• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 14:13
CEST 20:13
KST 03:13
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
Classic Games #3: Rogue vs Serral at BlizzCon9[ASL20] Ro16 Preview Pt1: Ascent10Maestros of the Game: Week 1/Play-in Preview12[ASL20] Ro24 Preview Pt2: Take-Off7[ASL20] Ro24 Preview Pt1: Runway13
Community News
SC4ALL $6,000 Open LAN in Philadelphia7Weekly Cups (Sept 1-7): MaxPax rebounds & Clem saga continues27LiuLi Cup - September 2025 Tournaments3Weekly Cups (August 25-31): Clem's Last Straw?39Weekly Cups (Aug 18-24): herO dethrones MaxPax6
StarCraft 2
General
Weekly Cups (Sept 1-7): MaxPax rebounds & Clem saga continues #1: Maru - Greatest Players of All Time Team Liquid Map Contest #21 - Presented by Monster Energy Classic Games #3: Rogue vs Serral at BlizzCon What happened to Singapore/Brazil servers?
Tourneys
Maestros of The Game—$20k event w/ live finals in Paris RSL: Revival, a new crowdfunded tournament series WardiTV TL Team Map Contest #5 Tournaments Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament SC4ALL $6,000 Open LAN in Philadelphia
Strategy
Custom Maps
External Content
Mutation # 490 Masters of Midnight Mutation # 489 Bannable Offense Mutation # 488 What Goes Around Mutation # 487 Think Fast
Brood War
General
BW General Discussion Pros React To: SoulKey's 5-Peat Challenge BGH Auto Balance -> http://bghmmr.eu/ ASL20 General Discussion BSL Team Wars - Bonyth, Dewalt, Hawk & Sziky teams
Tourneys
Is there English video for group selection for ASL [ASL20] Ro16 Group B [ASL20] Ro16 Group A [Megathread] Daily Proleagues
Strategy
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Muta micro map competition Fighting Spirit mining rates [G] Mineral Boosting
Other Games
General Games
Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread Borderlands 3 Nintendo Switch Thread Path of Exile General RTS Discussion Thread
Dota 2
Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion LiquidDota to reintegrate into TL.net
League of Legends
Heroes of the Storm
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Heroes of StarCraft mini-set
TL Mafia
TL Mafia Community Thread
Community
General
US Politics Mega-thread Russo-Ukrainian War Thread The Big Programming Thread Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine The Games Industry And ATVI
Fan Clubs
The Happy Fan Club!
Media & Entertainment
Movie Discussion! [Manga] One Piece Anime Discussion Thread
Sports
2024 - 2026 Football Thread Formula 1 Discussion MLB/Baseball 2023
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Linksys AE2500 USB WIFI keeps disconnecting Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread High temperatures on bridge(s)
TL Community
BarCraft in Tokyo Japan for ASL Season5 Final The Automated Ban List
Blogs
The Personality of a Spender…
TrAiDoS
A very expensive lesson on ma…
Garnet
hello world
radishsoup
Lemme tell you a thing o…
JoinTheRain
RTS Design in Hypercoven
a11
Evil Gacha Games and the…
ffswowsucks
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 1465 users

Insight: Making a Broodwar Movie Part II

Blogs > Gecko[Xp]
Post a Reply
GeckoVOD
Profile Blog Joined August 2006
Germany814 Posts
January 13 2011 15:49 GMT
#1
Welcome again to the next episode of „Gecko making a terrible movie“. On the last episode we learned that my neighbour is an asshole. And we learned the basics about how to record replays, how to make a catalouge of recordings and the importance of a good soundtrack.

Today we learn the very basics of Sony Vegas. Now we're getting to the promised pictures. So, open up Vegas and be ready to rock.

