This tutorial will explain how to make a video by zooming and panning a very large image.  You can use this one if you want. In that case, right click the link and choose "save as" to download the image to your hard drive.

Step 1

Open ZS4.  Locate the file greenflowers.jpg (or whichever, but must be large) on your hard drive and click on it to import.


 

Step 2

Drag the green arrow down into the track display or into the tree view.  The end result is the same.  Your picture will appear as a child track of the MediaMixer.


 

Step 3

Click on the rectangle icon on the greenflowers.jpg track.  This is a shortcut to get to the track  -> rectangles tab.  In the MediaMixer rectangle (destination) you will be able to monitor your results.


 

Step 4

Click on the "current" tab which is next to the default arrangement tab in the track display.  This shows you only the current track and allows you to manipulate its variables using drawing tools.  For this example we shall use the tool called "select destination rectangle with mouse".  This lets us draw the area of the picture which we want shown in the destination (MediaMixer).

To select this tool, press the black rectangle toggle in. (as shown below).


 

Step 5

Now draw a rectangle indicating the area to be displayed at the beginning of the video.  Our time is 0 so the key frame you set now will be the first one.  I selected the lower right corner.  Note the change of position in the MediaMixer rectangle.  You can also adjust the outcome with the sliders around it.


 

Step 6

Move the time slider at the bottom a few seconds to the right.  Now draw a rectangle in a different area of the picture.

   

Step 7

Repeat step 6.
 

 

Step 8

For the next key frame (move time slider further to the right), zoom out all the way.  You can achieve this, while making sure that the picture fills the entire output rectangle, by drawing a rectangle around the full image.  It will fit it automatically.  If you wanted to adjust the result, you could do so using the sliders around the MediaMixer rectangle in the top half of the screen.  Note: the bottom slider simply changes the view so that you can manipulate large images more easily.


 

Step 9

Drag the time slider further to the right.  Draw a smaller rectangle, for example, similiar to the very first one.  This will zoom back into that area of the picture.


 

Step 10

If you want, you can change the interpolation between the key frames to be quadratic instead of linear.  This will have the result of slowing down the motion as you approach and leave a rectangle key frame.   To do this, press the right arrow key below the MediaMixer rectangle where it says linear.  This will change it to quadratic.  This affects all key frames for this rectangle so you only have to do this once and it doesn't matter when you do it.


 

Step 11

Maybe you want to fade the video out at the end.  Since i'm almost at the end anyway, i'm going to set a key frame of default for the opacity variable for this track.  Do this by hovering your mouse over the opacity strip on the left and press enter.  The strip will turn yellow to indicate a key frame.


 

Step 12

Move the time slider all the way to the end.  Hover over the opacity strip again and press the down arrow on your keyboard.  This will set the opacity to minimum, effectively fading the video to black in the output.  You can monitor this in the destination (MediaMixer) rectangle in the top half of the screen.


 

Step 13

To export the end result, switch back to the arrangement tab and press the circle icon (export button)  on the MediaMixer track.  Fill out the fields in the export dialog and press export.  You'll get a couple more screens to fill out as well.


 
Thats it!  Let me know how it turns out.  You can add comments below if you log in.  I'll do my best to fix up any problem areas in this tutorial if they are brought to my attention.