Hi Anirban,

Is this similar to what you want to do?

Hey Georgeglad to see you after so many days. Yes this what exactly I want. Actually I tried what Zeev suggested me with the three steps. But somehow the collage would make out only of the first placed object on the track and doesnt include the below ones. 

Kindly help.

Regards.

Hey Anirban,

I have been a little busy especially in the mornings my time which seems to be when you are on line.  Here is a quick video of how I did this sorry, no audio because it is early and my wife is still sleeping.  The thing to remember is that this was done using mostly size and position

Thanks George for the mail. I will surely try out the suggestion that you gave. I am in office right now and will surely let you know. 

But I know anything that John and you suggest works. So I have less tension. 

But once again glad to see you here after so many days. 

Regards.

Hi Anirban, George

Experimenting with MEP achieving the 4 images sliding in as in the original Time ticks video AFAICS is not possible in one single stage.

However it can be done in 2 stages.

This example quarters the screen for 4 images sliding in.  The method does rely on the Chroma key colour not being present in any of the images used in the first stage - so it may not work for some images/video clips.

The first stage is to put 3 images on the timeline, two black images and a magenta image, I used magenta because this colour does not appear in the images I used, see ** below  - image 1 shows the timeline layout.

Each image is sized and placed so as to quarter the screen and keyframe animation is used to carry out the movement of the three sliding images.

The 2 black images and the magenta image are positioned so that the sliding images emerge from behind them.

Once you have this correct, save the project, and export the movie at the same resolution as the final video - I exported as a mxv file.

Start a new project and import the fourth sliding image and the above exported file as shown in image 2.

Select the imported movie and using the Video effects, Chroma key, Color option select a portion of the magenta quarter.

Select the fourth image and resize and position it, then and add keyframes so that it slides in correctly.

Two black images were also add to the timeline and resized and position to create the horizontal and vertical black bars - they also hide any imperfection of the chroma key effect.

**  The magenta is pure colour ie RGB    255/0/255  (or in %  100/0/100)

I will leave the exit of the sliding clips for you to work out.

Happy editing

John

Not a collage (yet) but I've got it in one go! 

Each of the clips is reduced to 50% size and keyframed for start and end positions. Note that naming the masks as '..._alpha.jpg' will get effect applied automatically.

Now to figure the settings to give the black bars between...

ADDED: The four masks are full frame size with white quarters created in an image editor, not anything positioned off center as you seem to be doing. If the white area is a bit bigger (or smaller?) than exactly 50% of full frame then I should get the bars. Export was a MPEG-2 without it  seems enough care in choosing aspect ratio!

Hi Carl

Interesting - your method was the original one I tried and I could not get the fourth image to appear correctly hence my 2 stage option - will try again and see if I can find what I messed up LOL,  Grrr    (Smileys still not working). 

To get the black bars two black images were also add to the timeline and resized (take the tick out of keep proportions) and position to create the horizontal and vertical black bars.

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Added - got it and with 3 less images for the mask LOL - I used only 1 image for the 4 masks  and Movement effects Rotation/Mirror to mirror vertically, horizontally or both to 3 of them.

My original mistake was in the direction of the Alpha on one of the masks -  Grrrr

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What format did you upload the video as? When I tried it I just got the empty player  Grrr

Cheers

John

I made a collage for this sort of effect a year or so ago, as it's one I use quite often.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/4019461/4clip-Collage.jpg

Result:

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Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Thanks Terry -- feeling I've sort of reinvented a wheel! :-)

I also note that the Magix collage '[>]4 Obj 03 (16:9)' starts with the sliding blocks including some gap. One could apply that effect and then cut off the static section and the reverse slides at the end. Problem though is the need to set 'Combine effects curve with object length' for each image if you want more than about half a second.

Regards,

Carl

I also note that the Magix collage '[>]4 Obj 03 (16:9)' starts with the sliding blocks including some gap. One could apply that effect and then cut off the static section and the reverse slides at the end. Problem though is the need to set 'Combine effects curve with object length' for each image if you want more than about half a second.

Hi Carl,

Yes, that bit of careless timing at the start spoils it.



Dragging all but the spacer a little to the right fixes it easily enough, but I agree that the duration is a bit too fast.

P.S: Something (else) is screwed up on the magix.info site I think. I'm not seeing any vertical blue bar on the left indicating quoted text (although it shows up after the Send), and I can't seem to get any contrast between what I'm quoting and my added comments. Resorting to technicolour.

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Terry, East Grinstead, UK

@ George, Terry, Carl and John thank you all guys for your help. 

Regards.

OK Guys,

You now got me into analytical mode LOL.  So I decided to try to emulate exactly what Lupuri did in her video and I am pretty close.  I used my own watch (yes should have used a tripod and been more careful about the focus) but I was just trying to get the effects and scenes right.  So first I developed a story board (very basic)

Got the shots I wanted to use, and this was the result.

There is a glitch in each collage where my video segment was not long enough for one or two of the different watch shots so it jumps in the first one, and the rain on the two watches was not long enough so it stops then starts again.  Acually I just used rain to show water I am pretty sure Lupuri was using a spay bottle to create water effect, and I did not feel like cleaning up the mess.  I did use the collage 1 to 4 effect this time around.  My version is also about 15 seconds shorter than Lupuri's.

Update on using the the 4 obj.03 (16:9) effect.  A couple of things that I learned creating the video is that all video objects used in the effect need to be the same file type otherwise the effect will only be applied to the first object.  The first time I tried it I had 2 MP4 files and 2 AVI files and could not get it to work until I converted the AVI files to MP4. 

Another thing I learned is that if you are going to add some other effect such as rain,  you need to create those effects first, then export the clip(s) as a video file, then bring the clips back into MEP and apply the 4 obj.03 effect.  Othewise the 4 obj effect will overwrite / remove the other effects.

The final thing I learned and you can definitely see it in the YouTube video is that if the video segments are shorter than what the effect needs to complete the appropriate duration, the shorter clips will just be re-started so in this case, on my first collage, one or maybe two of the clocks were re-set during the collage, and the rain started, finished then started again.

Hi George,

You can also see that bug I mentioned earlier. This frame from your video demo should be empty, or be followed by an empty one:

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Terry, East Grinstead, UK