I've cheated! - I just chroma key out the black background .. I know not THE way of doing things . .but a bit of tiny blur .. easy peasy . .


Grazie

>> I always export from ParticleIllusion as TGA with alpha channel
>>and then import as an image sequence

I do exactly the same thing.

I then position the effect exactly where I need it.

I have found this to be the most beneficial way to use PI with Vegas.

I appreciate everyone who took the time to answer my question. I hadn't heard about the .tga sequences; I'm going to give that a try. Now, maybe my question isn't so much of a PI question, perhaps it's more of a Vegas + PI question:

Suppose I want to some text to come flying onto the screen. I also want a comet-tail of 'pixie dust' (PI's Magic Trail Sparkle Emitter with some adjustments) to follow the letters as they come onto the screen. If I render a few frames of pixie dust from PI as a .tga sequence, how can I then precisely position this footage onto the footage of the text, tracking behind it like a comet-tail?

Another example would be a scene in my latest project where I'd like to synch a few bursts of a PI emitter with some snaps of a snare drum in the background music. I can render the emitters just fine, but how to precisely synch their appearance up to the sound of the music? If the drum is popped three times, would you just record three emitters at evenly spaced frames and synch their appearance in the final composition with a video velocity envelope?

Once again, thanks so much to everyone!
Rick <><

I'd do it the other way around. I'd bring in the AVI/TEXT into PI .. and do it from there. Or have I got your question wrong?

Grazie

>>If the drum is popped three times, would you just record three
>>emitters at evenly spaced frames and synch their appearance in
>>the final composition with a video velocity envelope?

1.) Do 3 TGA sequences, or 1 used 3 times.
2.) Use/place markers in Vegas in synch with your sound.
3.) Bring the 1 or 3 TGA sequences into Vegas.
4.) Place TGA seq. at your markers; possibly on different tracks.
5.) Use Event Pan/Crop to position the TGA sequences.

You're done!

PI does alot more than fairy dust.. believe me,.. its a friggin powerful tool which once u get to understand its grunt, you wont need to composite in vegas (itll also be alot faster to render in PI as its near realtime.. )

download as many emitters as u can and have a fiddle with area lighting.. then youl see waht im talkin abotu ;)

Help! I rendered a test .tga sequence of 50 frames from PI. On PI's "Output Options" dialog, I left everything defaulted, except I checked the "Save Alpha" box (to get transparency, I assumed.) The default output size Zoom % was set to 100.

When I import the sequence into Vegas, the image on the frames looks all "zoomed in" and distorted. Kinda like I zoomed in too close with Pan & Crop. What am I doing wrong here? Am I missing a setting either in PI or Vegas that'll allow the sequences to look the same once they've been imported into Vegas?

Thanks!
Rick <><

What frame size did you use in Particle Illusion? If you used something smaller than your Vegas project size then Vegas is zooming in to fill the frame.

On the Output options, check the Output Size. It doesn’t matter that the Zoom says 100%. What do the numbers next to the Zoom say? They should say (720x480). See the little disclaimer on the bottom of that window (Size is limited to stage window size). That might be the problem.

This is probably the most annoying thing about particleIllusion. The framesize is limited by the stage area display size in PI. That means if you want to output 720x480, you have to resize the physical display of PI so that the stage area is also 720x480. It’s like its taking screen captures when it renders (technically it is capturing the display buffer I guess) so resize any of the windows around the main workarea (i.e., the stage) so that you have 720x480 showing. (I hope this is clear, it’s kind of hard to explain) This assumes you have also set the stage area properly in the preferences.

~jr

I would suggest 654x480 or 655x480 instead of 720. Since Particle Illusion outputs a square-pixel file these sizes will best match an NTSC frame.

Many thanks to those who have helped so far. Resizing the stage in PI allowed me to produce a crisp looking sequence from PI! That IS kinda strange; having to resize the stage in PI to get it to export to the desired dimensions! Oh well, at least it works. However, I still have a problem:

As previously mentioned, I need the background transparent to overlay some other footage. I've tried various combinations in PI of "Save Alpha" and "Remove Black bg from RGB Channel" when rendering as a .tga sequence, but I always end up with a black (non-transparent) background no matter what I do. Is this just a limitation of the SE and/or evaluation edition of the software?

Someone suggested chromakeying out the black background. That sorta works, but I end up with a blurry "halo" effect around the PI footage when viewed over the background footage in Vegas.

I'm probably still missing the obvious, but I just can't quite figure this out. I appreciate you guys' patience with all my newbie questions!

Rick <><

WHOA!!!! I just figured it out!!!

I decided to try right clicking on Media Properties (it never hurts to try a right-click!) for the .tga sequence. I noticed that there is an "Alpha Channel" setting with about 4 values. I really don't know what these settings mean, but I changed it to "Premultiplied"... and my background video showed up!!! I stacked several copies of my .tga sequence on separate timelines to make sure they all showed up when overlayed.. and they did!!!!

Ain't it great when something works? Once again, many thanks to all!

