I use the full version and like it a lot. Overcoming the interface is a bit difficult but once you pass that hurdle its not bad.

We use RED, which contains the full version of Graffitti, it indeed is powerful. Shortly, you'll see a VASST book from Chris Vadnais on Boris Red, which contains a lot of Graffitti related techniques and information.

I'm also heavily considering upgrading to the full version of Graffiti. RED is nice but it costs too much for my budget right now. One thing I need to find out is if it's going to do the job faster & easier for Vegas compared to AEFX's titling capability? Anyone has input on this? Or am I comparing orange with apple here? Thanks.

great but clunky rendering to VV, unless Im wrong, plaese correct me

It's not clunky to render with Vegas (have you got personal experience of this... or have you <heard> this from someone else). Where it <definitely> IS CLUNKY is with the way it integrates with the Vegas timeline.

Using the full version of Graffiti it does integrate with the timeline in that you add a graffiti FX to an empty event and thus your Veg file contains ALL the settings for your Graffiti ttitles. This means that when you render your project as usual all your graffiti titles get generated along with it (which is great).

The bit that is REAL CLUNKY is that you cannot preview the Vegas timeline while you are defining/editing the titles in the Graffiti interface. This may or may not be a problem depending on what you are trying to do.

Hopefully you get the subtlety of what I am saying here.

And... I do very much like Graffiti... I use it a lot... I just wish it integrated a <little> more completely with Vegas than it does.

Previewing BG3 is pants! - I DON'T like the interface - I DON'T like the hurdles I have too jump through to get the simplest of stuff done. AND I'm real jealous of those who can work with it! It beat me as did MS ACCESS however RBase MSDos didn't . . i can make and create relational databases in MSDos . .BUT I can't get the hang of BG3.

I want to see the work I prepare in BG3 preview in Vegas! - Oh yeah, you have to reduce RAM Render in Vegas to 0 ! Good eh?

One day . . . one day . .. .

Grazie

Thanks for the inputs there.. but there's one thing that's not answered for me yet. I can have access to AEFX (After Effects), do you think it will be redundant to have both Graffiti and AEFX or Graffiti will definitely surpass AEFX in terms of titling in Vegas in terms of speed and ease of use? That's what I'm trying to consider. I've been trying to play around with AEFX with the titling capability, it seems that it's not that easy to integrate with Vegas. I don't know if I did the setting wrong, after I render the title to Quicktime uncompressed and put it in Vegas timeline, it doesn't even look as good as Boris Graffiti LTD titles. Hence the question if BG is better than AEFX (worth spending extra $150) or just stick with AEFX for now, but again I'm not sure if I'm comparing apples with oranges here. Thanks.

Grazie - seems I mastered relational DB in Access without cracking the manual - but, for the life of me, I can't get to first base with Graffiti LTD. I'm perusing the forums today in search of some simple, step by step description of just what I need to do in this LTD version to accomplish some work by which I can evaluate this program.

I've determined on a number of occasions to master this ap only to get stalled on the opening screen - perhps "I just don't got it!"

Someone 'splain to me that it isn't me, or point me in the right direction, please.

Been meaning to figure this program out since upgrading to version 4 - need to get there before version 24 arrives.

Caruso

> I'm perusing the forums today in search of some simple, step by step description of just what I need to do in this LTD version to accomplish some work by which I can evaluate this program.

Caruso, I have a very simple getting started Boris Graffiti tutorial on my web site that will get you from Vegas, into Boris Graffiti LTD and back to Vegas with a title with motion and transparency. Hope this helps get you started.

~jr

Thanks, Johnny. Actually, shortly after posting the previous reply, I stumbled onto a link to your tutorial, and have spent the morning playing (or attempting to play) with it. I discovered upon trying to launch Graffiti this morning, that I had some sort of missing or corrupt quicktime dll. Figured a reinstall of Boris might fix the problem - then, discovered that I don't possess Graffiti on a disc (my V5 was the downloaded version), spent quite a while looking for a Graffiti download on the Vegas site - finally figured out that it is listed as part of the Vegas 5 update page.

Tried reinstalling it, I'm missing some sort of MSnet1.1 update - downloaded that, installed Boris Graffiti LTD again (probably wouldn't have had to), and have worked through your tutorial - it's short, sweet, to the point and got me going - thanks.

Now, then, I got the text to move just as you instruct - how would I make it move to a point, then, stop and stay there - displayed for a few seconds? It appears I cannot simply add duplicate key frames - click the cursor ahead and insert a keyframe without moving the title - so, how would I do that?

Also, under the styles tab, my options for changing the text color don't appear to be working correctly - I can only seem to get black and white text - clicking the color tab does nothing.

I've made more progress (albeit a tiny increment) today than I have in a coujple of years - thanks, Roy.

Caruso

> It appears I cannot simply add duplicate key frames - click the cursor ahead and insert a keyframe without moving the title - so, how would I do that?

If you right-click on a keyframe you will get a context menu that will allow you to Copy Keyframe. Then just move the timeline cursor to the new position and right-click on it and select Paste Keyframe. This will keep your text in the same position between those two keyframes.

> Also, under the styles tab, my options for changing the text color don't appear to be working correctly - I can only seem to get black and white text - clicking the color tab does nothing.

Make sure the text is highlighted in the text editor and then double-click on the color you want it to change to. This is true for the text, fonts, and gradients tab too. The text you want to affect must have the focus by being highlighted. This is so you can change individual characters.