Project Options - Resolution


Once you opened Vegas create a new project (STRG+N / File → New). The most important thing here is the resolution. The standard resolution suggested by Sony Vegas is 720*480 pixels. This needs to be changed either way. StarCraft only has a resolution of 640*480 pixels. So, if you would add your recordings into the project they wouldn't fit and be re-sized, ultimatly causing black borders to the left and right of your video file. Depending on what you want to show you should therefore pick the resolution of 640*480 (for standard VODs and standard movies) or 1024*768 (if you recorded with the High Resolution Expander). Always chose the resolution of the 'biggest' recorded scene you have. For example, if you have 10 scenes that are recorded with 640*480 pixels, and 2 with 1024*768 choose 1024*768.

[image loading]


The red box shows where you can change the resolution. The yellow box needs to be set to „1,0000 (Square)“. I don't know what that is called in English, since I only use a German version. You need to pick that if you want to manually create high resolution screens, and if you don't select it the preview monitor won't show the actual render-result. More to that later. Click „OK“ to confirm and move on. You can always change the options later on, use „File → Preferences“ (or ALT+Enter)

Creating Tracks


[image loading]


What you see now is the virgin version of your project. Nothing happened yet and it all looks a little confusing. It isn't, trust me. When you take a look at my screen shot I labled a view things you need to know. First is the green boxed window, currently black. The position of the window can be different in different version of Vegas, but it's alwayas around somewhere. It is the preview monitor, that helps to get an idea how your project looks like in the final movie. Depending on your PC you can change the preview from the option „Draft“ to „Optimal“ in the drop down menue. When you use the buttons in the yellow box you can activate the preview monitor and see what the current project looks like. If you haven't selected „1,0000 (Square)“ the preview monitor can fuck up – at least in older versions of Sony Vegas.
The blue box shows your explorer. You can see images, video and audio files there. Those are your „raw“ files, things you haven't edited yet. With the blue marked buttons you can preview them, if you don't know what they look like.
The yellow box features your project. Everything that is dragged & dropped from the blue box in there will be part of your movie. To get a preview of that you can press the yellow marked buttons – it will be shown in the preview monitor.

Most files can be simply dragged&dropped from the blue box in the grey area of the yellow box below. That does work for audio files in every Sony Vegas version, but not neccessarily for all video files.
The yellow area appears completely grey for now, since nothing was inserted at all. You will need to create different tracks. There are two different kind of tracks: audio and video tracks. You can generate them by making a right click somewhere in the grey area and chosing „Insert video track“ or „Insert audio track“. I recommend to place at least one audio track and three video tracks (two video tracks for VODs). The result should be something like this:

[image loading]


Audio Tracks


We will start with editing the audio files, since it's the most important thing ever. Always add the complete(!) soundtrack before you start editing your movie. With soundtrack I mean all songs you have. You can always add unit sounds later on, those aren't 'so' important. Simply drag&drop the files from the blue box as shown in the picture above.

Leave a little gap between the first song / sound and the border to the left. Depending on which codec you use you might want to add a test picture at the start to avoid a pixel mash-up right from the start. If you done it correctly your project should look something like this:

[image loading]


Here we have our first problems. You might not want a complete song, but only parts of it. So, simply select the parts you don't want by left-clicking, hold the left mouse button and scroll to the start of what you want to have again (or the end / beginning of the song). The selection now will appear blue underlayed in Vegas. Right click in that selection and chose „delete“. Songs/Sounds/video files can be moved to left/right simply by clicking somewhere in them and dragging them to the right position.

Fading


Songs sound strange when they start out from nowhere. Fading them in and out is a good way to avoid that problem. If you chose a fade-in the song slowly gets louder, if you do a fade-out songs slowly fade away. If you combine both, fade-in and fade-out you can create a transition between two songs, avoiding breaks in the flow or short pauses in between tracks.
To fade songs you move your cursor in the left upper corner of the audio file and watch out for the fade symbol. It looks a little like a curve. Once that symbol appears you simply hold left-click and drag the fade curve to the position you want to have. A right-click into the fade-curve and selecting the option at the top, you can select different types of curves – depending on how fast you want the track to fade. Here is a little picture:

[image loading]


Fading can be used for Video Tracks in the same way. Keep that in mind, this will be important later on. If you put two video files on top of each other, just like the two songs in the picture above, and fade one in and one out, the recordings seem to slowly transition into one another. Looks quite cool sometimes.


