How do I zoom a portion of a video clip in MS Pro 6.0?

[Hulk]

I want to zoom in on a portion of a video clip where someone is pointing at a picture. It would be nice to enlarge the picture. What's the best/easiest way to do this?

[Dr Mordrid]

By applying a 3D moving path to it.

Here's how to make a custom moving path to do a 3D Zoom. This new effect can be reused in any of your projects:

First load in the MSP Video Editor sample movie "Flash" to Va. Now apply a 3D XYZ moving path. In the moving path prefs set the keyframes as listed below. Don't be concerned that the settings don't match the file size, this clip is just there to make the new moving path;

first keyframe;

Check "keep aspect ratio"
Width: 720
Height: 480
X: 360
Y: 240
Rotation: X=0, Y=0, Z=360

second keyframe;

deltete this keyframe

third keyframe;

Width: 3440
Height: 2293
X: 345
Y: 900
Rotate: X=0, Y=0, Z=360

Now click the preview button and watch it zoom in on a portion of the clip. Not pretty, but then this clip is just a placeholder.

Now click the ADD button and name the new custom path "3D Zoom". The new 3D Moving Path will appear in the Production Library under "Moving Paths/3D/Custom". MSPro will even generate a preview of the effect.

If you now create a new project, reload the Flash clip and apply the new 3D Zoop moving path and play the preview you'll see it zoom in on the womans head and shoulders.

You can now apply this new 3D moving path to any sized clip at any time in the future. MSPro will adjust the default settings to match the size of the clip automatically.

You can adjust the Width, Height, X and Y parameters to zoom in as much or as little as you want and move the Zoom window around the viewport. Just keep the Aspect Ratio box checked if you don't want to distort the image while zooming.

The limit of doing it this way is that you lose detail quickly if you zoom in too much, even with full 720x480 frames.

Alternatively (and if you can plan it out this way) you could shoot a pic of the area you'll zoom in on with a high resolution digital camera during the shoot. Same cam position, same angle etc. but zoom in with the telephoto to get more detail.

In preproduction cut out the area you want to show in in a paint program, save it as a *.tga with transparancy, load it into an overlay track (V1 etc.) and apply the Alpha Channel to it using the Overlay Options. Apply the 3D Zoom moving path and position it on the video so it covers the identical area in the video clip.

To do the effect zoom both the picture and the video in synch using two 3D Zoom moving paths. This way the detail area will be much clearer. Of course this also requires a stationary cam and background and a ton of planning.

Dr. Mordrid


[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 04 January 2001).]

[Hulk]

Wow! Once again thanks for the extremely detailed response. I'm going to try it and get back...

[Hulk]

Excellent.

I modified it a bit. I used 6 key frames since my zoom portion was just a few seconds within the clip.

Keyframe

1 - Normal view
2 - Normal view
3 - To full zoom
4 - Maintain full zoom
5 - Back to normal view
6 - Normal view

This way the clip play normally for a bit. Key 2-3 are a few seconds apart giving a nice zoom in. Key 3-4 maintains the zoom. Key 4-5 zooms back to normal view, taking a few seconds.

I'm still new to this. Does what I did above make sense?

[Dr Mordrid]

Learn this concept first of all;

If it looks like you wanted it to, you did it right

Also don't forget that ADD button whenever you create an effect that really works for you. Then you can recycle it. I've got a ton of 'em.

Dr. Mordrid


[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 04 January 2001).]

[Marijn]

Hulk,

what you describe looks pretty OK. There is only one thing that can be added. If only 10 sec of a 1 minute clip needs to be zoomed, you can of course create an 3D moving path to the entire clip, but this will render the entire clip on playback. You can also cut of the part that needs to zoomed and paste it directly to the other part of the clip. If you don't zoom in yet and play these two part you're not able to tell that the clip has been cut in two. Now you can apply the 3D motion path to the 10sec part. This will render much faster.

Happy editing,

Marijn