Hi John,

Your test was rather more complex than mine. I just had four JPGs loaded with no KFA work or zooming. If you do exactly the same (the JPGs can be identical) do you then get same result?

I was thinking that the lighter yellow must mean 'grouped', but that seems contradicted by the fact that I could change the zoom level in one step for all four objects. Yet if a true selection is indicated by the darker yellow then it's still with the original object. I have to click one of the new objects to get the Size/Position marker back over it.

Presumably this colour issue is another manifestation of the 'intermediate state' that Peter and I discussed fleetingly in the thread:
http://www.magix.info/uk/deleting-a-cramped-kf.forum.1108832.html

Hi Terry,

I tried again, 4 images superimposed, clicked on kf because nothing shows up without doing that, Ctrl+C, move to blank area, Ctrl+V. I get the same yellow as you on all 4 images, no highlight, but the kf shows up in all 4 when viewed individually.

Just to try out my last zoom test, I did the 4 quadrant PIP, created a kf near the beginning for each, then did copy, paste and with the 4 images highlighted, reduced zoom to 25 by typing. They went smaller and superimposed.

Undo. I then tried lassooing the 4 and reducing the zoom to  by dragging the slider to the left. I got a different result. Image 1 reduced in the upper left, as it should, and the other 3 superimposed and moved to the centre.

Clicking on the first kf of images 2 to 4 showed that they had jumped back to 100% and the second kf was now at 50%.

I tried doing this again but differently, without touching anything after pasting, with the playback marker at the end of the new copy. The effect was the same as above. So I would say that even though the image on track 1 is not highlighted, it is still the one having the focus.

I tried similar tests with 2015Premium and got different results. They did not superimpose, but I had some strange results. More to come later, have to go out.

"...clicked on kf because nothing shows up without doing that..."

Hi John,

Not sure I understand what you mean about nothing showing up? The KF timeline is displayed here as long as I am in Video effects or Movement effects (except for Movement Templates). I don't have to click anything.

Hi Terry,

I started a fresh project, imported 4 separate photos, placed one below the other at the beginning of the timeline. I clicked on effects, Movement, Size/Position. With the playback marker at the very beginning, I lassooed the 4 images. No kf appears at the beginning of the timeline in the kf window area at all, unless I change something like the size, position or zoom. Somehow you seem to get a kf at the beginning without doing anything. Is that possible? You must have moved something to Image Size/position to show up and a kf. See below.

Step 1

I lassooed the 4 images, Ctrl+C, moved playback marker to the right, Ctrl+V. The playback marker appears at the end of the pasted images and the preview monitor is blank.

Note in the above screen that all 4 images have the same highlight, not as in the previous screen.

Step 2

Undo. Using PIP I placed each image in a quadrant, ul, ur, ll, lr for tracks 1 to 4. I went back to Size/Position. Note in the image below that there is still no kf. I checked all 4 image.

I set a kf at the beginning of each image by clicking on the kf diamond.

I lassooed the 4 images, Ctrl+C, moved playback marker to the right, Ctrl+V. Same result as before. The playback marker appears at the end of the pasted images and the preview monitor is blank.

Without reselecting the highilighted images, I typed 25 into the zoom box. The dashed image reduced down to 25% in the upper left. I then moved the playback marker to the left to see what happened. All 4 images converged on to the upper left quadrant to 25%, but when scrubbing back to the beginning, they show up in the 4 quandrant positions.

I would have thought that each would be reduced about its respective centre point, but this is not the case.

And just to show that this is so:

Step 3

I moved the playback marker to the right and did another Ctrl+V and pasted the 4 initial images. Almost same result - playback marker at the right and the preview monitor blank. But, size/position still shows the 25% from the last exercise and the dashed rectangle in the preview monitor still shows the last 25% image. The paste was the original copy with the images at 50%.

I then moved the zoom slider to 15%. The dashed rectangle got smaller. I moved the playback marker to the left and got the same result as before, but now all images converge to the upper quadrant at 15%.

Note that in no case was an additional kf created at the end of the image, but the images zoom in and out over their length.

So, where is the right hand kf?

