Sony Vegas 6?

[Brian Cassil]

I've been looking to get something a little more capable than premiere for doing some animation compositing. Mostly I'm wanting something that I can do the same type of composting I do in photoshop with render elements (like z-depth, reflection, refraction, and masks) but with animations.

 

I've been debating to go with either After Effects or Combustion (leaning toward AE) but recently heard from a friend that Sony Vegas 6 is worth considering. I haven't really heard about this one so I was wondering if anyone had thoughts on it. Also, Final Cut Pro is out there and the standard for work on macs (I think?) but how is it on the PC?

[gfa2]

I've been using Vegas for years and it is super easy to learn, it's very intuitive. I've never really used it for 3D stuff, but I do all my home movie editing with it and I've made a couple of sci-fi movies with my son with it. I'm pretty sure they have a 30 trial version. I'd say Vegas is a slightly kind of watered down version of Premiere and not at all a replacement for a program like After Effects.

 

With all that said, I have recently been making the transition from Vegas to Premiere and AE because of the integration between Illustrator, Photoshop, Premiere and AE with the newer versions.

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

that is what i was going to suggest as a possibility. Premiere and Aftereffects are really products with different goals, that are designed to be used together, not one or the other.

 

http://www.adobe.com/products/productionstudio/vector/productionstudio_movie.html

 

check the price for upgrading if you already own Premiere. it is not that bad.

 

that being said, i have never used RPF files in Aftereffects, so i can't sp[eak to the quality in which it processes them, but they have 30 day trials on their website.

 

i think Final Cut Pro is Mac only.

 

..another plus for the Production Suite, it is Adobe, so you basically already know how to use it.

 

we tried combustion v2, and it is really powerful when used with Max, but we never managed to work it into our workflow. we always tended to reach for Aftereffects because we were familiar with it.

[Brian Cassil]

Premiere and Aftereffects are really products with different goals, that are designed to be used together, not one or the other.

 

Hey Travis, could explain this relationship a little more? I've never really understood what premiere does that you can't do in AE.

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

premiere is about editing. you can edit in aftereffects, but it is no where near as simple and efficient. in premiere, you can slice video, move it around, etc, and preview it real time, in an uncompressed DV format.

 

aftereffects is designed to do special effects, whether it be with text, image manipulation, etc..

 

you invest a lot of time doing video editing in Aftereffects compared to Premiere.

 

...anyway, the reason I suggest the suite. ...their are different upgrade prices, but they are all good deals in my opinion. you get, Premiere, Aftereffects, Audition, Encore, and Illustrator.

 

Audition is an advanced audio editing app, far more sophisticated than what you can do in Premiere or Aftereffects alone. Encore is a DVD creation app. I have never used it.

 

...but I caution, try Z-Depth in Aftereffects before you actually by it. I tried it in version 5 or something, and if I remember right, didn't have a lot of luck with it.

[Frosty]

Hi Brian,

I got Vegas 6 here at our office. I've been less than overwhelmed by it.

 

I've been through all of my support DVDs now and things have improved. Its still not what I wanted though. I feel Final Cut Pro is light years superior for working with layers, masks, an compositing levels.

 

Track work in Vegas is very good though. Filters can be saved (with settings) in packages and applied either to clips, tracks or the entire project.

[Brian Cassil]

Hmmmm. So here's what I'm hearing so far:

 

Final Cut Pro - no PC version

 

AE/Premier - easy, familiar interface and very capable, maybe not so good with all elements for compositing.

 

Sony Vegas - Built more for home movies than for animation work. Not really good in working with rendered elements.

 

Combustion - ???? I'm guessing that it has the most fluid interface with max elements, but maybe not so good for general editing and I've heard the interface is a little strange.

 

Well, I think I'll take CHG's advice and download the trial version of AE and give it a go and see how it works with compositing elements from max. Which is the most important thing at this point. The ones I REALLY need to use are reflection, refraction, shadow, masks, and z-depth. I'll use others from time to time but if those work I'm pretty sure anything else will work about the same way.

[STRAT]

i've used premier in the past, but use vegas6 in work these days for composing my jpeg sequences. very good, specially for video comping. but thats basically all i use it for.

 

I'm so eager to get AE though. i havent used it yet, but from what i hear it basically does everything a cg artist needs.

