Red Giant "Starglow" Alternative for Vegas?

Soniclight wrote on 9/21/2010, 1:15 AM
Red Giant Trapcode " is an AE/Avid/CS4/FC-only plugin that allows one to fine tune radiance.
You can see a bit of that vertical effect on the illustration in the above included link to the product page.

My main interest in finding something like this for Vegas is to add subtle vertical glow to scenes, such as I saw on the flashback scenes in the "Veronica Mars" series. I could have captured one of these scenes of of my Netflix online streaming viewer, but I'm too copyright compulsive to do so...

The closest included effect in Vegas is Light Rays, but it is nowhere near as tweakable and cannot do parallel effects, only radial (= all effects go out from one center point). And as usual, I'm the pauper man and even if Red Giant were available for Vegas, I can't spend USD $ 99 for one single effect.

But I'm hoping there must be something somewhere (plugin or script or ?) that could approximate this. (Yes, I've tried with Gauss, no-go, it just, well, blurs :) The thing that I like about what this effect does to images or scenes is that any highlight (i.e. edge of glass table, window sill, etc.) gets some bleed and thus a dreamy ambiance.

Below is a link to a short online Flash tutorial, the first half of which uses a lousy example, so... let it buffer to the middle until you see the white word "star" appear: this example shows that the "bleed" or effect can be linear or parallel--and tweaked even though it is applied only to very simple text.

Hence it does not show the image or scene-applicable effect I'm shooting for but at least it shows what this plugin can do.

Thanks for suggestions, referrals, workarounds, whatever.

Starglow Flash Tutorial

Comments

MacVista wrote on 9/21/2010, 2:01 AM
Have you tried the Sony "Glint" plugin?
If you set the "streaks" control to 1 then you will have streaks only in one direction and you can use "orientation" to control the angle.

From the help file:

Glint


Effect tab

Threshold
Determines the luminance level of the source material on which the Glint effect acts. Higher threshold levels result in less material being affected.

Boost
Adjusts the intensity of the highlights. Higher boost results in longer, brighter highlights.

Horizontal radius
Adjusts the length of the highlights extending horizontally. Higher values result in longer highlights.

Vertical radius
Adjusts the length of the highlights extending vertically. Higher values result in longer highlights.

Hue
Controls the base hue of the highlights.

Hue sweep
Controls the direction and extent of the hue cycle along the highlight gradient.

Saturation
Controls the depth of the hue or color selected. Higher values move the color away from gray to the true color.

Orientation
Spins the highlights through a 360-degree cycle. Higher values spin the highlights clockwise.

Streaks
Sets the number of streaks emanating from each highlight. Higher values result in more streaks.

Reduce flicker
Toggles prefiltering of the source material to reduce unwanted flickering in the output.

Effect only
Determines if the source is also displayed in the output of the effect.


Mask tab

Mask mode
Determines if and how the mask is applied. If the mask is Disabled, it will not affect the output of the effect. If the mask is set to Source, it will affect the source material before it is passed through the effect.

If the mask is set to Effect, the mask will be applied to the effect only. Show mask only just displays the mask without the source or the effect.

Mask type
Determines the shape and properties of the mask. Each mask type has its own set of property controls.

Rectangle
Creates a 4-sided mask.

Softness
Adjusts the crispness of the edges of the rectangle. Higher values create softer edges.

Width
Controls the width of the rectangle. Higher values create a wider rectangle.

Height
Controls the height of the rectangle. Higher values create a taller rectangle.

Corner radius
Rounds the corners of the rectangle. Higher values create corners with larger radii.

X position
Adjusts the position of the rectangle on the x axis. Higher values move the rectangle from left to right.

Y position
Adjusts the position of the rectangle on the y axis. Higher values move the rectangle from up to down.




Bar
Creates a 3-part mask with a fully opaque center region and variably transparent leading and trailing regions.

Progress
Controls how far across the image the center region of the mask has traveled. Higher values move the center region from the left to right or top to bottom depending on the angle of the mask.

Width
Determines how wide the center region of the mask is. Higher values widen the center region.

Falloff
Controls the crispness of the mask edges. Higher values create softer edges.

Angle
Adjusts the tilt of the bar. Higher values spin the bar through a 360-degree cycle.

Leading region
Controls the transparency of the region to the right or below the bar. Higher values make the region more transparent.

Trailing region
Controls the transparency of the region to the left or above the bar. Higher values make the region more transparent.




Wipe
Creates a 2-part mask with one transparent region and one opaque.

Progress
Controls how far across the image the transparent region of the mask has traveled. Higher values move the transparent region from the left to right or top to bottom depending on the angle of the mask.

Falloff
Controls the crispness of the mask edges. Higher values create softer edges.

Angle
Adjusts the tilt of the mask. Higher values spin the mask through a 360-degree cycle.

Strength
Controls the transparency of the region to the left or above the bar. Higher values make the region more transparent.




Ellipse
Creates an elliptical mask.

Softness
Controls the crispness of the mask edges. Higher values create softer edges.

Width
Controls the width of the ellipse. Higher values create a wider ellipse.

Height
Controls the height of the ellipse. Higher values create a taller ellipse.

X position
Adjusts the position of the ellipse on the x axis. Higher values move the ellipse from left to right.

Y position
Adjusts the position of the ellipse on the y axis. Higher values move the ellipse from top to bottom.


Sound like it should do what you're looking for.
Soniclight wrote on 9/21/2010, 3:34 AM
Thanks for reply but my VP8.c has no Glint effect and no word "glint" in the help files.
Sounds like maybe VP9.x has it.

But you got me wondering...
So I Googled around and--bingo, found it:

--- Glint is/was part of the Radiance plugin by Velvet Matter. I downloaded the VP8 version, installed it.

Unfortunately it has "activate license" in the plugin's interface, so I won't be able to use it for long (10 days perhaps at most).
And/but Velvet Matter was purchased by Sony (ergo why some of you seem to have it bundled with Vegas).
[i]
Seems that I can't get this plugin until I upgrade to at least VP9.
If so, no go, I want to wait until at least VP10.

Maybe I could bribe someone at SCS to give me a serial number hack on this plugin.
(Yes, I'm just kidding on the hack thing :)

I did just send an e-inquiry to Velvet Matter, but they probably won't respond.

For anyone else who does not have and is interested in this plugin using earlier versions of Vegas (6-8), go get a copy as I did at link below.
Again, I have no idea when the evaluation period ends, so try at your discretion.

The page also mentions the purchase of the company and/or technology by Sony.

Radiance Plugin
MacVista wrote on 9/21/2010, 4:17 AM
Oops! Sorry I didn't realise you were running VP8, "Glint" was included in VP9

I hope the evaluation period runs until Vegas 10 is released, only 20 days to go!
Soniclight wrote on 9/21/2010, 4:53 AM
"Oops! Sorry I didn't realise you were running VP8, "Glint" was included in VP9."

No problem, natural assumption.
I coulda-shoulda mentioned I had VP8, too.

That said, I wasn't planning on upgrading for a while for I don't really need it and don't really have the cash to burn. Unless Sony does another one of those limited time/can't refuse deals shortly after release that I won't be able to refuse :)

In the mean time, I'm playing around with the eval copy of Radiance and while it seems like Sony changed some things around, I got a basic grasp of it so I'll be ready whenever the time comes.