Need titling program

revriff wrote on 7/20/2004, 5:31 AM
I'm doing video for my church and need some ideas on great titling programs to fit with Vegas 5. Basically all I want to do is place a transparent box at the bottom of Video and then type in notes or verses..I'm sure you've seen it done. I haven't really tried the Boris that comes with the software yet...that may be all I need. I'm not really looking so much to do 3d just that colored somewhat transparent box overlaying the video at the bottom.
Thanks for any help

Comments

Spot|DSE wrote on 7/20/2004, 5:38 AM
Vegas can do this with it's eyes closed, but if you'd rather work with something else, try Bluff Titler or Caymen Graphics. Both are easy to use, both are fairly inexpensive.
jetdv wrote on 7/20/2004, 7:08 AM
We do that for our church services every week with standard Vegas. You just need to add TWO video tracks above your video. On the TOP track, put your title. On the SECOND track, put the background for the title. Resize and position both to suit, change the transparency as needed on the background, and you should be done.

In fact, I wrote several scripts that we use to speed up the process of editing the church services. One click, we have the "guest" title with appropriate background. Another click, we have the "verse" title. After the title is added, all we have to do is change the text.
revriff wrote on 7/22/2004, 2:52 PM
thanks jetdv...maybe if you have the time you can give me a few hints of how to start those easy steps you're speaking of.....
farss wrote on 7/22/2004, 3:34 PM
If you don't understand how to do this I'd say overall you're missing out on a huge part of what Vegas can do.
Download some sample .veg files would be a good starting point.
The VASST site has 100s.
cayman wrote on 8/11/2004, 1:23 PM
I've heard some talk on this forun about the Cayman Graphics Power CG. We at
Cayman Graphics are looking into the possibilty of creating a Vegas Video Plugin
for the Power CG. If we did that, would very many Vega Video Users be interested?

Thanks

Jeff McOmie
Cayman Graphics
ken c wrote on 8/11/2004, 5:17 PM
Plugins are great, I like bluff, haven't tried your program, where's the url?

ken
JasonMurray wrote on 8/11/2004, 11:41 PM
Hi Jeff,

Just looking at the demo images on your site (http://www.aros.net/~cayman/ for everyone else...), I'd say the answer would be a resounding "YES, PLEASE!"

It seems that Power CG is capable of gradient shading each individual letter for a start, which is something I certainly miss in Vegas from Premiere (I like Premiere's titler a lot...). It makes a heck of a difference.

More information would be nice though Jeff. :)

Jason
GaryAshorn wrote on 8/12/2004, 6:27 AM
I would be very interested in CG in Vegas. I have used it with my trusty FAST VM/DPR system for years and is a good program.

Gary
bigcreek wrote on 8/12/2004, 6:31 AM
I'd be interested in this as well.
JaysonHolovacs wrote on 8/12/2004, 7:12 AM
It looks pretty impressive; any chance that a demo version would be available that could be used in Vegas? I'd prefer to evaluate it "in workflow".

Also, just to set expectations, if you were to go ahead with this project, what timeframe would you be shooting for? 3 months? Six? A Year?

-Jayson
Guy S. wrote on 8/12/2004, 8:30 AM
If Vegas' titler doesn't suit your needs, Photoshop (or a graphics program that can open and save in .psd format, such as Corel PhotoPaint) may be a good option for you.

Vegas 5 can directly import Photoshop files. The results look great, and any changes you make to the PS file are instantly updated on Vegas' timeline.

cayman wrote on 8/12/2004, 8:40 AM
Let me see if I can answer each questions here.

The URL is www.CaymanGraphics.com.

Power CG will actually work with Vegas Video now. Just export the title
as a TGA image (a 1 button operation) and load them into Vegas Video. A
Plug-in would just make it easier to do Rolls, Crawls, and Text FX animations.

We actually have a 30 day trial version on our website for the "RFS" (Refined
Feature Set) version of Power CG. The RFS is fully functional (for 30 days) and
can be used in your current workflow right now. The demo of the more advanced
Power CG Plus places a watermark in each graphic.

The timeframe would depend on several technical factors and the amount
of cooperation I can get from Sony. But if I thought it would take a year, I
wouldn't attempt it. In the past it has taken between 2-4 weeks to have
working versions of plug-ins. But this is NOT a promise. You know how
software development goes.

Thanks

Jeff McOmie
Cayman Graphics
johnmeyer wrote on 8/12/2004, 11:35 AM
It sure would be great to have REAL title generation from within Vegas itself. If the plug-in could be well-integrated, it would be very welcome.
DaleVandy wrote on 8/23/2004, 4:50 PM
You will all probably laugh at this, but I often use PowerPoint to create the titles. Then I save them as graphics, ususlly .jpg, or .png if it has transparency. It then goes right into VV as a graphic with pretty good quality.
JasonMurray wrote on 8/23/2004, 11:28 PM
Hi Jeff,

Sony has a Video Plugin Development Kit available for download from this site:
http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/download/step2.asp?DID=210

I'm not sure how helpful that would be to you, though. (Then again I'm not a programmer :))

My suggestion would be to get in touch with Sony Pictures Digital directly and go from there.

