Cropping Overlay Track for PIP effect (VS8 Ultimate)

[tanguero]

This can't be as difficult as it seems to be--maybe I'm missing something obvious?

I have a video (16:9) of a chorus singing on the main Video Track and at some point I want to highlight one of the singers as a PIP effect for a few seconds. So I do the following:
1. Put the same video on an Overlay Track and trim out all but the few seconds I want to highlight.
2. Adjust the position and size of Overlay Track.
3. Use the Video Pan and Zoom filter to highlight the singer in question.

All good, except that in Step 2, I want the PIP to be cropped to be roughly square and NOT 16:9, but there doesn't seem to be a way to CROP the entire overlay frame. If I resize it to the square shape I want, the contents are distorted, i.e., it's not a crop but a distortion.

Any ideas? Thanks!

[lata]

Try using the Cropping tool on the overlay clip- customise
deselect Fill Color
modify the Width and Height
Set first and last keyframe the same, right click first keyframe for Copy and Paste
ok returns to timelines
resize and position the clip on the preview screen

[tanguero]

Thanks Trevor, this mostly works. Deselecting the fill colour was the step I had left out when I was playing around earlier. I say "mostly" since while I can indeed set the crop percentages asymmetrically (in this case the width and height percentages to a 9:16 ratio so that the result is square), the cropped result expands to fill the entire frame so the result is now distorted (stretched) horizontally. Then when I go back to my timeline, I can now resize the overlay frame in the preview window to be square and this distorts (compresses) back to an undistorted final square image in my PIP. The only negative is that I don't see a way to resize the overlay frame with numerical values so that I get an exact square. I can only drag the side handles and guesstimate the result (or measure with a ruler on the screen I guess!).

Meanwhile, I also discovered a way to crop the overlap track more directly in the way that I wanted, but it's only available by enabling Mask & Chroma Key for that overlay track: Select track > Options > Attribute > Mask & Chroma Key. If I then check "Apply Overlay Options" > Type "Chroma Key" I get to crop height and/or width and the cropped out part becomes transparent. (Since I don't actually want any Chroma Key effect, I have to choose the colour and colour similarity level so as not to have any effect on my video.)

Somewhat of a kludge either way, but it addressed my need--thanks!

[lata]

I do not have VS 8 installed so using VSX9, I assume you are using X8
If you are intending to do multiple Pic in Pic affects you may be best to give the trial version of 2023 a run.
They have improved the preview screens editing features, adding a Crop option to the existing Scale
Makes it much easier to crop the face, although do rely on a manual drag rather than numerical values.
Using X9
I created a square image to use as a template to set the cropped face square, then resized using the corners keeps the image aspect ratio, position. As near as square as I could get.
To apply to another face I cut the video using the scissors ( keyboard S)
The cropping effect being applied to both clips, just a matter of repositioning the crop over another face.

[tanguero]

I finally figured out what I believe to be the optimal way to crop overlay tracks (in X8 anyway) for PIP or other uses:
1. Use the Cropping filter (with Fill Color unselected) on the Overlay track, adjusting the Width and Height percentages to different numbers to get the desired crop box dimensions. E.g., if you want a square crop and the original video is 16w:9h, you would set the Width to the required percentage and Height to 16/9 times that value. (Make sure to do this at the beginning and end keyframes, and any other intermediate keyframes you create.) This creates a square box in the left pane, and will show a distorted (horizontally stretched cropped image in the right pane). Don't worry about the distortion--you will undo it in Step 2. (A limitation is that the percentage is unnecessarily (and rather stupidly) limited to integer % numbers, so for extreme crops you will have very coarse granularity in your options, and rounding to an integer after multiplying by 16/9 may give a noticeable error.)
2. Choose Advanced Motion > Customize Motion for the Overlay Track. Unlink the Aspect Ratio in the Size box and set the X (horizontal) and Y (vertical) sizes to be of the opposite ratio (9:16). (Make sure to do this at the beginning and end keyframes, and any other intermediate keyframes you create.) Of course, you can set any of the other parameters (position, transparency, borders, etc.) as needed. This asymmetrical sizing will "undo" the distortion in Step 1 and you will get your desired cropped Overlay track.

Note that the previously mentioned possibility of using the Mask & Chroma Key setting to crop does not actually work well, for 2 reasons:
- It creates a Chroma Key that you didn't actually want and you have to fudge the numbers and colours so it doesn't do any real Chroma Keying;
- This crop function interacts unexpectedly (and badly) with the Advanced Motion setting and causes all sorts of unexpected cropping artifacts. The recommended way above does not suffer from these artifacts with the Advanced Motion setting.