Hi, have used Pixelan's Spicemaster Pro 2.5 for years but see there is an upgrade to Spicemaster 3. Anyone tried this new version and the differences it has? Worth the upgrade?
Hi Jack,
Glad to see someone else uses SpiceMaster Pro. When version 3 came out, I jumped on it right away. The interface is a whole lot bigger, as is the preview screen, the tools are now on a vertical strip with menus that open/close, there's a vertical scroll bar, and there is now a series of presets that help you select something that you might like before modifying it. I found it to be a big improvement.
I suggest that you download and install it and try it out before purchasing it.
Keep version 2.5 for legacy purposes.
Thanks @john-brown yes I'm surprised no one seems to talk about Pixelan anymore! Just tried the demo and it does look a decent update.
Just discovered SpiceMaster 3 cannot be used as an Effect - only a Transition. Whereas SpiceMaster 2.5 can be applied as both...
What's the advantage of 2.5 over 3? If you want to create an interesting Picture in Picture effect you can apply 2.5 as an effect and still apply 2.5 as a transition also to the head or tail of your event.
In this video 2.5 has been applied as an effect to the yellow track to produce a star with white border and an interesting head transition of bound applied along with an interesting ripple fade tail transition. All to the top track only. The bottom tack is just a coloured solid background which fades in and out.
3, on the other hand, can only be applied as a transition and in Vegas it's not currently possible to have a transition for the entire length of an event. You can have it for all the frame bar one.
What's the work-a-round? Nest your clip and apply a transition to the child track. In the parent track crop the nested timeline event by one frame and apply your head or tail transition.
Alternatively - you can tell Pixelan what you think of them dropping this ability... if enough of us ask - perhaps they will put it back.
Hi,
I don't have SpiceMaster with Vegas, but do with Video Pro X.
Can you drop the SpiceMaster effect onto a blank track between the background and foreground? And then open the SpiceMaster interface to play with the controls? I get one video clip to show up in the UI, but it at least I can see what I'm doing.
John CB
@john-brown I've never used VPX - but I did have a look at some of your tutorials on YouTube and can see that there are basically two ways to apply a transition in the programme - either on overlapping areas between two clips or on a track of it's own and it will then affect any videos above or below it... Also the track layers seem to be the reverse of Vegas where the bottom track is the upper most one in the foreground and the top track the background.
Okay, to answer your question... applying SMP 2.5 to an empty event as a Video FX will only be visible if there are edge effects... which might prove useful in some situations. Here's a quick dirty example...
The Bright Blue expanding thing is SMP 2.5 applied to an empty event and here's and effect still..
in Vegas it's not currently possible to have a transition for the entire length of an event. You can have it for all the frame bar one.
Why not? Here's a transition applied to an entire event and it's set to the "Middle" of the transition all of the way through the event. Just make your fade in/out the entire length of the event. Then select the event, right-click it and choose Insert/Remove Envelope - Transition Progress. Then you can use that envelope to determine where in the transition you want it to be at any given point. In this image, I have set it to the "center" of the transition for the entire length of the event.
I sit corrected !
It is possible to drag the transition all the way from the start to the end - has this changed recently???
I now have 19.0 (532) and am sure I tested it on the previous build and it wouldn't let me drag right across, but just disappeared as if no transition had been applied...
A fun play ...
@jetdv Oh well, all this time I've been under the impression it was a feature I couldn't use to the full... I wonder what else I might have missed ... TONS AND TONS AND TONS 😌
Still it doesn't alter the fact that you have to use nesting to get what SMP 2.5 could do off-the-bat !
Well !!!
Guess what... a very nice man called Ivan at Pixelan kindly answered my very recent request for Spice Master Pro 3 to be both an Effect and Transition by sending me a new installation file...
In this video SMP3 is applied liberally as both Video FXs and Transitions. What a nice, kind fully engaging company !
Another aspect I like about SMP 2.5...
Yes, that's right - Bézier animation nodes...
This simple video uses a Nested Timeline; SpiceMaster 2.5 Applied as an effect.
VEGAS Development Team
Can you please look seriously into implementing Bézier curve animation controls. Or at least allow users to choose a greater value other than 100 for smoothness this would be an easy update to existing sub-routines?
VEGAS Development Team
Can you please look seriously into implementing Bézier curve animation controls. Or at least allow users to choose a greater value other than 100 for smoothness this would be an easy update to existing sub-routines?
@Selina It looks like you've discovered the importance of full Bezier keyframe curves through your exploration of animation.
In fact, there are many places in Vegas that need full Bezier keyframe curve, not only the event FX, but also pan/ Crop, mask, Track Motion and Transition Progress, all of which need Bezier keyframe curve to produce various smooth motion animation. Check out my examples and suggestions for improving the Vegas keyframe system here.
Here are some examples of ease-in and ease-out curve settings above 100. Assuming that 100 is set at 25% of the total duration between keys...
In a nut-shell I am suggesting a quick solution where smoothness can be set higher than the current "100" and there is the possibility to set the ease-in and ease-out separately.
@JackWhite Thanks for calling my attention to SM3...it's really powerful and simple to use!
Ivan also responded very quickly to my question about the licensing. As it tuns out, a serial number for either the Magix plugin (on sale for 20% off now, for a limited time) or the VEGAS plugin will also unlock the other one. This is great, because I can use it on both VEGAS Pro 19 and VPX with a single purchase! Very cool.
Here are some examples of ease-in and ease-out curve settings above 100.Assuming that 100 is set at 25% of the total duration between keys...
I got this wrong - it's set at 33⅓ % of the total duration.
In the following video, I've used LINEAR easing and changed the smoothing factor in each iteration to show the effect. For those interested, Particle Illusion was used to trace the path of the ball to better see the resultant curve.
And here is a quick handy graphic of the same thing...
@Selina I had Spicemaster many many many years ago with Premiere 6. I bought it recently and they've made a lot of customization to the software, but as advertised on their website, it's only for transitions.
Hopefully, since you are testing it as a video fx, that might be the next update to it.
I, too, started with Premier 6 and SM - then moved over to Vegas as Adobe just seemed to want too much money for minor updates and then came along SM 2, then 2.5, now 3.
With 2.5 you have proper bézier curves to play with. With 3 only preset curves which result in several keys being dropped on the effect timeline.
I've got a copy of 3 which acts as both effect and transition - you'll have to ask Pixelan for it as I said above. If enough ask for it - maybe they'll reinstate it for all.
I'm more interested in the 3D six-pack than Spice Master.
@Selina I haven't used them, just seeing that the demo gif is cool : https://pixelan.com/3d/intro.htm
Hi Ian,
Download and install the Pixelan plugins. You can try them out for free for as long as you want. You will get an X watermark on the screen, that is all.
John CB