[Christopher Nichols]

First off there appears to be some confusion as to what is editing software and what is compositing software.

 

Premier, Vegas, Final Cut are all editing software. They have some very primitive compositing abilities, but their main thing is editing. The gold standard is Avid. The one that most people use is Final Cut. For PC, I like Vegas, Premier is annoying.... but still useful sometimes.

 

Digital Fusion, Shake, Nuke, are all pretty much compositing software. Node based, shot based, etc... It is nearly impossible to actually use them to edit with, but they are awesome at compositing layers, painting effects, color correcting, etc... Nuke is my fav by far based on ability and speed.

 

After Effect is sort of a hybrid. Because of its timeline, you can actually edit in AE (somewhat), and you can do compositing much like Photoshop layers. You can see it as having the best of both worlds, or as having a crappy editing package (clunky and slow), with crappy compositing (not node based). It generally is praised for motion graphics as it can do effects and animation very well. I would say for most architects, this is a good one to have, unless you are serious about compositing.

 

Combustion is mostly a compositing package, with some editing capabilities. Think of it half way between AE and Shake. It is the baby step before of the Discreet line of products Combustion -> Flint -> Flame -> Inferno... the last one costing nearly one million.

[mbowers]

..Pricing and availability

 

Manufacturers Suggested List Price for the Discreet visual effects systems are: inferno 5—$571,500; flame 8—$266,500; flint 8—$99,000.

**

 

Straight from Autodesk's Website. YIKES! You must have to be a big whig to place an order that software with that pricetag. I've known some engineering programs like ProEngineer that run for a cool 20K per license.

[Brian Cassil]

Hey Chris, that does clear some things up for me. Thanks. You must get a bit of a chucle by watching some of us Arch-Viz types talk about things like compositing. I'll give you another laugh: what is a "node based" compositer?

[Christopher Nichols]

Hey Chris, that does clear some things up for me. Thanks. You must get a bit of a chucle by watching some of us Arch-Viz types talk about things like compositing. I'll give you another laugh: what is a "node based" compositer?

Node based follows a node structure as opposed to a layered structure. Max is a layer structure where is involves a stack (one dimentional), and Maya is a node based which is (two dimentional). You actually lay out what you are going to do in a graphic diagram... it is pretty cool way to work...

 

Someone here showed Shake and Digital Fusion breaking down my workflow for compositing layers from Vray:

 

http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/16354-fusion-shake-compositing-vray.html

 

But the attachement below shows you what a node based script can look like... that is actually a medium sized script. Can get a lot bigger.... Compositing is a complicated thing.

[Christopher Nichols]

..Pricing and availability

 

Manufacturers Suggested List Price for the Discreet visual effects systems are: inferno 5—$571,500; flame 8—$266,500; flint 8—$99,000.

**

 

Straight from Autodesk's Website. YIKES! You must have to be a big whig to place an order that software with that pricetag. I've known some engineering programs like ProEngineer that run for a cool 20K per license.

 

that is just the price you pay to bring it home... you still have to pay a yearly maintenance fee... my wife works on an inferno... it sits in a machine room and is the size of a refrigerator.

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

Node based follows a node structure as opposed to a layered structure. Max is a layer structure where is involves a stack (one dimentional), and Maya is a node based which is (two dimentional). You actually lay out what you are going to do in a graphic diagram... it is pretty cool way to work...

 

Someone here showed Shake and Digital Fusion breaking down my workflow for compositing layers from Vray:

 

http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/16354-fusion-shake-compositing-vray.html

 

But the attachement below shows you what a node based script can look like... that is actually a medium sized script. Can get a lot bigger.... Compositing is a complicated thing.

 

i feel dumb just looking at things like this.

[Christopher Nichols]

i feel dumb just looking at things like this.

 

Don't... it takes a while to get it. But I can tell you one thing, if you want to learn about lighting, learning about compositing can really help.

[Frosty]

I've visited with the guys at Frantic Films - they're huge fans of fusion. And after seeing the final comp'd scene compared to the rendered sequence, I can see why. When I purchased Vegas, all I really wanted was a video editor that worked with layers like PS and had a timeline. I guess thats why I'm such a fan of FCP.