Camera Position


Once you dragged some video file into a video track, you can change it's camera. When I say „Camera“ I mean the parts of the record you want to show. You can zoom in, cut away the menue on the bottom, or do a movement of the screen.

To do this import a video file into your track and press either the button for the „Panorama/Cropping“ or right-click into the file and chose the option.


[image loading]


Now you can see what you actually show in the movie. The squared window with the huge F in the center is your selection. You can resize the window like an image in word. Via drag&drop you can change the position of the window. When you press CTRL while you resize you can change the window proportion. I recommend to resize the window in a way the menue at the bottom is completely cut of. When that is done you can save a preset. If you enter any name in the drop down menue (blue box) and press the disc symbol you create a preset. Presets are nice, since you don't have to resize each file all the time. You simply open up a project and select the preset you want from that drop down menue and you're done. This works both for the pan/crop and effects later on. So remember it.

[image loading]


In the yellow box you can see a line that is labled as „Position“. It resembles the time line. The strange squares are anchor points. You can create a new anchor point by double clicking on the spot you want it to have. Once an anchor point is created you can move it to the spot you want it to have.
If you create two anchor points at the start and at the end, you can create a zoom. If the first anchor points shows the whole screen and the second one only the hatch (in my screen), the camera would do a zoom in the final movie. The zoom is faster for closer anchor points.


Creating a constant border


We're doing that guide and follow a certain scheme, you can't yet recognize. I will now describe a few things that are a little confusing, and you might not know why I am doing it. To explain it: you can use more than fades for video files. You can transition them, like using flashes and others. If you don't use the following technique those transitions will fail. In addition differently pan/crops of two video files can cause strange edges and annoy the viewer. So we are going to create a constant border, called „Latter Box“.

The first step for you is to pick the largest (meaning with the highest resolution) video file you have. Drag it into a video track and resize the camera in a way, that you can only see the the gaming window, not the menue for units at the bottom. Switch back to your main window. Now here is the first, REALLY important thing: you need to be absoultely sure that the project settings are correct. Then change the option in the preview monitor to „Optimal (FULL)“. Scroll into your video file, so you can see a picture of the scene in the preview monitor. Then press the disc symbol and save the picture somwhere.

Now you will need either MS Paint, Gimp or Photo Shop. Open the picutre you just created with the program you have. Now, you will see two black borders, one on top of your screenshot and one at the bottom, framing the acutal scene. Now pick a solid color, I recommend dark blue or neon green. Make a green/blue square all over your actual scene, and make sure that it doesn't cover the black borders. The new called Screenshot is called „Latter Box“ and will create fixed borders for your movie. You can polish it up with Photo Shop if you want, but you don't need to. Like drawing tribals into the black borders, or dragons or something you like (a giant penis if you want). Now switch back to Vegas.

Now create a new video track on top of all other video tracks. This track has to remain on top every time. Put the screenshot with the solid color in that track and expand it all over your project – from the first second up to the last second.

Click the Button for „Video FX“ (this is the place to get effects!) or right click and select the option shown in the screen shot below.

[image loading]


Select the 'Sony Chroma Keyer' by pressing „Add“ or double clicking on it, then press OK. You will now see the effect options. Chose the symbol I showed in the yellow box and left-click into the colored box the arrow points to. Close the window and you're done.

[image loading]


Explanation:
What you did here is the blue screen technique for noobs. The effect „Sony Chroma Keyer“ is a powerful tool and can be used for different things. We did now set the Color with the RGB Code (?) '0-0-255' as transparent. The black borders remain on top of each scene and will never change, no matter what you do to the files in the tracks that are below. The dark blue color however will be blended out, so you can see every video file in another track that has same position as the solid blue color. Fancy trick and very helpful.


We're now at the end of Part II of my blog. You learned a few basic things, and can already do little experiments on your own. You can't do too fancy stuff, but prolly enough to polish up your VODs a little. More will follow soon!

Don't hesitate to ask me if you have problems with the things I explained to day. HF!