Step 4

In MEP2015 Premium, I got a different result. Upon pasting, the playback marker showed up at the beginning of the pasted images, not the end as in 2014. More to come when I can get back to this next.

Basically, I have confirmed what you found, but I found some other strange things happening:

1. Zoom changes the centre point of the images if all are selected

2. No ending kf is created for size position, but the effect works

3. My results are somewhat different from what I reported earlier where the upper left image zoomed into its quadrant, but the other 3 became centred on the screen and had different zoom characteristics. Strange how I got this.

Morning John,

I'll study your detailed post asap but the key point is that as mentioned I didn't create or work with any key frames. The only element of the Size/Position pane that was involved in my puzzle was its timeline. As described, I don't understand why its marker didn't appear when the right hand group was apparently selected.

The KF timeline is displayed here as long as I am in Video effects or Movement effects (except for Movement Templates). I don't have to click anything.

Perhaps the irrelevant inclusion of one KF in my screenshot muddied the waters?

Edit (an hour later): Self-explanatory illustration of the above:

Or for better quality: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4019461/MEP-SelectionPuzzle-2.jpg

Good luck with your new desk.

Hi John,

As per my post earlier this morning, I can now comment on the rest of your reply.

Undo. Using PIP I placed each image in a quadrant, ul, ur, ll, lr for tracks 1 to 4. I went back to Size/Position. Note in the image below that there is still no kf. I checked all 4 image.

I get the same, the result I'd expect as no KFs have yet been set.

--------------------

I set a kf at the beginning of each image by clicking on the kf diamond.

Earlier I'd clicked the KF tool just once, applying  the TL object's settings (then central) to all of them simultaneously, as it was irrelevant in the context of that exercise. This time I did as you did, keeping their respective positions. I don't believe it's of significance here.

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I lassooed the 4 images, Ctrl+C, moved playback marker to the right, Ctrl+V. Same result as before. The playback marker appears at the end of the pasted images and the preview monitor is blank.

Same here, as expected. Note that the KF shown at this stage still refers to the selected object of the original group (TL in my case). As I indicated in my opening post, to me this is somewhat confusing, as there is nothing to show that object is selected, and the yellow colour and the fact that parameters like zoom can now be changed appear to tell me that the newly copied group is selected.

When the main timeline marker is moved leftward to within the 'intermediate yellow' group, the preview monitor shows the object selected (TL in my case). But it was confusing at this stage as to which of the two this was, until I reached the tentative conclusion I've mentioned at the end of this post.

This inconsistency is of course removed by clicking a specific object, in either group.

--------------------

Without reselecting the highilighted images, I typed 25 into the zoom box. The dashed image reduced down to 25% in the upper left. I then moved the playback marker to the left to see what happened. All 4 images converged on to the upper left quadrant to 25%, but when scrubbing back to the beginning, they show up in the 4 quandrant positions.

I would have thought that each would be reduced about its respective centre point, but this is not the case.

I get the same, but that's again what I'd expect. All four objects in the new group have been resized to 25% at that time setting.

--------------------
[I'm skipping a bit here as I'm not entirely clear about your steps immediately after the above.]

Note that in no case was an additional kf created at the end of the image, but the images zoom in and out over their length.

I frequently get the same and have posted about 'invisible' or 'disappearing' KFs on several occasions. Sometimes it's because you've extended the duration. But, as in this case it can also apparently arise in some way without any such cause. In that case, if you change the photo length from its default of 00:05:00 to 00:05:01, the KF appears again on the extreme right. I don't know if some flaw in MEP causes this or some inadvertent user action.

KFs also disappear from the start of the clip, which can be even harder to trace!

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I think one conclusion is that what we'll call the 'intermediate yellow' colour is a bit like greying out a setting. Al the objects highlighted in that way can have certain parameters changed simulataneously. But none of them are selected in the sense that a KF can now be set. Like 'greyed out' settings that apply to more than one element or object, it wouldn't make sense to try setting a KF to multiple objects. Yet the selected object remains accessible. One design improvement (which I don't expect to see implemented!) would be to retain the darker yellow colour of the selected object, while showing the intermediate yellow of any selected group.

Another would be improved documentation in Help and the PDF Manual!