Vegas Movie Studio Setup:
Trying to blur an object in motion? Shaky camera footage? Okay, this can be a really daunting task. Trying to blur an object in Vegas Movie Studio 14 this can be time-consuming and very overwhelming for a beginner. However, I’m going to teach you a quick little trick after watching many videos online from Movie Studio 11 all the way to Movie Studio 13. With this method, you can blur an object while it is in motion in Vegas Movie Studio in the fastest way possible.
Now I can already assume that you own movie studio and that you have your track open. First what you want to do is you want to duplicate the track. To do this right-click on the track name and choose a duplicate track. Once you do this, it’s going to duplicate a track. Next, you want to make sure that the duplicated track that you want to cut is on the top as Vegas Movie Studio uses layers from the top down.
Duplicating a track:
Now on the top track, “the overlay track”, this is the track you want to be seen. You are going to put your effects. Click on FX at the end of the clip. Once you click on FX, that is going to open up two windows. One window belongs to the pan and crop window, and the second window is going to be an array of the effects that are included a Vegas Movie Studio 14.
Choose the Effects:
The first effect you want to choose in the effect chain is Cookie Cutter. So go to the folder that says Vegas and then click on Cookie Cutter. It’s going to apply the Cookie Cutter effect to that track. Next what you want to do is go down to the second track and mute it by clicking on the capital M in the track. You will then see the Cookie Cutter by itself and depending on the shape you choose it will take on that shape. By default, it’s a circle. Use the effect sliders to shrink the circle to the size of the object that you wish to blur.
Now that you’ve done that go back to the track and go all the way to the end of the clip and click on FX again. This again is going to open up the two windows, both the Pan and Crop and the FX plug-in window. Next, you’re going to create what they call an FX chain. Choose the second effect, for our application you should choose either Pixelate or Gaussian Blur. Once you’ve chosen either Pixelate or Gaussian Blur you can adjust the intensity of the effect by using its sliders.
Shortcut Keys:
Now here is the magic. In the FX window makes sure you have Cookie Cutter chosen. The trick to this is that where it says Center you can click on animate (which is the little time looking dial) on the right-hand side. Click that and watch a timeline appear. This timeline is going to keep a history of the X & Y coordinates on the screen of your cookie cutter effect.
Now that you’ve done that keep your FX window open (moved out of the way) while using your mouse cursor on the plus symbol in the Movie Studios editing screen. With your mouse, you are going to drag where you want the blur symbol to be, and you’re going to use the keys; Right-Alt and the Left and Right arrows on your keyboard to move the frames. This is the trick to this whole process. This speeds up the process, but you are still going to have to go frame by frame by frame by frame. However, using your Right-Alt key and your Left and Right arrows you are able to speed up this process up significantly.
And You’re Done:
I hope this tutorial helps someone out. I have been using Vegas Movie Studio for around five years. All self-taught and new problems arise all the time. This is one of the issues I keep having to come back to and if this tutorial is not for someone else, it was a tutorial for me so I can come back and review it the next time it comes up. Thank you for reading and/or watching.