*****
@DonGeckone on Twitterstuff // JOIN THE YODA FANCLUB OR YOU'RE REALLY REALLY UNCOOL: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=398220
ReTrooper
Profile Joined February 2003
Germany526 Posts
January 13 2011 15:53 GMT
#2
Nice guide! Very detailed and lots of pictures, I'll certainly experiment around with this some day.
De omnibus dubitandum.
Sayle
Profile Joined October 2010
United Kingdom3685 Posts
January 13 2011 15:53 GMT
#3
Why are you writing blogs instead of making highlight videos showing how awesome I am? Back to work!

<3
XsebT
Profile Blog Joined June 2009
Denmark2980 Posts
January 13 2011 16:54 GMT
#4
Awesome guide! Thanks a lot for this!
화이팅
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
Maestros of the Game
13:00
Playoffs - Round of 8
herO vs ZounLIVE!
ComeBackTV 1760
RotterdaM1120
PiGStarcraft457
IndyStarCraft 382
SteadfastSC253
CranKy Ducklings142
Rex119
EnkiAlexander 92
LiquipediaDiscussion
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
RotterdaM 1120
PiGStarcraft457
IndyStarCraft 382
SteadfastSC 253
Rex 119
MindelVK 26
JuggernautJason20
StarCraft: Brood War
Britney 16604
sSak 36
sas.Sziky 19
Dota 2
The International226749
Gorgc20616
Dendi1107
BananaSlamJamma193
PGG 54
Counter-Strike
flusha143
Heroes of the Storm
Liquid`Hasu315
Other Games
tarik_tv28900
gofns21229
FrodaN1068
B2W.Neo473
Hui .198
KnowMe196
ToD177
ArmadaUGS117
Khaldor102
SortOf100
Trikslyr68
Mew2King54
NeuroSwarm40
Organizations
Other Games
EGCTV723
BasetradeTV27
StarCraft 2
angryscii 13
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
sctven
[ Show 15 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• intothetv
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• LaughNgamezSOOP
• Migwel
• sooper7s
StarCraft: Brood War
• 80smullet 23
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
Dota 2
• Ler118
League of Legends
• Jankos1882
Other Games
• imaqtpie698
• Shiphtur225
Upcoming Events
BSL Team Wars
47m
Afreeca Starleague
15h 47m
Snow vs Sharp
Jaedong vs Mini
Wardi Open
16h 47m
OSC
1d 5h
Sparkling Tuna Cup
1d 15h
Afreeca Starleague
1d 15h
Light vs Speed
Larva vs Soma
PiGosaur Monday
2 days
LiuLi Cup
2 days
RSL Revival
3 days
Maru vs Reynor
Cure vs TriGGeR
The PondCast
3 days
[ Show More ]
RSL Revival
4 days
Zoun vs Classic
Korean StarCraft League
5 days
RSL Revival
5 days
[BSL 2025] Weekly
5 days
BSL Team Wars
6 days
RSL Revival
6 days
Online Event
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

Proleague 2025-09-10
SEL Season 2 Championship
HCC Europe

Ongoing

BSL 20 Team Wars
KCM Race Survival 2025 Season 3
BSL 21 Points
ASL Season 20
CSL 2025 AUTUMN (S18)
LASL Season 20
RSL Revival: Season 2
Maestros of the Game
FISSURE Playground #2
BLAST Open Fall 2025
BLAST Open Fall Qual
Esports World Cup 2025
BLAST Bounty Fall 2025
BLAST Bounty Fall Qual
IEM Cologne 2025
FISSURE Playground #1

Upcoming

2025 Chongqing Offline CUP
BSL Polish World Championship 2025
IPSL Winter 2025-26
BSL Season 21
SC4ALL: Brood War
BSL 21 Team A
SC4ALL: StarCraft II
EC S1
SL Budapest Major 2025
BLAST Rivals Fall 2025
IEM Chengdu 2025
PGL Masters Bucharest 2025
Thunderpick World Champ.
MESA Nomadic Masters Fall
CS Asia Championships 2025
ESL Pro League S22
StarSeries Fall 2025
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2025 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.