I have watched the videos yet, but I wonder how close shine is to Sonic Foundry's Rays (I think that was the name.) I don't really know how to use AE or Combustion. Since I can only afford so much, my video arsenal is Vegas, Blender, Paint Shop, and Animation Shop.

Here is a video I did as a recap for a Disciple Now weekend at my church. There's not much story, but the kids liked seeing them selves on the big screen in the morning service the next day.

http://www.ebenezerbaptist.com/students/relive/disciplenow/disciple_now_video_2002.mov

The entire project was done with Photoshop, Vegas 3, ACID 3, and a few ACID loops. It took me almost a week before the weekend started to set up and prerender all of the overlay graphics and background textures. But I'm kind of proud that the visuals are 100% from Photoshop and Vegas. No Digital Juice Jumpbacks in this.

Of course the full resolution video looks much better without the compression artifacts.

JBJones

But to get back on topic with this thread. Trapcode is yet another company I'll be emailing to request their products be ported to Vegas.

JBJones

Really nice compositing! And loved the horizontal bungee running (or whatever they call it!).

I enjoyed it a lot. It gave me several ideas that I look forward to trying. Also makes me want to finally get around to learning Acid, though I only have the free version.

That was awesome. How did you do the animated background?

To create the animated background, I used the D shield logo which I created in Photoshop. Photoshop is where all the bevels and shading came from in the logo so it was easy to create a flat version with only two colors (white logo on green background).

The background animation is actually two of these logos rotating in oposite directions the snot skewed out of them to create a sense that they were laying down and receding into the background.

The tricky part was getting around the fact that you can't rotate an image and apply the skewing plugin in the same track. So, I had to take the white on green logo and render out a separate AVI of the logo rotating clockwise 360 degrees. I then brought that uncompressed AVI back into my project. From there it was simple to key out the green background (hence the need for the uncompressed AVI) and apply some blur, opacity adjustments, and some extra lens flares to give some extra light movement.

I hope you could understand all of that.

JBJones

JBJones. I am not sure if I am seeing what I should be seeing in your video. I downloaded it and viewed it in Windows Media Player and don't see any children, etc., that you mention. There are a couple of tabs at the bottom left to change the "Visualization" which give me an interesting variety of backgrounds, but nothing like you describe. What am I doing wrong?
RonR

This is a Quicktime video clip, so Windows Media Player might not have the correct CODEC. See if you can view it with Quicktime 5 or later.

JBJones

Very intesting. Thought about writing a tutorial? It might be interesting if you can create the same effect using just the generated media. The logo wouldn't be as cool, but you could at least portray the same idea of creating the background. It would possibly take two .veg files I suppose - one for the first .avi, and one for the skew and stuff effects.

I am impressed.

I have considered writing a tutorial, and I actually started working on it right after I finished the project. But I only got about two paragraphs written and a few screen captures made before I started another project. Then I never made it back to creating the tutorial.

JBJones

jbjones, I really enjoyed the video that you did for your church. Totally impressed with the entire project!! Just a couple of questions:

1) I have been looking for similar soundfx as you used in the opening when the "D" swooshed in and then "stamped" in. Also the following text that "seared in." Where did you get those effects?? I have searched site after site to no avail. Would you consider emailing both to me at kk5551@hotmail.com, if it is a legal clip of course. If not, any good ideas of where I might find such effects??

2) Also, how did you do the appearing text after the "D". I loved it!!

Big thanks, Kade

jbjones, Sorry about the double post. I really enjoyed the video that you did for your church. Totally impressed with the entire project!! Just a couple of questions:

1) I have been looking for similar soundfx as you used in the opening when the "D" swooshed in and then "stamped" in. Also the following text that "seared in." Where did you get those effects?? I have searched site after site to no avail. Would you consider emailing both to me at kk5551@hotmail.com, if it is a legal clip of course. If not, any good ideas of where I might find such effects??

2) Also, how did you do the appearing text after the "D". I loved it!!

Big thanks, Kade

jbjones. I just downloaded Quicktime and saw your very professional looking movie. I look forward to the day you post a tutorial on how you did it. I hope 8-)
Thanks, Ron

Wow. I didn't expect this many glowing responses to my post. I hope I don't get a big head somewhere down the line. :)

The sound effects during the swoosh of the shield and for the words coming in on top of the sheild were created from about 10 different sound clips out of the 1001 sound effect library. Took me about a whole day to get everything like I wanted. Lots of experimenting with slowing down/speeding up sounds, repeating just parts of sounds, adding reverb, etc.

The specific wav files used were:
Blizard 01
Explosion 04
Missle 01
Low End Rumble Loop 02
Low End Rumble Loop 03
Low Sci Fi Rumble Loop
Power Window Down 01
Hand Scanner
Radio Hit Digital Bull Horn 02
Space Gun 06


The visual effect of the words coming in, was created from:
1. Two still images. Each line as a separate image. Both on green background for the Chromokey filter.

2. Then I animated the Light Rays filter across each line to give it that bursting into view effect.

JBJones

Hi,

I loved your piece as well. And I loved the sound effects as well. What's the name of the sound effects package? And where did you find it?

Your church is very lucky. :)

Scott