Working with Sub Tracks

You can use Sub Tracks to conserve your work area and hide tracks that you really don't need to see all the time.

For instance, it's fairly common to add a motion background to a title in NLE. The motion background itself has probably been created in a third-party application and imported into Liquid Edition. Once you place the motion background on the Timeline, you don't really need to see it anymore. In fact it's taking up valuable real estate, which is always an issue for editors who work mainly in special effects.

By using Sub Tracks, you can easily get around this problem by collapsing the Sub Track after you have added the motion background. It can then be opened again at any time if you need to perform any fine-tuning.

To add a Sub Track

• Right-click in the track name area and select Add Sub Track from the menu (Figure 14.28).
  
  

  Figure 14.28. Choose Add Sub Track from this menu…

  

  
  The Sub Track is created directly under that track, appearing in the name area as a branch (Figure 14.29).
  
  

  Figure 14.29. …creates a Sub Track under the selected track.

  

  
  

Tips

• To collapse a Sub Track, click the minus sign () on the far left of the track name.

• You can also create a Sub Track within another Sub Track by using the same procedure as you did to create the first Sub Track. You might use this method as an alternative to building a container.

• The video monitor for a Sub Track isn't always switched on by default when it's created. Watch for this because without the small monitor icon that appears in the Sub Track, no video is visible. Of course, the same rule applies to the speaker icon that again may not appear when you create a Sub Track.