VS Pro X9 Overlay Drop Shadow Glitch

[packrat79]

Well, I assume this is a glitch but it is possible I'm just doing something wrong..... if so please enlighten me. I recently bought VS Pro X9 for a rather elaborate video project, and work was well underway when I discovered an annoying problem. In one scene, I wanted to have still images overlaid and panning across a stationary background - each image would have a black drop shadow with 50% opacity and a slight blur. I was nearly finished assembling the scene when I noticed that the drop shadows didn't look right, and after much trial and error I concluded that it must be a fault with the program as everything I was doing seemed to make sense.
Take a look at the first screen grab; it shows the overlay settings (advanced motion) menu open, and the drop shadow looks correct as per the specified settings. But in the second grab, with the menu now closed, look how the shadow appears in the preview window (and the finished product) - the darkening effect has suddenly become a lightening effect, even though the only thing I did was click "OK" to close the overlay motion settings menu. This completely ruins the effect I wanted, and I can't seem to find a way to work around it.
If this is just something I'm doing wrong, I'd greatly appreciate any advice. If it's a glitch in the software, I'd strongly recommend the devs do something about it - it's a major downer to an otherwise very capable program.
Thanks for any advice.

Frame Grab 1 (overlay advanced motion settings open)

Frame Grab 2 (after closing motion settings)

[asik1]

Hi, while VS indeed has not just one glitch, I wonder have you copied your shadow first keyframe setting to the last/end keyframe? Right click first keyframe will open the relevant menu 4 U .

[lata]

Hi packrat79

And welcome to the forums….

Just tested this and indeed the drop shadow does lighten becoming more transparent by approx 25% I don’t have a reason for that?

If you set the shadow opacity to 75 then the shadow would represent the transparency of your sample? Well nearly? If you get my meaning.

Post Updated

Information of this post passed to Corel Support.

[asik1]

Got you, here is the math
0%

but 50% indeed lighter than expected

but not by 25%, more like 19-20%

[packrat79]

I tried changing the opacity to 75% to compensate as suggested, but this still doesn't do the trick. At 75%, the shadow no longer has any visible transparency, and what's more, the blur actually appears lighter than the shadow itself. The problem isn't that the shadow is less transparent when the options are closed, it's that it has an additive rather than subtractive effect - in other words, the background ends up darker than the shadow itself.
Like I said, this is a real nuisance... guess I'll have to download a trial version of Vegas just to do this one effect. Which is stupid, really.

[asik1]

I don't see any impact on the background.
To get true 50% shadow over video, opacity set to 60.
and I set blur at 50

** And my 2 cents, editing is not done just by numbers.

[packrat79]

I didn't say it affected the background, I said that the glitch made the background appear darker than the shadow, instead of vice-versa like it is supposed to.
I'm starting to think that VS X9 isn't intended for professional users, but instead casual users who just want to feel like a professional. I never expected to get Premiere-like features and performance from something in this price range, but I at least thought that the included features would actually work. Granted most do, but for a perfectionist like me a glitch like this is really, really annoying - as far as I'm concerned, it spoils the whole set of video overlay features.
I hope Corel will address this issue in a (hopefully soon) upcoming patch, rather than fix it in version 10 or just ignore it and hope people like me stop whining. Videostudio is a great program and I would really like to be able to recommend it without any such caveats.

[asik1]

It's good to have for a change a perfectionist in the forum that said that the glitch made the background appear darker than the shadow when the physics shows it didn't.
And surly glitches in a 300$ software are much more easy to accept .
VS is not for professionals, it is just for the riffraff that makes a buck with it and enjoy it.


** more than 20 years might not make me a perfectionist, but if "the background appear darker than the shadow" than I will change the shadow and no stick to 50%. I do not edit/compose by numbers.

( VS has many more glitches..)