Editor’s Toolkit: Using Transitional Wipes with Sony® Vegas® Video
The various mattes in the Editor's Toolkits are simply black and white
animations that are used to define transparency in composited video. These
animations do not have built-in alpha channel transparency like the many
full-color effects and transitions in the Toolkits and therefore are slightly more
complex to use.
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A black and white Transition Wipe from an Editor's Toolkit is used in this example to transition from one clip to another. |
Here is how to use a Transition Wipe in Sony® Vegas®:
1. Arrange your clips on the timeline like Figure 1:
* Track 1: overlay matte
* Track 2: your A-Roll video clip
* Track 3: your B-Roll video clip

Figure 1 - The initial timeline in Vegas® with the transition wipe in Track 1.
2. Click the Track FX button on Track 1 (Figure 2) and select the Mask
Generator tool.

Figure 2 - The Track FX button in Track 1.
3. In the Mask Generator dialog (Figure 3), select a Luminance key from the
Type dropdown.

Figure 3 - In the Video Track FX dialog, from the Type dropdown, select
Luminance.
4. Click the Compositing Mode button in Track 1 and select "Multiply (Mask)"
from the menu (Figure 4).

Figure 4 - Select Multiply (Mask) from the Compositing Mode menu.
5. Click the Make Compositing Child button in Track 2 (Figure 5).

Figure 5 - Click the Make Compositing Child button in Track 2.
At this point the matte has been correctly configured and the transparency
for the transition will be working, but only for the duration of the transition.
We still need to do a little work to get the entire transition to work within
the context of the larger project.
6. Right-click the track header for Track 2 and select Duplicate. This will
make a copy of Track 2 just below that track, making a new Track 3 and pushing
our B-Roll to Track 4.
7. Click the Make Compositing Parent on the new, duplicated Track 3.
8. Trim the clip in Track 2 to match the duration of the transition and the
duplicated clip in Track 3 so that it does not extend under the transition. The
final timeline will look like Figure 6.

Figure 6 - The final timeline.
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