@art-l, @AAProds

Hi

. . . . under the "Duration" section of "Camera/Zoom shot, there is a "Custom" radio button, but when I click it nothing happens. . . . .

For a simple 'one shot zoom', to use this option with the object selected :

• Position the timeline cursor where you want the effect to start
   
• Click the Custom option
   
• Adjust the Marquee in the preview monitor to the size required - this will automatically insert a keyframe
   
• Move the timeline cursor to where you want the effect to end
   
• Adjust the Marquee in the preview monitor to the size required - this will automatically insert a keyframe.

The zoom in/out will occur between the times the keyframes were inserted at.

To tweak the timing move the key frames as required.

HTH

John EB
Forum Moderator

@AAProds

Hi Al,

Slightly off-topic, but I believe that you mentioned that you could not use the arrow keys to nudge the rectangle in the preview window (Camera/Zoom shot). I just tried with MS2023 latest patch and my arrow keys works...so long as I have not clicked in a parameter box - otherwise the focus is on the box. Could you please check?

John CB

@johnebaker

John, re Custom, I can't see any difference using Custom verses "just doing it". In other words, there appears to be no need to select Custom.

@browj2

 I believe that you mentioned that you could not use the arrow keys to nudge the rectangle in the preview window (Camera/Zoom shot).

John, that was nudging in SPR. CZS nudging works OK.

Thank, Johnebaker...I got the custom figured out.

AAProdso ...2 second edge gives you a 2 second lag at the beginning and end of you shot. The zoom begins 2 seconds in and ends 2 seconds before the shot does. This particular frame is set to 15 seconds. 30% in center gives the same effect but with 30% or your duration.

So this is the shot I'm working with and want to zoom. I can get it to zoom the way I want it to. the problem is this. The black outline is what is selected to zoom. The red outline is what I want to zoom. The box displayed has handles at the corners and the centers of each side. What I need to have happen is to decrease the height of the selection without also decreasing the the width, but I can't figure out how to do that. grabbing and moving any of the 8 handles adjust all sides of the box, keeping the same proportions. Moving the box up to where the bottom is just below "Praise God" only makes the picture drop down leaving the gray area at the top as well.

Browj2 - I'll look for the patch and see if that helps.

Thanks all of you for your input.

@art-l

So this is the shot I'm working with and want to zoom. I can get it to zoom the way I want it to. the problem is this. The black outline is what is selected to zoom. The red outline is what I want to zoom. 

Art, assuming you meant "can't" 😉, I'm not aware of any way to do this at a basic level. As I mentioned before, the Camera/Zoomshot cropbox is set to the movie ratio and can't be changed. That is why moving any of the handles will adjust all the others except the opposite handle. Obviously the size of it can be changed, but not the ratio/shape.

It may be possible to do it with masks but those are above my paygrade! 😂

@art-l, @AAProds

Hi

. . . .  I can get it to zoom the way I want it to . . . .

The Camera/Zoomshot is a quick variant of using Size, Position with no Rotation as it stands, however I suspect the there is at least one bug - the Movie size button is not working, click it and it turns blue reverting to grey when you release the mouse button.

The question is what should this button do:

• allow the start and end of zoom sizes to be adjustable ie not be full screen
• allow the marquee Aspect ratio be adjustable

John EB

@art-l

Hi.

I'm not 100% sure what effect you are after. As others have pointed out, changing the aspect ratio of an effect is not an option without causing distortion of the selection. It is possible however to select a section of image to be zoomed in or out at a ratio of your choosing and placing anywhere you wish when zoomed in but I'm not sure it is the effect you want. Would it be something like the example I give underneath? Bearing in mind I can place that zoom to any height I wish within the frame and select any portion of the image at any aspect ratio I choose.

Ray.

@johnebaker @art-l

John, a good question. I think it's only purpose is to reset the cropbox back to the movie size. The fact that it doesn't also centre the cropbox could well be a bug, because one of my main annoyances with this otherwise great effect is that it is not easy to reset the cropbox back to fullscreen after you've finished your last zoom; it requires switching to SPR to re-locate, in the centre, the box using the "Position" centre X.

click it and it turns blue reverting to grey when you release the mouse button.

Methinks just a programming quirk, the Edit/Preview button does the same.

@AAProds

Hi

. . . . I think it's only purpose is to reset the cropbox back to the movie size. . . . .

This could be the case though I think the purpose needs clarifying either in the text next to, or on the button.

There is no mention of this control in the MMS 2022 manual !

. . . . The fact that it doesn't also centre the cropbox could well be a bug . . . .

Definitely a bug similar to others with the same issue due to the change in the SPR anchor point. The reset position and size is also inconsistent depending on the marquee size and position before you do the reset.

. . . . Methinks just a programming quirk, the Edit/Preview button does the same. . . . .

It does and does not - this button is toggle on/off style action, it flashes on/off to show it has been clicked, however the text on the button changes to the current mode so at least you know which mode the effect is in.

John EB

@johnebaker

Definitely a bug similar to others with the same issue due to the change in the SPR anchor point. The reset position and size is also inconsistent depending on the marquee size and position before you do the reset.

