insert/Remove
Envelope>Velocity'. Velocity changes the speed at which
your clip plays, so it's the same as selecting 'Speed'
in Final Cut Pro.
