Catsclaw,
You need to bring your material to the library first, upper left corner, then drag down to whichever appropriate track you are using. If you wish to use a clip more than once (what I am guessing you mean by copy and paste) you simply drag it down from the library again and place where you need it.
I hope this helps. If not, please include a screenshot of what you are attempting so we can see what you mean exactly.

Cheers!
Kevin R. Saving the world, one goofy video and meme at a time.

I see that my question was not as clear as it could be. I am copying from and pasting to the timeline (I am sorry a screenshot is not quite possible right now). Here is a scenario - I have three PIP tracks - the first is an arrow scrunching down, the second is the arrow flying through the air, and the third is the arrow hitting it's target with a shudder. I have a voice track that has three files, the arrow scrunching, the arrow flying, and the arrow hitting it's target. Together of course they create an animation with sound. I want to use this animation in various places in my video but on different video clips, so rather than reload each file from the library, it is easier for me to copy the six files from the timeline, find a new place to paste them en masse so that the PIP files already line up with the sound files, and then modify as necessary. I can do this easily so long as I have not previously in my work session copied a clip from the video track, then the only thing that will copy to the timeline, even when I subsequently select other files to be copied, is the video clip. It is somehow stuck in the clipboard. In this scenario I am not using the library at all. I thought the easiest solution would be to clear the clipboard but I'm not sure how one would do this in PD 8. Thanks again.

Michael

I am using PD9 so I am assuming that this will hopefully be the same steps for PD8 as well. My apologies if it isn't the same.

When you select the items on the timeline...(arrows and things) are you using the Orange triangles located on either side of the Blue Scrubber bar and dragging them to highlight the items?
The COPY button will then become visible above the timeline.

Then click on the timeline downstream where you want to paste the items...The blue Scrubber bar should move to this new selected spot....

Now the PASTE button should appear above the timeline.

Click Paste and the items should be pasted at the selected point on the timeline.

Let me know if this doesn't work or make sense to you. I would be happt to help you further.

Kevin
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Here is a tutorial that Carston made to show you how to Combine multiple projects....but the highlighting part using the orange triangles is the part I wanted you to be clear on:

http://www.youtube.com/user/PDtoots#p/u/8/gGq_tL5F6Ug

Kevin
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I really appreciate the attempts to help.

Cap'n you've actually hit on what the real problem is - the orange triangle copy/paste method seems to cancel out any future attempts to right click copy/paste individual tracks. The orange triangle approach copies and subsequently pastes everything highlighted in the timeline. Then when you want to copy and paste only, say, a file from the voice track, PD 8 will paste what you previously copied using the orange triangle approach. I want to copy only portions of certain tracks (as described above) to use in different portions of the video. Now I could use the orange triangle approach and then delete the unwanted tracks, but this requires extra steps. I was hoping that a way to clear the clipboard, short of shutting down PD, existed.

In short, the orange triangle copy method seems to cancel out any future right click copy attempts. What I copy using the orange triangle method stays in the clipboard until another orange triangle copy is made. If this is isn't easy to solve I will just use the work arounds. Thanks again.

Michael

Why not just produce the arrow thing and save it. Then open PD8, import your files along with the new one. Then you can drag it into the time line where you choose or the PiP track.
Just a thought!

Kevin R. Saving the world, one goofy video and meme at a time.

Highlight the clip and press Control > C. I have a couple of programs that I use regularly that do this to me. That always seems to work. __________________________________
CORNBLOSSOM

Kevin - If I produced it then wouldn't I lose the transparency? I want to be able to superimpose the arrow action/sound onto other images. Unless there is a way to "produce" a clip that has a transparent background that I don't know about (quite possible since I'm new at this).

Michael

Catsclaw,
If I understand you correctly, you may want to try using the masking effect. All you need to do is make your arrow with transparent backgrounds & save them as .png files.

These can be inserted into a lower (PiP) track at the right spot - then size, placement & duration can be adjusted.
Check out these tutorials. I think they have the effect you are looking for.

http://www.youtube.com/user/PDtoots?feature=mhum#p/u/6/jXG2jDTHyKw
http://www.youtube.com/user/PDtoots?feature=mhum#p/u/12/msx6dp0oymk

You can add the sound in one of the audio tracks as well.

Cheers!
Kevin R.
Saving the world, one goofy video and meme at a time.

Thanks a lot for the comments. I am probably adding to the confusion by my poor explanation.

I have a video clip of Wiliam Tell (yes it is a bit grainy but technology was not quite the same in the 15th century). Upon this clip, which is located in the video track, I have superimposed the arrow animation I described above (3 PIP files in the PIP track and three sound files in the voice track). It works perfectly after I've adjusted the length of the PIP and sound files to sync with the video and each other. Now, in the same project, further down the timeline, I have a different video clip, this time of Robin Hood. I want to use the same arrow animation for the Robin Hood clip since the PIP and sound files are already synched, but instead of dragging each individual file from the library and readjusting them, I want to copy just the already adjusted 6 files (3 PIP and 3 sound) from the timeline, and paste them all together, already synched, in the PIP and voice tracks beneath the Robin Hood clip. I can easily do this and have done it many times.

However, if previously in my work session I have used the orange triangle copy/paste method as described above, the PD 8 clipboard will not recognize the right click copy/paste method, it will simply continue to paste whatever was last placed on the clipboard using the orange triangle method. This is why I want to know if there is a way to clear the clipboard in PD 8, but it doesn't seem that there is, other than shutting down and restarting PD 8. Therefore, I will use the work around of copying all files via the orange triangle method and then deleting the files I don't want.

Thanks again to all for trying to help.

Michael

Hope this isn't too far OT but just wanted to chime in with one last thing to answer the question I raised above in response to a suggestion from Kevin. Maybe most of you knew the answer to this one already.

It is possible to "produce" an animation with a transparent background so that you can place the produced clip in the PIP track to superimpose over a clip in the video track. I assumed you needed a clip of some sort in the video track to produce an AVI file, but this apparently is not the case. It seems PIP files and sound files alone (or with effects, music, etc.) can be produced to create a complete animation scene with a transparent background as long as there is no content in the video track. The benefit is that you have an animated clip that you can place in the PIP track without having to drag and adjust individual files. The downside is that you can't make fine tune adjustments to the animation (say if the arrow needed to stay in the air a bit longer or you needed a higher arc to the flight). My apologies if this has already been covered in one of the tutorials.

Michael

Hi Michael -

The suggestion of copying/pasting everything in the selection range - then removing the bits you don't want should work fine.

I don't know how it is possible to produce an animation in PD with a transparent background... except by creating a new PiP object, with motion, & saving it into your PiP Objects Library. In this case you'd need to add the sounds in later.

Another possibility is to use Ctrl + click to select the objects and sounds you want to re-use later in the project... copy them & paste them where you want. Then you could simply modify the motion of the arrow(s) to suit the Robin Hood clip.

Cheers - Tony
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Thanks for the continued help and the clarification. It's funny that I actually thought I did it yesterday - but today I cannot reproduce the results. I was probably dreaming.

It would be a great benefit, IMO, if we were somehow able to associate PIP files with sound files, so that the sound would automatically load in the voice track when the PIP file is placed in the PIP track. Maybe in a future version.

Michael