3 Split screen images at once

JBDL wrote on 6/22/2022, 5:21 AM

I would like to display 3 screens at the same time the same showing the view from a drivers seat. I've shot the film, synced it up to run in unison; but how do I resize and focus on the the important part of the right and left hand cameras and then position them as to the right and left of the main middle camera view? I would really appreciate some help urgently on this if possible. The image attached was taken from my first film 30 years ago where we did split-screen filming on my truck driving video. Computers were different then!

I am using Video Pro X14 software. Thank you for any help. JBDL.

Comments

AAProds wrote on 6/22/2022, 5:53 AM

@JBDL

Urgent assistance button activated! 🙂

Easy. Click on the video object you want to resize and reposition. It will turn dark yellow (or at least a different shade to the other tracks).

On the Effects tab, go to View/Animation (or similar), find the Size/Position/Rotation entry. Click on it.

On the right, click that box that says "apply effect". A bounding box will appear around your video in the monitor ie the one you clicked on at the start. Resize with the corner handles, click+drag it around to suit.

Do the same with the other videos.

Urgent assistance button deactivated! 👍

Be cognisant of the track numbers. VPX looks "up" through the tracks so you'll need your "background" video on Track 1. The ones you want to resize/shrink will go on any of the lower tracks, but you'll have to resize the lowest object first ie the one on the highest numbered track.

JBDL wrote on 6/22/2022, 6:31 AM

Thank you my friend....that's a start and a helpful one at that! When I try to resize the clip on the 'X' axis, it seems to compress it rather than put a selection box over the area that I want to use. How can I resolve that please?

JBDL wrote on 6/22/2022, 6:49 AM

....so instead of compressing the 1920 px down to say 480 px, I'd like to put a 480 px wide box x 1080 px high over an area of the film to show that part.

browj2 wrote on 6/22/2022, 7:30 AM

@JBDL

Hi,

For an aspect ratio that is different from the original, under Size/Position/Rotation (SPR), if you uncheck 'Combine input fields.' Then you can squash/stretch the rectangle, probably not what you want.

The normal way to get 480 wide x 1080 high, would be to use Section first to crop the image, then resize and move under SPR. Caution, as there are some bugs with this combination.

There are other ways to do this by using the objects on other tracks and adjusting position, or by using masks. There are tutorials on this.

To move the rectangle to where you want it, drag it in the Preview Monitor. Do not drag the centre point, as that is the Anchor Point and you will just move it and not the image.

Note that there is now a feature to align the rectangle (resized image) to left, right, top and bottom.

To get a faster start, in the Media Pool, go to Templates, Design Elements, Picture-in-Picture. Select the clip on the highest track and apply one of the templates. Then the second highest, then the background or lowest track number.

Ex. Track 5, I applied: 3/1 bottom left; track 3, 3/1 bottom right; track 1, 3/1 top center.

Now when you go to SPR, you'll see that the effect has already been applied as in the image below.

You can do what you want from there - resize, move, etc.

Just to confirm what @AAProds mentioned, the track protocol is simply by number, with 1 being the lowest number (learned this in primary school), therefore it is on the bottom of the pile. 2, being a higher number, will sit on top of 1, and so on.

Note that I always have Video/Audio on separate tracks.

John CB

JBDL wrote on 6/22/2022, 7:51 AM

John CB, I've read your stuff and about to try it. Thank you for a very detailed piece...very helpful. I made a film 30 years ago (Driving Skills for Life) and my director told me at the time that we were the first to try split/multi-screen projections. I don't know if that's completely true but we had three cameras with two on the side of the truck. We were about 4 feet wider when the camera brackets were on the outsides of the truck doors. How things have changed....thank you again for your kind time and help. Jim