[Christopher Nichols]

I've visited with the guys at Frantic Films - they're huge fans of fusion. And after seeing the final comp'd scene compared to the rendered sequence, I can see why. When I purchased Vegas, all I really wanted was a video editor that worked with layers like PS and had a timeline. I guess thats why I'm such a fan of FCP.

 

If you want to be able to actually do something useful with those layers, I would suggest AE over Vegas. AE is a bit of a pain to edit in compared to Vegas, but you will have better comping abilities.... nonetheless, it is still very possible edit in AE.

[Tim Nelson]

How many of you use seperate compositing & editing programs? We used Combustion for our last project, mostly for compositing and effects. I did use some of the editing features for compiling our clips together but didnt think it was that great. Of course lack of experience surely played a part....oh and the crashes.

 

So i'm thinking, we keep using Combustion, but then use a better editor like Premiere or something for editing the final clips. Final Cut is only for Mac right?

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

If you want to be able to actually do something useful with those layers, I would suggest AE over Vegas. AE is a bit of a pain to edit in compared to Vegas, but you will have better comping abilities.... nonetheless, it is still very possible edit in AE.

 

which brings me back to using Premiere and Aftereffects together.

 

Premiere will import Aftereffects timelines directly, and automatically update them if you change something in the Aftereffects file.

 

I beleive you can then chop up and edit the Aftereffects timeline in Premiere, but still keep the true Aftereffects file for compositing and such.

[Brian Cassil]

So it looks like there are two packages for the adobe production studio. Pro and Standard

 

Pro:

 

AE pro

premiere

PS

audition

encore

illustrator

dynamic link

bridge

 

Standard:

 

AE standard

premiere

PS

dynamic link

bridge

 

upgrade price from just premiere for the pro package is $1249 and the standard upgrade price is $749. Enough of a difference to make me think about it a little. I've already got illustrator and PS from another package. I have little need for audition since I do very little with sound, encore might be kind of nice because I could see doing DVD's with menus and such. So it probably comes down to what the difference between AE pro and AE standard is. My guess is standard is sufficient for Arch Vis work, but maybe not?

[Frosty]

Final Cut is only for Mac right?

Yes, and other than OSX itself, its what I miss most about using windows.

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

upgrade price from just premiere for the pro package is $1249 and the standard upgrade price is $749. Enough of a difference to make me think about it a little. I've already got illustrator and PS from another package. I have little need for audition since I do very little with sound, encore might be kind of nice because I could see doing DVD's with menus and such. So it probably comes down to what the difference between AE pro and AE standard is. My guess is standard is sufficient for Arch Vis work, but maybe not?

 

i don't know the difference between AE standard and pro, but you can author DVD's in Premiere Pro 2.0.

 

http://media40b.libsyn.com/lndqeMp1nnuYe2x8aXRtp5moZXic/podcasts/premierecow/DVD_Authoring.m4v

 

i was a little dissapointed last night to find out that you can not link a Premier file directly into Encore. you need to write out a video file to do that. although you can link an AE file directly into Encore, just like you can Premiere. i am guessing that Adobe has not worked out the link between Premiere and Encore, but will at some point in the future.

 

____________________________

 

 

the reason i support adobe's suite isn't because its the best on the market. i support it for a couple of reasons...

 

1) bang for the buck

2) ease of use, low learning curve

 

several of the memebers here work for themselves, or an arch firm. investing in systems that cost $100,000 or more is not an option most of us have. maybe i am looking at this wrong, maybe i should be looking at it more like ....if i had a high end compositing system, what could i do then.

 

has anyone played around with RPF files in Aftereffects recently?

 

i am curious to how you feel about it. i admit, i usually don't use Aftereffects like that, but I hope to in the future, and i will feel silly if this is where it drops the ball.

[steveblake]

so is anyone tempted by Shake ?

 

"Industry Leading Compositing Software Price Cut to $499"

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2006/jun/20shake.html

 

- with this new pretty heavy price drop (down from 3K) it's now cheaper than After Effects!

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

so is anyone tempted by Shake ?

 

"Industry Leading Compositing Software Price Cut to $499"

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2006/jun/20shake.html

 

- with this new pretty heavy price drop (down from 3K) it's now cheaper than After Effects!

 

i heard about this. incredible.