Thanks good job

Excellent work!

I guess you used Vegas Layering to get the perspective? Either by Beziers and/or creating the best CK-ing out what you could? Only my guess.

Thanks for sharing,

Grazie

Sorry, Grazie. The Vegas link is tenuous at best. All the meat was done in Combustion.

I would have loved to use Vegas but without an animatable camera it was very difficult vs. very easy in Combustion.

The background plates were generated in Photoshop.

I synced all the shots in Vegas, and made use of the Vegas colour corrector to bring the many shots in line visually.

I offer this clip not so much of something Vegas can do directly, but as an example of how it fit into my workflow - I've also read a number of "howd they do that" regarding the Effect and but this out into the world to help. :)

- R

Oh!

Have you seen Riding Giants? They use a number of cool "KSiTP" shots. They used AE.

> Have you seen Riding Giants

Have not seen and will look out for it, thanks!

It's very possible to do this effect in AE now that it has a 3D space. But before v5, no luck. :(

- R

I believe this effect has never been implimented better, with more complexity and layers, than here:

RJD2 - 1976

Entirely composed of pictures of Cuba in the 1970s.

HOLY MOLY! That RJD2 pic is jawdropping!!! Flat out amazing. The work it must have taken to retouch those photos is mind-numbing. While I didn't like the appearance/dissapearance of some of the humans, I can see that it was artistic and incredibly well done. That piece knocked me out.

Oh yeah that's the shizna!!!

- R

Man, I wish Vegas had camera controls to do this. I've played around with the effect a number of times. It's not that hard to cut out the pictures, clone in the background behind them (or replace the background), and the put the photos on different layers. Ah, but the camera moves ... that's where Vegas really falls down. I just finished 17 separate music videos, using still photos, and I would have killed to produce a few scenes like these. As it was, I was having a tough time just getting a smoth arcing pan across a single photo. The spatial controls in the pan/crop keyframe are on the low side of crude. This is especially true since the blue motion arc disappeared back in 5.0 (and unfortunately still hasn't reappeared in 6.x). Oh well ....

You can't expect Vegas to do EVERYTHING. You're asking too much if you want a top-tier editor AND Combustion or AE-style effects for $600.

You can't expect Vegas to do EVERYTHING.

I agree with that statement -- that's what plugins are for.

However, I DO expect Vegas to do a good job of the things that it does decide to do, and I don't expect it to get worse as new versions are released. Vegas engineers decided a long time ago to make most (although not all) effects keyframable.This is one of the key selling points of Vegas when compared to various competing products. In earlier versions the Sony engineers included a line in the pan/crop dialog that helped you see and adjust the spatial relationships between your keyframes. That was taken away, with no explanation, in version 5, and even after much protest, was not re-instated in version 6. In addition, the keyframe feature, along with dozens of others that are pretty basic to doing what Vegas does, have not been modified or enhanced in any way in the past three releases.

So, in summary, I agree that no application can or should do "everything" (because it results in bloatware), but I do believe that features already in an application should be refined over time, and certainly should not be degraded, as was the case with keyframes.

"In earlier versions the Sony engineers included a line in the pan/crop "

I really miss that feature myself.

If I remember right some time back shortly after version 5 came out one of the Sony guys commented that the changes to pan/crop were necessary due to them adding 3D abilites.

I know a lot of folk here don't like the work flow of Boris (I use RED 3GL), but that's the only plug for Vegas that I think does a decent job of keyframes (now we're off topic, of course). Vegas, for example, doesn't allow you to control the X, Y, Z keyframes individually or the timing (Ease In, Ease Out). Yes, you can control the whole keyframe universally (all axis'), but in Boris, you can manipulate each control. Very handy. My problem with Boris is the same thing mentioned above: no camera control.
I also lament that it can't be used very well directly in Vegas without some uncomfortable workarounds.

I keep meaning to try Imaginate, which a very kind individual sent to me some months back. It supposedly can do very complicated camera moves. Several users on this board have commented that it is very good.

RJD2 - wow, this blew me away, I was just shaking my head in disbelief! thanks for the link, Luxo. Just too cool.

OK - so if I filled the back ground of a still photo with a strong green color then I could CK it and create this effect in Vegas? Anyone tried it?- for us non-Boris users ...
SPOT?
//Garo

A strong green color should work. However, I've found it easier just to make that secton TRANSPARENT instead of green. No CK needed then.

In your tutorial you say that Combustion is better than AE in creating 3D composites. I was hoping you explain why it is better. I have seen numerous 3D montages that were created using Photoshop / AE / and a good NLE. While I have yet to try creating one of these I do have AE 6.5 Pro and know it is fully capable of creating 3D montages easily. Not trying to start an arguement here just curious why Combustion is better? Nice job by the way in your montage, I especially liked the one where the girl is further out in front of the guy bent over because the spaciality is greater.

Nice work rdolishny.

And that video (the Cuba pics one) is simply superb!

A good tutorial to do it with AE, written in 2003 but still relevant is on DV.Com site and you'd probably have to register (not very long to do). Then search for "Moving Pictures: Creating Multiplane Animation from Photographs" by Jun Diaz.

> In your tutorial you say that Combustion is better than AE in creating 3D composites. I was hoping you explain why it is better.

Personal bias there. AE is capable of doing 3D comps but that has not always been the case. I find the interface in AE gets in the way whereas Combustion it's always been a 3D interface so I just got used to it.

But AE leapfrogged C* with things like gate size, automatic Depth of Field... I guess I'm showing my age! :)

Thanks for the kudos I appreciate the feedback, and that last image is really my favourite for sure.

- R