It's been around for a few versions; MEP 2021 definitely does it.

It does and does not - this button is toggle on/off style action, it flashes on/off to show it has been clicked, however the text on the button changes to the current mode so at least you know which mode the effect is in.

Yes, obviously that is a toggle button. My point was that both turn blue while you are clicking on them, as does almost every other button on the interface, so there's nothing sinister going on there.

This is what I'm "Praise God" to being with.

And yes, I meant "can't"

I'm subscribing to the bug theory, since I can go into the "Section" effect and I see two boxes for height and width and a drop down for Keep Proportions, Free Proportions, as well as several predefined ratios. Making a selection in CZS should be no different than cropping a picture to select the portion you want to show. In the "Section" effect, pressing the "Like Movie" button simply cancels whatever you put in from the drop down box. "Movie size" does the same thing if you moved the box in CZS.

The "Size/Position/Rotation" effect also gives you the option Movie Size or Original Size.

SPR, on the other hand, calls this "Combine Input Fields" to change height independently of width or vice versa.

@CubeAce, yes, something similar except I want to zoom from my selection. I am unable to change any side by itself in CZS effect.

@art-l

Hi.

I'm still not completely sure if what I think you want is correct but if I was wanting a section of text to come leaping out from a still image with the text already embedded into position I would use two tracks with identical images, one under the other and use the lower track to select the text I want with the Section effect using the free proportion option and then animate the zoom with the Size Position Rotation effect with the appropriate key frames to the size and position of the zoom you require.

There are a few problems. Once you add the Position Size Rotation effect the lining up of the image at the beginning and end of the zoom does not line up 100% with the underlining image and has to be positioned manually.

Ray.

@art-l

Hi,

You need to understand how it all works.

CZN uses a rectangle that has the same proportions as your project - 16:9. It will give you a full screen no matter what the zoom.

In your first image, you want to zoom in the first two lines

and then zoom in on the first line and have the second line disappear, but the widths are the same, so there is no zoom. You are confusing cropping with zooming - they are not the same. CZN does not do cropping as defined by me below.

See the black parts in the image above.

You cannot have your red box full screen, can you, just as I cannot have the "Praise God" line with the same width but showing full screen without showing what is above/below. The proportions are not the same. To have your red box - same width as your black box, you would end up with black border. That is not zooming. Thus what exactly do you want?

In the above, I simply used a mask to hide the lower part.

In your video, you are zooming out from the first two lines to full height of your image. If you want to see your image without the grey parts, then you need to crop the image. Since this is a photo, I would normally do this in photo editor, like PaintShop Pro (PSP), save the result and import that into the video editor. The image is shown below.

The alternative is to do the same in MS and for that you use Section - the cropping command. It does exactly the same thing as PSP - you crop and get the same image as above, If you use the cropped photo done in PSP, you can no longer see what is outside of it, can you. Well, Section does the same thing, except that you can undo or change it - but you cannot keyframe a crop (Section). You can keyframe Size, Position and Rotation, but not a crop (Section).

In MS, below, I have set Free Proportions and the rectangle to the edges of your usable image:

Click on Preview and here is what I get - the same as if I had imported the cropped image created by PSP.

Then, switch to CZN and I see this:

I applied CSZ zoom out as you did but I added in a background so as not to have black.

EDIT: it would look better with the black border cropped out.

Please do not confuse the Section effect with the word "section" as used in CZN; they are not the same. CZN does not crop, as defined above (cropped in PSP and imported).

John CB

@art-l

I'm subscribing to the bug theory, since I can go into the "Section" effect and I see two boxes for height and width and a drop down for Keep Proportions, Free Proportions, as well as several predefined ratios. 

It's not a bug. A bug is a feature that doesn't work. The "free proportions" crop is just not provided. It is not a feature with Magix video editors.

I suggest you put in a request to Support to expand the CZS feature to include "free proportions" adjustment of the cropbox. And while you're there, change the name of the effect to "Crop/Zoom"! 🙂

@AAProds

Hi Al,

I suggest you put in a request to Support to expand the CZS feature to include "free proportions" adjustment of the cropbox.

I can't see how they could do it using CZN. Why not also ask to for distortion of the bounding box at the same time. This would defeat the purpose of CZN.

The closest available is the Cookie Cutter which seems to use masks of different shapes. Just add "free proportions" effect and then maybe add 3D Distortion to go along with it.

Then we'll have users coming on the forum wanting the effect that I showed to be full-screen but with the distorted edges and changing aspect ratios. There was a guy who once asked for something like this. He wanted a video shot in portrait mode to be full screen with no distortion, then wanted it at any angle, full-screen, no distortion. I told him to just turn his TV to whatever angle he wanted and stopped replying.

John CB

@art-l, @AAProds, @browj2

Hi

Looking at this from a different perspective - in a real camera the zoom can only move the view further to or away from the subject - there is no camera, I know of, that can crop and change the Aspect ratio during zooming.

The CZN mimics the cameras behaviour.

Section (cropping) should not be conflated, with CZN they are 2 very different effects..

