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Placing Video Inside a Title with Sony Vegas By Jeffrey P. Fisher

Is your titling with Sony Vegas a bit blasé these days?  Here?s a technique that can bring some pizzazz to otherwise bland white letters on a background. Consider adding motion that appears inside the letters and compositing that over another video. That?s a powerful look that every Sony Vegas user should know how to do.

First, create three video tracks. Choose a simple white letters on transparent background preset from the Media Generators tab > Text option. The Default Text preset is ideal for this task. When you see the grey and white checkerboard pattern, you know the background is transparent which will let other video show through. Drag and drop this title to the uppermost track. Alternately, right-click in the blank track area and choose Insert Text Media from the pop-up. This adds the Default Text preset, too.

Edit the title to taste by choosing fonts, placement, properties such as leading, and so forth. Make sure to keep the inside of the letters white, though. On the track below this title, place the video you want to show inside the letters. I?m using clip SC226 from the brand-new Artbeats collection, Storm Clouds 2 (www.artbeats.com).  After completing this step, you will see the title keyed over the video. This looks good, but it?s not the final look we?re after yet.

Navigate to the track header for the title itself and click its Compositing Mode. Select Multiply (Mask) from the list and immediately the lower video appears inside the title where the white colored letters once occupied.

Since these two tracks together form the effect, click the Make Compositing Child button on the track being used for the inside video. This joins and isolates the two tracks and prevents the title mask track from affecting other video below it down the Timeline. These two tracks and the effect they create can, of course, be used repeatedly later in the project using different titles and different video, as needed.

Next, add the background video plate over which to composite the title/video inside combination. I selected another clip, SC214, from the same Artbeats collection.

Also, there are a few sweeteners added to this composite. For example, I placed the Video Effects > Lens Flare > Sunburst Effect preset on the lowest track video background and then tweaked the settings for the desired look.

The Pixelan CreativEase RiseShine plug-in, Title Bevel 3 preset, added a 3-D-like look to the Vegas title font (www.pixelan.com). Simply drag and drop the preset to the title event itself and release. The moving video still shows through, of course.

Add a blank video track above the background video track and drag the Media Generators > Solid Color > Blue preset to this track. Click the Track Motion button and then use the controls in the dialog box to resize the color video event. Be sure to turn off the Lock Aspect Ratio button to allow for the most flexibility when resizing. A thin blue line, positioned between the two words looked best.

All that?s left to finish the final sequence is to add some transitions to bring the various elements in and out. Fades worked for the title itself and a soft linear wipe sufficed for the rule line. Here is the final result.

 

 

 

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Jeffrey P. Fisher is a Sony Vegas Certified Trainer and he co-hosts the Sony Acid, Sony Sound Forge, and Sony Vegas forums on Digital Media Net (www.dmnforums.com). For more information visit his Web site at www.jeffreypfisher.com or contact him at jpf@jeffreypfisher.com.

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