14. Go to the Multi-tool area and click on the Media Generators tab. Select Text from the list on the left. As with other items in the Multi-tool area, you'll find numerous preset configurations available. Click on Default Text and drag it to an empty area in the timeline area. After you release it, you'll notice that Vegas has added a new video track for the text, and has also opened an additional window for you to specify your text. With this window you can adjust the font, size, placement, and color of your text, as well as add additional effects.

15. This example shows two separate video tracks that contain text added using Vegas. The first "Title Here" section, as shown, was set to...

Tahoma, 48pt, bold || Placement X= -0.027 Y= -0.498 || Properties, Text R=0 G=0 B=0 ||
Effects, none

Drag the Default Text box onto a new video track and create a separate section for the Select 1, Select 2, etc. portion of the menu. This section was done with the following settings...

Tahoma, 20pt, bold || Placement X= -0.550 Y= -0.227 || Properties, Text R=0 G=0 B=0 ||
Effects, none

Note: You'll need to drag your new video tracks to the top of the pile. This way, they'll display on top of the red background.

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17. The final preparation before rendering is to fade the edges of the video. You want these edges to fade to black (unless you've managed to time a perfect loop) so the screen does not appear to jump when the menu restarts. For this project, we'll use a 2 second fade in/out. Locate the cursor at the two second mark in the timeline. Float your cursor in the upper left corner of any of the video tracks until a quarter circle icon appears. Click and drag this icon until it snaps to the 2 second line. Notice how this area is grayed slightly. Vegas will now fade this track in from black.

Repeat for the remainder of the tracks, as well as the opposite direction. Place the cursor at 00:00:58:00 and drag the quarter circle from the right. This will fade out the video.

NOTE: If you've added some background audio you'll also want to perform this same adjustment to your audio track. The procedure is identical, only the fade will fade the music out to nothing. This way, when your menu loops, the music will fade in an out with the video.

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NOTE: You may open the completed project used to create this tutorial by locating the file named VegasTutorialMenu1.veg. It can be found in the same directory with the unzipped "window" video file. For the project to open properly, this folder MUST be located on your the root directory of your C: drive.

NOTE: The video file used for the video"windows" was retrieved from a sampling of
Sonic Foundry's Vision Series clips. You'll receive a sample disc if you order the full version of Vegas Video 4.0. You can also order their complete collections for $80/volume. This is a bargain price compared to many other collections I've seen.

NOTE: This project was designed to start its user off with some basic skills on how to build a professional looking motion menu. Once you made a few, you can begin to experiment with more advanced techniques. For example, you can adjust a video stream so that it will loop perfectly, and there would be no need to "fade" the edges. When using "fades" you can also be sure the menu fades to the same color as your subpictures, so they do not end up "standing" on top of black for a couple seconds. There'll be more tutorials in the future to show more of these techniques.