It is my impression that Graffiti as a Vegas plugin is only useful for generating static titles, not the moving, twisting and turning 3D titles that all of us crave. Is that correct?

Laurence look at these tutorials; particularly the second one.
http://www.borisfx.com/hosts/sony/graffiti.php

"With the new static generators " Would you mind explaining to me what exactly that does?

Prior to static generators you would have to drop the Boris Graffiti plugin into an existing clip, or more likely, create an empty clip and then drop the Graffiti plugin into that. Now all you have to do is drag one of the static generator preset effects (located on the Vegas "Media Generator" tab) onto a track, and a clip plus the effect are both automatically created for you. It makes the workflow very easy. You can create your own presets to customize the choice of options.

O.K., that's what the sample clips demonstrate on their website and that caught my eye right away. I've already ordered the upgrade based on your recommendations, and thanks.

It's hard to believe how many people here complain about the Vegas titler when this time-proven application is available. I saw that someone was recommending Cayman Graphics Power CG, which I've been using for years with DPS Velocity, but that is way inferior to what Boris Graffiti can do (which I've been using as a standalone CG for a short time now). I can't wait to start using it in Vegas.

I was looking at the demos. Pretty cool stuff! There are a lot of purchase options though. What is the best package to order? My titling needs are pretty simple for the most part.

What is the best package to order? My titling needs are pretty simple for the most part.

I puzzled over this myself. I actually even found an offer of a toll free phone number just for this purpose but since it was a weekend I finally figured out that the best deal is the Vegas Special pricing, which is an upgrade from Boris 3 (a very light version of Boris that comes bundled with the purchase of Vegas) to Boris 5.1, which is an expanded version, but most importantly, contains the Vegas plugin which enables us to do what the demo presents. The price is $ 199.

Have a look at Prodad Heroglyph (cheaper version is adequate)

It has a lot more presets that Grafitti and is quicker to use. A bit confusing at first but quite powerful once you get used to it.

If you want easy 3D, then have a look at Bluff Titler

Alternatively, with a little imigination you can get some excellent results using Vegas titler with transitions and FX.


What type of titling do you need to do.

Andrew

I already have (and love) Bluff Titler. For 3D stuff it is really amazing. Decent titling from within Vegas is what I'm after, and what Boris Grafitti seems to offer. In addition to the $199 upgrade offer for Vegas users, they also have a Vegas package for $299 that includes Boris FX. Does FX do image stabilization from within Vegas? Is it FX worth the extra hundred dollars?

OK I downloaded and installed the Grafitti plugin. It seems nothing at all like the previously linked demos. I can't make it do even the simplest thing. It's GUI seems totally sluggish and unresponsive. It simply can't be this bad and I must be doing something wrong. Is anyone having better luck?

I did too and got the same results. man the gui really sucks, can anyone decipher the small icons?

If you use FX, then Boris/Grafitti bundle is definately worth getting.

It does image stabilisation and tracking.

FX and Grafitti are a little hard to get used to, but once you understad the interface, it gets a lot easier.

The good thing I found is that the demo version is unlimited. After the trial period you can continue to use it with an X on anything you create with Boris.

The help file has a good step by step intro for most effects and titling.

Andrew

I talked at length to a Boris sales rep this afternoon, and asked him specifically about motion stabilization. He told me that the motion effects like stabilization didn't work in Vegas because of frame limitations in Vegas. Since that was the main reason I was interested in FX, I kind of lost interest at that point.

I'm finding the GUI not only unintuitive, but deathly slow, especially at HDV resolutions.

Laurence, Actually you can do image stabilization from Vegas but it take a slight trick. Vegas only passes one frame at a time to Boris, but Boris needs the entire sequence of frames to perform its motion analysis. The workaround is to replace the default reference of "V1" (the video from the NLE) to refer to the clip file. Very easy to do, as it just takes two or three clicks of the mouse. For full details on how to do this perform a search for some of my previous posts.

As for performance, Boris Red has been very fast for me since it makes full use of the hardware on my graphics card (unlike Vegas). Did you check to see that your card is supported by Boris? If not, that would explain the uncharacteristic sluggishness you are experiencing.

[edit]: You should also set your Dynamic RAM Preview in Vegas to zero.

Yeah I imagine you could do that in Boris Red, but that's a lot more expensive than Graffiti or FX.

AGHH!! What a convoluted application this Boris is!! I think I just wasted $ 200 and learned why there is so little interest in Boris Graffiti on this forum.

I have arrived at the conclusion that the best way for me to create titles to a moving picture is in Mirage, which is where I do all my work in the first place. I just import the clip or a whole series of clips from Vegas by simply creating a Preview Player file with two clicks, including sound if need be, and load this preview clip into Mirage as a non-preloaded layer so that it takes no memory whatsoever to play at real time.

Then on a layer above I can create titles doing everything I have so far seen in Boris with a far more intuitive timeline and titler and either render the title layer back to Vegas with an alpha channel to be placed over the image events, or just render the non-preloaded image layer with it's title layer in Mirage as an uncompressed avi, to which I can return to at anytime for changes.

The demos on the Boris site enticed me, but once I attempted to emulate them I had to slog through a jungle of explanations why this doesn't work too well in Vegas and that it works better to stay inside of Boris (as others have mentioned here too).

Paul, don't get too frustrated. Yes, Boris does have a distinct approach to its interface, but there are many of us here who are using their products. Please take the time to follow their tutorials step by step. I faced the same reaction as you intitially (and spend a heck of a lot more than just $200). Boris Red is one of the best investments I have ever made with regard to video editing. Though it is somewhat complicated, it is extremely powerful. I recommend investing the time to make Graffiti work. I think you will be quite happy in the long run.

TD, I appreciate your sentiments -- I console others myself when they at first feel this way about Mirage (there are no simple graphics applications), but my work is all about drawing everything by hand and on a tablet (paperless animation) therefore I stay away from any video FX whatsoever, with the exception of dissolves, fade outs and titles.

My editing decisions are mostly made in the drawing stage so the rest of Boris is thus meaningless to me. I had been searching merely for the best titler available to Vegas and gave Boris what I consider a fair try. I can make it do what I need from it, but it seems to require so many strange steps to get there.

In my common, everyday workflow I have both Mirage and Vegas opened at the same time all the time; day and night, so it just happens to be a better solution for me to stick with what is already opened and familiar to me.

Thank you for your kindness,

Paul

If you do decide to use Graffiti at some point and are having difficulties, please feel free to contact me by email (accessible through my profile) and I'll gladly lend a hand.

Peter

Thank you so much, Peter, and I might take you up on this offer since Boris might prove to be the best solution for credit crawls.

-Paul

BG3 has, does and still continues to drive me up the wall!

I too would like some simple ways to get BG3 to work . . fluidly . .

After exchanging a few dozen e-mails and spending an hour or more on the phone with Peter today he walked me through all I wanted and needed to know so I can safely say that BG5 works great for me now! As everyone who uses BG says; there's nothing to it once you get started and the principles of the software suddenly hit home. I'd say that the biggest fault lies with the manual, which could be much better written with better illustrated tutorials, and there could be better basic presets -- perhaps a training, or beginner's preset. Thanks Peter, and thanks to the few others here who encouraged me to keep trying.

Once you figure it out, can it do real 3d moves? I want letters that spin in different planes and twist and turn as they rotate. Are you able to do that with Graffiti?