In my opinion you should render out your m2t file as an lagarith AVI and import into PI as sugested by reberclark. However I'd just render the PI effects over top of the Lagarith AVI and use that entire new AVI in Vegas.

What reberclark recommended will work, but I've had some issues get dirty edges around some of the PI effects doing it that way. Not sure if that's PI or Vegas's fault. Using his method will allow for you to better control the transparency of the effect, if that's important.

I've had the same issues as GregFlowers but continue to experiment in Lagarith settings to remove those edge problems. Also, and I'm not sure why yet, those problems don't always happen to me.

Of course using a composited AVI from PI will look great in Vegas. I just mentioned the file size because it might be an issue.

Another thing that I do in Vegas is, I render the combined effect track and the original m2t file out to a Sony MXF and use that composite on the timeline. It seems to not demand as much processing power for previews and further editing.

Have you asked these questions over on the Cow Pi Forum? I say this because having often used the Pi+Larg combo, and had the same method treated as a solid method by the folks over there, this "dirty edge" sounds like the setting for retaining Outline has been invoked. What do you think?

Of course there's another way: Frameserver! - Word is out that there is a 64bit of it <wink>?

Grazie

Ive always rendered out of Vegas as a AVI for PI then rendered the comp as AVI
out of PI
never had any problems with this method,
but ive also just rendered out the effect in PI making sure the alpha channel
is set right for the project im working on,which is handy if i need the same effect a few times

not had the dirty edge problem so cant comment on that one

My M.O. for PI is similar to reberclark's. Particles only, I just render out a reference clip I want to add the PI effect to from Vegas then render only the effect out from PI as a .png sequence w/ alpha.

Then import the .png sequence into Vegas I can add effects to the PI track, scale, etc.

The PI effects that I render out the background w/ the effect are the ones that distort the image or transform from/to particles. In these cases I import as avi uncompressed and export to .png sequence.

I've tried to use the Lagarith but could not get it to work properly.

Looks like most of you have already answered the question (I personally mainly export .PNG w/alpha from PI to Vegas) but figured I'd add this related in-PI work-flow issue that I recently brought up at the CC PI Forum which may or may not be useful.

The point being for me that since I rarely comp out of PI, the in-project background image quality is not important--but in-PI preview speed is. The background is simply a proportional "work copy" reference that I hide anyway when I do the .PNG export w/alpha.
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Q: Least CPU/drawing-intensive Background Clip Codec/s?
(Copy of question and answer posted at CC PI Forum Jan.20-2011)

Hi Alan,

I'm still working on a Pentium D system until I can afford to upgrade. I at times use still photo stand-ins as background images for they are far lighter in CPU/drawing load. However this doesn't work well at times due to certain pan/crop needs in the actually sequence in Vegas (v.8).

Early on, you strongly advised against using uncompressed .AVI and the like. I've tried to use lighter-footprint codecs like .WMV but even those slow PI down sometimes to very frustrating levels.

Maybe I'm dreaming but here is ultimately what I'd love to see as a possibility by making an analogy to the differences in Vegas when using Preview:

--- Some equivalent of Vegas' "Auto" in Draft Mode. Dirty, even pixelated but far less CPU intensive background clip for PI. As long as it is all proportionally accurate, it really doesn't matter. (I'm going to try to simulate this with a perhaps 1/4 or even smaller size resolution render of the sequence in Vegas and see if I can "blow it up" in PI.)

But maybe a video file is a video file and there is no way to reduce its impact on PI irregardless of codec, compression or image quality.

Whatever the case, I'd welcome input, suggestions.
Thanks.

___________

Alan's answer

I would avoid WMV. Probably my choices would be in this order:

1) image sequence (JPG, TGA, PNG)

2) AVI with HuffYUV codec

3) AVI with DivX codec

Also, make sure the "use new method of loading AVIs" is NOT checked. That will use the older (but faster) AVI loading code, but doesn't support DV AVIs (which you're not using if you use my choices above).

Note that this setting doesn't make a difference for images.

Also, in the OpenGL page of Preferences, try it with the "do not use texture RAM" option checked and unchecked -- see which is faster. Easiest way to do this is to start a new project, add an image sequence or AVI, no emitters, and hit PLAY. See what framerate you get. Then change this setting and see if the framerate changes much.

Alan.

www.wondertouch.com

I find that TGA sequences work well but there is a lag with the sequences between Vegas and PI, has anyone been able to sort this out?

Illustrating time difference in sequence



Use the alpha channel sequence as mask/map in PI render out from PI particles only
Dump into Vegas and render out.