~jr

Not sure if Sony arleady does this, but they should include in their marketing of Vegas software that, in addition to being a fine piece of software, it is also supported by this fine forum.
Thanks, Johnny, for your quick response.

I'm going to fire up Graffiti and check out your suggestions.

Caruso

Ok, JohnnyRoy - a rocket scientist I ain't. The copy/paste keyframe worked exactly as you said it would (I should have been able to figure this out on my own). Channging of the text color did not do as I would have expected, given your instructions.

Tell me what I am missing here:

In the text window, I highlight the text upon which I would like to impose a color change.
I click "Style Pallette" and then the color tab in anticipation of being able to change the color of the text.

What comes up is a grey box. Double clicking on it offers no response from my system. If I click to add - only more grey boxes appear.

I must be missing something. Your advice is appreciated.

Thanks.
Caruso

. .. I'm listening . . . g

JohnnyRoy:

"Tip: If the font tab is empty, you need to manually add your Windows fonts. Click the Add Category button under the blank drop down list and give the category a name like "Windows" and press OK and it will load all your windows fonts and show you samples"

I'm curious how you ever figured this out. In a million years, I would not have guessed to type "Windows" in that box and have my fonts loaded. Is there some other box I'm supposed to drop down and load something to get colors for text?

Having actually made this program do something for me today, I can see where it has potential - but I've a long way to go to get proficient with it.

Thanks again for your help - don't leave me now!!
Caruso

Hello Johnny Roy,

Thanks for the tutorial, was helpfull.
Strange thing; when I render to a movie and import it into V5, al the animation wich I had in Graffiti 3 is gone, its just static.
Any idea why?

Thanks in advance: Robert Glotzbach

Sorry,

Found it allready, I used the wrong AVI type; AVI direct show doesn't work. Used AVI VFW instead. Does someone know the difference?

Regards, Robert Glotzbach

So, robert, are you able to add color to your text in BG3Ltd? Under the color tab, there appear to be no color options on my setup. Also, the styles library appears to be off limits to us LTD users - something that isn't mentioned in the manual's list of LTD limitations.

That's what I find so frustrating with this program - hard to tell if you are going about some task incorrectly, or if it's simply not included with our version.

I intend to keep trying this time around, though.

BTW, so far, text I've rendered seems very blurry when pulled to the vegas timeline - even if I selectively prerender. Any suggestions?

Caruso

robertglotzbach "AVI direct show doesn't work. Used AVI VFW instead. Does someone know the difference?" - short answer - the former is older Windows technology - my (limited) understanding is that VFW (Video For Windows) is preferable to use (if the option is even presented to you) on modern machines and OSs.
Further Chris Vadnais over at the DMN forums pointa out that Boris was originally designed arounf QuickTime on Mac machines, and he finds that rendering out to QuickTime files to be more reliable on Windows machines.
If anyone else has any experience with this I would love to here it - fir instance -- what to make of all the various compression options for both Targa seqs. and QT - I mean what does it mean to use TGA compression (or PNG or Componebt?..., etc.) on a Targa Sequence as Movie Type in the Boris rendering dialog? fultro

Sorry I didn’t get back here sooner. I’ve been preparing for my trip to NAB2005 and we’re launching a few new products that needed some last minute tweaks so I’ve been extremely busy.

> What comes up is a grey box. Double clicking on it offers no response from my system. If I click to add - only more grey boxes appear.

Hmmm... My color tab has a dropdown list of palettes. Is it possible you have a greay palette selected? Click the dropdown in the upper left corner of the color tab and see if there are other palettes available to you. This is strange. (and beyond me)

> Tip: If the font tab is empty, you need to manually add your Windows fonts [edit] I'm curious how you ever figured this out. In a million years,

It was a while ago so I don’t remember. I think I may have actually broke down in a weak moment and Read The Fine Manual. ;-) Seriously, I tried to go through the tutorials from Boris and the LTD version is so hacked up that NONE of the tutorials could be completed. Not one of them! That’s when I decided to write my own. Why should others have to suffer.

> BTW, so far, text I've rendered seems very blurry when pulled to the vegas timeline - even if I selectively prerender. Any suggestions?

Before you render in Boris you have to toggle the quality. In the Composite window (upper right) under the Preview menu select Toggle Quality (Ctrl+T) and then render again. It will now render in full quality. This is important to remember. Boris will render exactly what you see in the Composite window so make sure you turn up the quality before rendering.

~jr

"are you able to add color to your text in BG3Ltd? Under the color tab, there appear to be no color options on my setup"

Hello Caruso,

Yes, color works fine for me too; maybe you should check if the "CLR" files are in you styles folder (they seem to be the color pallets)?
program files/Boris fx Inc/styles
Are you able to push the "edit selected file" in you color Tab, it should allow you to change colors.

Regards: Robert Glotzbach

Johnny / Robert:
Thanks for the replies. If I navigate to my Boris Styles folder, there are color palette*.clr files there, where * is the number of that particular palette. If, within Boris, I click styles, then the color tab, there is nothing there. If I click the add button, what would I type in the box to point Boris towards its own styles directory?

I can't imagine it should be this complicated to get colors - must be something wrong with my installation.

"Edit selected style" is greyed out - probably because there are no color "styles" in my list.

Ouch - this starts to get painful.

Caruso