I really and truly appreciate you taking the time to make and invest into
strengthening the usability and versatility of Sony Vegas.

I am terribly peeved at the numerous negative and uncalled for doom of Vegas by
many in this forum. But they fail to realize the true strength of Vegas and that the
grass is not greener on the other side, Sony Vegas is here to stay and its
even more proven by the many plugin companies that have made support
for Vegas with many more to come.

Some even fail to realize that tons of the plugins that are usually available for
After Effects are now available for Vegas with full support (that's not a sign of
a week and failing host).

Anyway, i could go on and on, but i just wanna say Good Job Satevis, these are
great tools. I really like the feature of pausing a render in the free extension.
And the color match has the right amount of intelligent features for a new plug.

Results so far:

1) In continuous mode at least it takes a very long time to render. Fair enough it's doing a lot of calculations but I can really see this as a show stopper for the speed freaks here.

2) At the end of the 10 minute clip I've been trialling it with I'd swung the camera around. Graide does it's best to match that to the reference frame but that produces a far from desirable outcome, understandably so. Some way to keyframe Graide to tell it not to even try at that point in the video would be good or even some way to limit how much correction it applies.
I can easily fix this issue myself with a cut and dissolve but I can see others wanting a simple way to cope with such a situation.

Bob.

Thank you both for your feedback.

The speed of the Continuous mode heavily depends on how "different" the frames are (according to the plugin's notion of "different", which does not necessarily match a human's), so it will be faster in some cases and slower in others. Maybe I can tweak this a bit more (or even add a "quality" parameter?), but right now, it's probably best to use the RAM preview for the more problematic cases.

I had and have plans for supporting animation of the effect strength but treated them rather low-priority so far, because, as you said, you can basically just use a dissolve between events with and without the effect. I agree, though, that animation would make fading in and out the effect much simpler, so maybe that should be the next feature to add.

Michael

Vegas 11 & newer only. I have 10. :) I'm editing a live performance and the trailer looked like it could help.

Since I can't try, I'll ask a question: can you have the footage that's effected be set to a constant brightness/contrast based on a source image/footage? That way to eliminate spot like hot spots & dark spots?

I'm using the OFX plugin interface. Unfortunately that was not available in Vegas 10.

In continuous mode, the plugin will try to match the brightness/contrast of every input frame to your reference image, which will pretty much eliminate temporal brightness changes of the overall image. Not sure if that's what you're after.

OFX was introduced in 10. I downloaded the trial on my wife's laptop and it loads. I loaded up a gopro video and loaded the Quake 2 256 color pallet file as my reference. It made my video 256 colors. I also tried a 16-color EGA, orange color ramp & a red/black ramp with an alpha channel. It ignored alpha channels but it did use the red/black ramp part (seems to to an alpha test so when the alpha level drops below 50% it then ignores it).

But I rendered out with the trial, so it seems to work.

Ok, this might be more awesomer and easier then I thought.

I did a color curves adjustment on a live performance. Looked decent in most spots, in the spotlight areas it would blow out and I would loose the detail (detail was there before the curves adjustment). I would have to manually go back and animate curve changes during certain scenes to fix it.

I took that frame (one that was blown own with curves) & saved it to a png (w/o FX applied). I used that png in the continuous setting and it did most of my work for me! :)

Awesome plugin! (BTW I'm using Vegas 10-64, didn't try in 32-bit).

Oh, OFX was available in 10? Then I must have mixed that up with the new render dialog (that came with 11, didn't it?). Glad you checked! :) I suppose I better dust off my own Vegas 10, run a few tests, and update the requirements.

By the way: If you just want to copy a frame, you don't even have to save it as PNG first but can paste it right into the plugin. Pasted frames, however, will not be kept in memory forever once they have been analyzed. If you want to view the source and reference frames even after shutting down and reopening Vegas, then you'd indeed have to save them somewhere.

The plugin only has a 64 bit version, so it won't work with 32 bit versions of Vegas. Not so much because it would be impossible to create a 32 bit version but because Vegas itself benefits greatly from a 64 bit environment, so I'm not sure how widely used 32 bit Vegas is today.

I keep Vegas 10 32 installed because a couple plugins I have are 32-bit only. I apply them, render out a new files & then replace the old files with the new ones, then re-open the project in Vegas 64. But since 32-bit ended with 10 I doubt it's not used much any more.

I'm happy to see any development like this on Vegas, especially with Resolve 12 adding NLE features, and Premiere Pro adding the Lumetri color correction/grading features ([url=

Michael, I'd love to see you (or anyone) attempt something like the new PPro Lumetri panel for Vegas (by which I mainly mean a unification of multiple color correction tools such as wheels and curves in a user-friendly single FX), or even just a "Color Curves Plus" plugin that would make life easier for people like me who spend half their life in that fiddly little Sony Color Curves FX.

Color Curves Wishlist:
- much bigger window with a grid
- a diagonal bottom-left-to-top-right guide line
- real numbers on the axes
- live output of coordinates
- the ability to input precise coordinates
- ability to change the RGB master curve after "splitting" the individual Red-Green-Blue curves.
- make "Show all channels" default to ON, like it used to in VP10 and earlier
- import/export LUT
- automated mapping of blacks and whites to desired values (e.g. 16 and 235).

Apologies for the derailment. Just thought I'd throw this in while we have a suitably-qualified developer's attention.

I'm not sure if it's due to the plugin being used while rendering or just some fluke at the moment, but I can't open another instance of Vegas 10 while I'm rendering with this (@13 more hours to go. Already went through 10 hours on a ~38 min video I'm recoloring with this plugin)

I now did a few tests myself and it does indeed seem to work nicely with Vegas 10, apart from the fact that Vegas 10 displays an empty "Parameters" tab when you open the plugin and you have to switch to the second tab manually. I had no problems of opening a second Vegas 10 instance while rendering with the plugin in another, so maybe it was really just a fluke.