(You never know, you might get along so well that your product might ship with future versions of Vegas!)

Jason
cayman wrote on 8/24/2004, 8:21 AM
Thanks Jason,

I was looking for that.

Jeff McOmie
Cayman Graphics

wcoxe1 wrote on 8/24/2004, 4:27 PM
I have been asking for an upgrade to the titling part of Vegas for as long as I have had it.

Granted, if you spend a LOT of time, and know a LOT about the current powers of the existing titler in Vegas, you can do almost anything.

The same can be said of Boris RED.

I don't have that much time, nor money, nor expertise, nor any of all that.

I need a simple plug in that doesn't cost an arm and a leg, upgrades at reasonable cost with the upgrades of Vegas, is VERY easy to learn and use, but offers very nice professional features rather than Gee Wiz graphics. I ain't into toys.

Don't get me wrong. I LOVE Vegas. I just don't have enough time to learn how to use it as well as all the experts on this forum. Same goes for RED. I don't see how in the world anyone other than someone who dedicates their life to using RED can really learn to use it effectively.

I don't want that. If that is what Caymen offers, I will not even consider it.

If it offers what I indicated above, is easy to use on an occasional basis, at reasonable cost for an occasional user (non-professional), then I will JUMP at it.

Anyone want to buy RED 3.0? Cheap?
Sab wrote on 8/24/2004, 6:30 PM
yes, Yes, YES!!!
GaryAshorn wrote on 8/24/2004, 6:55 PM
Jeff, it is good to see you checking this out. It has been quite a while. But I loved CG made for my old VM/DPR and you have been very helpful in the past. Folks, if Jeff makes this work it is worth it. He and the Cayman program have been trustworthy in the past on my systems and I would definitely love to see it work here in Vegas. Thanks and good luck Jeff.

Gary Ashorn
JasonMurray wrote on 8/24/2004, 7:02 PM
I'm interested to know why the titler gets neglected so much.

There's a few things I find quite cumbersome with it which I'd love to see addressed in future versions.

Off the top of my head:

1. The window you enter the title into is way too small - it should scale to the size of the current Video Event F/X window it's in, but instead its stuck displaying something like 3 lines of text permanently (This is a common beef I have with most of Vegas' plugins, though).

2. The placement area should have magnification to offer pixel-perfect positioning of your title.

3. The X/Y text boxes in the placement area should allow you to use up/down cursor keys to control their contents (shift, ctrl and alt can be used as modifiers to alter the increments). They should also be switchable into pixels mode so you can specifically tell the title where it should be on screen (to go with this, you should be able to specify whether you're talking about the dead center of the title, or the top-left of the title).

4. On placement, a grid would also be nice along with a snap-to-grid function. The ability to snap to the safe area would be nice too.

5. Under Properties, RGBA text boxes should allow cursor up/down keys to alter their values. I actually love the colour sliders :)

6. Additional effects would be nice in order to keep pace with other applications:
- Gradient fill (specify the gradient, angle, etc and whether it applies globally or to every line or every letter individually, and its opactity)
- Bevel / Emboss (specify the bevel type, size, colours, light direction, etc)
- Outline - ability to specify a gradient instead of a solid colour (and similar to gradient fill options)
- Texture fill (specify an image, and whether it applies globally etc a la gradient fill)

I realise it sounds a lot like a Photoshop featureset, but guess what ... I'm a Photoshop user. And people are recommending the use of Photoshop to generate titles simply because it's capable of doing this stuff. But I'd rather it were all possible simply and easily within Vegas without having to mess around with a lot of additional plugins

For me, if these points/features were addressed/added I'd simply adore Vegas' titler.

What do others think...? What does Sony think...?

(and should I post this as a new thread to attract a bit more attention?)
stepfour wrote on 8/24/2004, 9:13 PM
"What do others think...?"

I think you're right, but I also think nothing is going to be changed in the text part of Vegas. It went from 2 to 3, 3 to 4, and then, under Sony, 4 to 5 with very little (if any) changes to the titler part so there's nothing to indicate Sony is going to put any resources into it. By the way, your list here is very good. I don't know when the Sony Media Software fiscal year ends and starts but you might want to repost this as a V6 wishlist submission sometime very soon. You never know, they might suprise us all.
cayman wrote on 8/25/2004, 7:44 AM
Thanks Gary.

If you still have your Power CG Plus, the Vegas Plugin will be a free upgrade.

Jeff McOmie
Cayman Graphics
GlenL wrote on 8/25/2004, 11:02 AM
Please make it possible to insert new items in the middle of a credit roll.

Thanks.
jetdv wrote on 8/25/2004, 11:54 AM
You already can. Just get in the proper place and press the "Insert" key.