If Section could be keyframed that would be a bonus and achieve what is required in this topic.

I have been looking at other options, the Cookie cutter, as @browj2 has mentioned is one, another could be the NewBlue Elements, Picture in shape effect, though this is proving difficult to get the interactions between the zoom and shape size position correct.

John EB

@johnebaker @AAProds

Hi,

The goal of CZN is simply to select a box and it puts that at full screen. Any other proportion could not be at full screen. Thus, what would the program do? Put it at the centre, top, bottom, left or right? It's already complicated enough for most users.

As I showed, we have other tools to do exactly what one wants - like using masks.

How did I do the following?

John CB

@browj2

Just choked out a mouthful of red on my keyboard when you said CZS is complicated and then mentioned masks! 😂

I did mention masks earlier, not that I know a lot about them. You've got the OP's image John, do what he wants with masks. I'll be interested to see how you do it.

I can see another application to the OPs would be zooming in to a person's face eg 16-9 to start, 1:1 to end (obviously with a background video).

@AAProds

Hi Al,

It's easy for you because you've been doing it for years, but for others, it's not easy.

I did mention masks earlier, not that I know a lot about them. You've got the OP's image John, do what he wants with masks. I'll be interested to see how you do it.

I already posted this. See my post with 9 images/videos. I don't know what the OP wants.

Rule 1: CZN uses the project aspect ratio.

In the first image, I show the zoom at full screen. This corresponds to the black part of the image below which I translated into the green dashed line which has the 16:9 aspect ratio.

And we get this:

The OP wants the red rectangle which is the same zoom factor as the black one but not the same aspect ratio. That will not fill the screen. Could you please explain to me how one can get the red rectangle to fill the screen with no black part and no distortion without breaking Rule 1? You can't, right?

I can only assume that the OP would want it cropped, meaning black parts, but he didn't say. So, if I have black parts, where would they be, top, bottom, both? Something like this? Is this what the OP wants?

Then, I showed you in the video going from one to the other. Please watch as you didn't seem to have watched it before.

Is that what the OP wants?

I posted these but got no comments. Please, you and @art-l should at least tell me if this is the desired result. If not, then what is?

If it is, then I'll show you how I did it using a mask.

For your other comment:

I can see another application to the OPs would be zooming in to a person's face eg 16-9 to start, 1:1 to end (obviously with a background video).

Is this what you mean? If so, which part should be the end result? The dog in the square at less than full height or at the end?

Did you watch the video in my previous post (dog in star), or the one before that? No comments?

John CB

@browj2

The OP wants the red rectangle which is the same zoom factor as the black one but not the same aspect ratio. That will not fill the screen. Could you please explain to me how one can get the red rectangle to fill the screen with no black part and no distortion without breaking Rule 1? You can't, right?

John, no, of course I can't. That's the whole problem. If the CZS cropbox had "free proportions", we could, with, as I pointed out earlier, a background or as you point or, black bars top & bottom.

This is giving me a headache so I'm going to bow out.

@AAProds

Al, don't give up. Have a cuppa tea.

Then what is wrong with doing it with masks? We already have that capability.

What you want, free proportions, would complicate CZN for most users, and even more for the programmers. They would have to have some kind of masking built in to it. Right now, CZN is a simple zoom in/out, no masking.

Cookie Cutter uses masks. You just don't see them.

The following is a combination of CZN and Cookie Cutter. Is this what you mean? If so, then we already have the capability, just not in one tool.

John CB

@browj2  Actually, I only want the first line, "Praise God," and then have it zoom out from there to take in the entire banner. Possibly I haven't used the right terminology, but I do understand the difference between crop and zoom. So what I'm hearing here somewhere is this:

Let's say for the sake of argument that I reduce the initial box size by 50% [that is, instead of showing the two lines, I'm only showing the one line], then as it zooms in, it will only zoom in until the width arrives at the original proportion and the height would be a half screen with black [or some other background?] for the rest below that. This would in effect give me a 1920x540 image, rather than a 1920x1080 [although, yes, the whole image would actually be 1920x1080, with the lower half being black].

So if I'm interpreting this correctly, then I understand why I can't adjust the height only, which is a bummer and means it's something I have to live with.

So, am I understanding what you've told me?

Maybe at some point down the road, I'll tackle accomplishing this task, but for now, I'm running the stream for my church and looking for ways to keep it interesting before the service actually starts. I've only recently discovered the CZS effect to do what's in this video. [Note that the words blur as it zooms in because I reduced the size of the picture. In the final piece I used for the stream, I used my full-sized pic and the words blurred a bit, not much.]

@AAProds I used the "2 second edge" setting from "Duration" on these shots and you can see how the zoom begins two seconds in to each shot and is complete by 2 seconds before the end.

If I'm understanding this correctly, then we can consider this discussion done. I don't claim any great technological knowledge, I'm just not afraid to push buttons and ask questions, and sometimes the easiest things are the ones that escape me.

@CubeAce @AAProds @browj2 @johnebaker  Thank you all for your help and input.

I'll be back!