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JANUARY 20, 2003 Vegas Baby! Vegas!
To animate the light around the screen, first move the Timeline Indicator to the beginning of the Timeline by pressing the Home key on your keyboard. Under the Segments control, create an initial keyframe for the Rotation property by clicking on the Stopwatch Icon. Move to the end of the Timeline, and change the Rotation amount to -3 x 0. Why a negative number? By using a negative number for rotation, the streak will move counter clockwise with the opaque portion of the streak leading the way.[an error occurred while processing this directive]If you want to have your little light streak move around the frame in a clockwise direction, you will need to make a few adjustments to the Render controls. Change the Start Opacity to 0, and the End Opacity to 1. Then change the Rotation amount to a positive value. If you make a RAM preview, you will see your little light moving frantically, and apparently randomly across the screen.  If you want to add additional light streaks, create a New Solid, create a new mask, and apply the Vegas effect.  If you want to keep the lights from being blocked out by the mask, change the Layer Mode for each of the layers to Add.  To composite these lights on a background layer, pre-compose the light layers, and set the resulting composition to a Transfer Mode of your liking.
Remember that just because an effect appears to do only one set thing (essentially making it a one trick pony), tweaking and goofing with the effect controls, can lead to other interesting effects. You can download the sample project here. The file is compressed using Stuffit from Aladdin Systems. The Stuffit Expander is a free utility for Macintosh, Linux, Windows and Solaris that can be downloaded here. When not working deep in the labs of the DMN Central Division testing the latest and greatest software/hardware products Stephen Schleicher can be found at the local university teaching a few courses on video and web production. He can be reached at schleicher@mindspring.com. You can also visit him on the web at www.mindspring.com/~schleicher Related sites: • Animation Artist • Animation Supplement • AV Video • Corporate Media News • Creative Mac • Digital Animators • Digital Media Designer • Digital Post Production • Digital Producer • Digital Video Editing • DV Format • Film and Video Magazine • Hollywood Industry • Mac Supplement • Production Supplement • Siggraph News • The WWUG Related forums: [an error occurred while processing this directive] 
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