Rick <><

This may have been mentioned:
1) render out your clip in Vegas - just the part where you need your EFX to be.
2) go to PI
3) add a background layer (You have all this already)
4) do your EFX
5) go to Record
6) change the file type to TGA Sequence
7) I always put these into a sub-directory so I don't have a ton of files floating in an important directory
8) CLICK "SAVE ALPHA"
8a) I also click "Mank non-intense alpha" on occasion
9) Go back to Vegas and Import the sequence (You know all this)
10) as you're importing it, you can go to Media Properties and tell it what aspect ratio you want and you should now be able to use Straight Alpha, which - to me - looks cleaner and is easier to use than pre-miltiplied. I like Straight Alpha because it seems you can do more with them (in Screen Mode, etc).
I know you know most all of that, but I just thought you may want a solution to not use pre-multiplied.
mjr

Those selections only come up if you check the "save alpha" box. At the end of Tutorial 5 in the help section of ParticleIllusion 3, there is a good discussion about when to check "create non-intense alpha" and "remove black black bg from RGB channels" and how/when to use the slider. Usually, I will not check the create non-intense alpha box and I will check the remove black bg box. I will set the "shrink" slider to mabey 5-10% or so if I'm getting dark halos around my rendered particles. It really depends on the emiter and what the background looks like. That is what checking "remove black bg from RGB channels" helps with as well.

Greg's answer is best. I'm certainly no expert. I've used it successfully in a few projects, but "successfully" is a relative tearm. I don't think I'm fooling anyone with my particle animations, but they seem to ammuse.
But to answer your questions, I've never used the blur option. Most of my particle animations are smoke or something I don't need blur for. Sorry.
I've also never used the "shrink" slider. I'll look into that section at the end of Tutorial 5. Sounds informative.

You were looking for some examples of Particle Illusion. Check out www.videobackstage.com. Click on the video sample icon and look for:

- Animated Logo
- Spinning Glass Logo
- Zebra Holograms (for the opening and closing logo)

I've also posted others at Chienworks site at www.vegasusers/vidshare/

Look for Chanimal uploads.

Hope that helps.

Ted

alot of people are saying export a sequence then reimport to vegas, however theres one critical factor thats not been mentioned.
If you do this, you will lose the direct relationship between the particles generated and the background media. Being that the particles direclty affect the light, colou, contrast gama etc etc, if u export the sequnce then composit in vegas, you lose all this, so your effect will look like its just been plastered on.
Now with this exporting, you CAN emulate the relationship between the PI sequnce and teh original video by using compositions in vegas, but then you have silly render times....

I've put up a spot with half a dozen "cheezy" PI sequences in it. They won't convince anyone that the effects REALLY happening, but I've been getting a consistant chuckle by most folk who watch it. That's all I was hoping for.
If you're interested, go to
www.matthewroddy.com/videospots
The files with PI in them are "allergyanim3" and "E-Waste."

MJ! - Totally hilarious . . I'm still larfing here in London .. . superb scripting of the E-Waste thing . . .EXCELLENT! ! ! !

.. oh yeah the PI stuff was rather spiffing too ...

Grazie

mjroddy:

I absolutely LOVE what you've done in those samples! That e-waste one is a hoot! This is exactly the sort of stuff I want to do: incorporate PI effects onto real background footage!

I've discovered that it's not hard at all to make a lot of pretty sparks with PI (I am now the proud owner of a legal copy of PI SE; decided to pony up the cash and get a real copy.) I figured out how to import a .tga sequence into Vegas with alpha transparency.

But how are you lining up the 'flying sparks' to the right X and Y coordinates in the underlying video so precisely? Do you just mark the spot in the Vegas timeline where/when the sparks should appear, then use pan/crop/zoom/track motion to line everything up?

I've had no luck in importing a Vegas-generated AVI into PI. Maybe there's a way, but I can't get it to work. All I can get is an 'AVI format request' error.

Any tips you can provide will be much appreciate. Again, that's some really cool stuff you've done!

Rick <><

Grazie -
Thanks for the kind words. Glad I could generate a laugh from someone across the pond. That makes me happy 8^)
Rick -
Yes, to your work flow. I did all the editing of the spot in High-Res, so I had to cheet the particle anim quite a bit. Fortunately with the particles I used, it was seemless.
Working in 1920x1080, I used GearShift to generate a SD DV Proxy of just the area I wanted to put the FX on. I took that file into PI as a background. Then, for the Computer Meltdown Sequence, I did each FX track separately: that is, the sparks is a single 27 frame animation (I used a Blocker to bounce off his leg); the floor smoke is another anim and the computer smoke is yet another anim (a blocker was used here also to simulate the top of the nook the computer was in). Each of these anims are now rendered as a TGA sequence with Straight Alpha and brought into Vegas. And, yes, I had to use Track Motion to line them up. Fortunately, once I did one, I was able to Duplicate that track and replace the animation with the new animation and everything lined up.
For the Cell Phone sequence, I got a little lazy and did all FX on one animation. I brought my SD DV footage in as a background (OH! I always turn off my background before final rendering! )(Well, not always, but that just screws me up) and literally, frame-by-frame rotoscoped the particle emiters. Sometimes you can go many frames without a new keyframe, but with the organic motion of a human hand flailing about, I was, in many areas, frame-by-frame.
Then, back in Vegas, with a little Track Motion magic, it all married up nicely.
I'd have to look again, but I may have used a composite mode of Add or Screen. I'm many miles from that computer right now, so I'd have to check tonight about that.
As for your AVI error, I'm useless. My DV AVI works in my PI. But I'm using the full version. Have you tried rendering an Uncompressed AVI from Vegas and bringing that in as a BKG? Have you tried writing to WonderTouch and asked them why it's hassling you? There is also a forum dedicated to PI. You can see a link there on the main page (www.wondertouch.com).
Good luck. Show us your results!

Hi MjRoddy,

Just wondering, the effect in the "bbq - women - fullscreen" clip, where the title plate comes in at the end and the "sheet of light" moves over it. Can you possibly shed some light (pardon the pun) on how this is done.

I've been using masks and glow in Vegas but it doesn't look very convincing. I recently got PI but haven't found a reasonable emitter to do it.

Hope you can help, thanks

TeeJay