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Vegas Sabers - Keyframing
Now to the real work.
Keyframing
If you turned on the Sync Cursor feature (detailed on the previous page) and changed anything in the Track Motion dialog, you've probably already created a keyframe. Keyframes are frames on the timeline that contain information about the position (and other aspect) of the saber and are represented by grey diamonds on the timeline. If the saber travels in a straight line for ten frames, you can set a first and last keyframe and Vegas will interpolate all of the intermediate frames. Unfortunately, you'd have a pretty boring saber battle if the sabers moved in a straight line, so you are going to end up keyframing perhaps 50-70% of the timeline for each saber. The process is simple though:
1. Position the saber (using the Track Motion dialog) over the stick.
2. Advance one frame by clicking the Right Arrow key on your keyboard.
3. Reposition the saber.
The arrow keys will advance the timeline in the Track Motion dialog only when the timeline at the bottom of the dialog has the focus. If you have just moved the saber with the mouse, the blue box will have the focus and the arrows will move it around instead. So you'll click on the box and reposition it, then click on the timeline and advance a frame, then back to the box, back to the timeline and so on. This is all within the Track Motion dialog: there is no need to go back to the main timeline. Leave the Video Preview window somewhere where you can see your changes in real time. In the following example, the saber was positioned in frame 16;02 and then again four frames later at 16;06. The position and angle of the saber in the intervening three frames were determined by Vegas. You should be so lucky as to be able to get away with two keyframes for every five frames of video!