Nick, the grand vision would indeed be to add more plugins such as curves and eventually combine them into an integrated color-correction and grading solution for Vegas Pro. Color Match isn't much more than a first, tentative step in that direction so I won't make any promises right now, but I'll certainly add your comments to my list of ideas.

As I understand the "need" of the style of the OP's plugin - I would not ask for any further pursuit along these lines - It is just really already a feature set partially already built into VegasPro13 release and not necessary to be over redundant in the practical operation phase.

There is already even a better solution put out for VegasPro by Revision EFX - so don't bother pursuing IMO.

On the other hand as a previous post pointed out - there are a list of specific enhancements that would be a desirable pursuit of development. Look at the Wish List that was posted above - AND then add special emphasis to taking color LUT from the Catalyst Edit Suite by Sony and providing connect to VegasPro13. This is something that I have been told will not be pursued by SCS and IT OUGHT TO BE available.

I agree that the best route for now might be to develop additional color correction tools. Nevertheless, I think Graide Color Match does have its merits even in the face of alternative solutions:

The Sony Color Match effect that comes with Vegas apparently uses a very different approach at color matching. In some cases, both effects produce very similar results, in others, they are noticeably different:

Comparison image

Also, Sony Color Match has no continuous mode and thus cannot correct changes over time. Nor can it limit the analysis to only a region of an image.

The results from the RE:Match plugin are much more similar, though not quite identical. Still, you might find Graide Color Match easier to use.

Here's the results from me correcting a single frame & using that as reference on the video to contentiously correct the color:

Satevis, your observation that no two color tools produce exactly the same result should be a very large clue for you. Such a project in development would find probably absolute no reward other than personal satisfaction.

On the other hand working with Catalyst Edit as a LUT in/out point could be absolutely lucrative as well as a personal triumph. Please comment on your view of that project possiblity?

TheHappyFriar, that's actually a neat idea, manually grading one frame of a clip and then using continuous mode to force the rest of the sequence to follow that grade even if the source levels or colors change.

videoITguy, it's not just personal satisfaction. I actively use this plugin for color correcting and grading and while automatic color matching will never be a one-step solution to every color correction problem, it's one tool of many that help me get the results that I want.

As for importing LUTs, I haven't yet worked with Catalyst myself, but the online help suggests that it exports fairly standard LUT files. I would assume that it's possible to create a plugin that reads such a file and applies the transformation to a Vegas media item, event or track. In fact, I'm not sure why SCS wouldn't want to provide that functionality themselves with the next major version of Vegas.

Satevis, your observation that no two color tools produce exactly the same result should be a very large clue for you. Such a project in development would find probably absolute no reward other than personal satisfaction.

Kind of like how Adobe developed Premiere & SCS develops Vegas and since their results aren't the same SCS is doing it for no reward then then personal, right? :)

The guy made a plugin & about 1/2 the users posting in the thread are telling him he's wasting his time. It's a complete wonder any 3rd party would want to make ANY plugins for Vegas when 1/2 the users say it's a waste of time.

TheHappyFriar, that's actually a neat idea, manually grading one frame of a clip and then using continuous mode to force the rest of the sequence to follow that grade even if the source levels or colors change.

Awesome idea, yes! At first I just exported the frame I wanted, then I decided to CC it a little bit first & use that result. I put two instances of the video on the TL & applied the different images to each to see how they looked.

I'm impressed by the results. The brightness & colors were much more consistent using the "continuous" method vs CC'ing based on a small time in the event. Granted it took ~2 whole days on my system (one of the kids put it in hibernate ~70% though and I found out 7 hours later, but it continued w/o issue) but hey, I told my wife I had other things to do anyway so instead of spending hours manually fixing the scenes individually this did it automatically.

Satevis, you have to grasp what is going on at Sony. There is a broad shakeup and redefining of their business model. For many years the VegasPro/SCS has just been a deep-seated poor orphan. The new business model is not going to support that.

The new energy is going behind the Catalyst Edit Suite. This is a different platform, a different rationale, and definitely changed underpinnings. In truth the optimal machine hardware will not support VegasPro and Catalyst being on the same PC. You could even read that maybe Catalyst will be adopted by the MAC community that dabbles in VegasPro on a side workstation.

So, I urge you to put your marbles where they will do the most good for the larger community.

So, no, SCS will not devote one resource element to reading LUT from Catalyst - certainly withdrawing in a sense from any forward momentum of VegasPro. This would be left to the individual entrepreneur who is seeking out the niche.

Something is seriously wrong with your trail of thoughts and line of thinking VideoITguy!
And has always been!

Keep up the good work Satevis, your plugin is far superior in every way to the vegas
built in Color Match, and now offer users the option of choosing Yours or RevisionFX
Re:Match.

Oh, once again your free extension is a gem.

[I]"The guy made a plugin & about 1/2 the users posting in the thread are telling him he's wasting his time. It's a complete wonder any 3rd party would want to make ANY plugins for Vegas when 1/2 the users say it's a waste of time."[/I]

My understanding is that it's an OFX plugin so it should work in anything that supports OFX.

[I]"Granted it took ~2 whole days on my system"[/I]

Interesting. The first clip I used Graide on it did the same thing, I CC'ed a frame from the video, saved that as PNG and used that as the reference for Graide in Continuous mode. Render was VERY slow.

Second time I told Graide to use an uncorrected frame from the same video. Render time was now dramatically shorter. I have no idea why one method is so much different to the other. I would have thought there should be no difference.

Bob.

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