There were examples of both effects over at www.vegasusers.com. They are pretty far down on the list of projects...there were two on the 'beammeup' effect, and at least one on the light sabers. There used to be an explaination on 'how-to'.
If all you want it simple effects like the laser saber or whatever its called there's a fairly inexpensive application called AlamDV. Easy to make those effects.
I'l "third" AlamDV. It is very easy to use and very effective. It is time consuming however, once you get used to the interface, things go quicker. Also, they are about to release AlamDV 3 which is supposed to have alot of better features and an improved rendering engine. You can't beat it for cheap special effects for your home projects.
Well...I've been playing around with the demo version since it was brought up ... I think it is an awesome little package. And all the little plugins are neat too.
I've seen a number of the video's made with it and want to look at some more, but I will most likely be picking this pagkage up next month.
AlamDV used to have a problem reading AVI files exported using the SF DV codec....don't know if it does anymore. It would certainly be worth trying the (awesome) Vegas frameserver from Satish.
Also Satish coyly mentioned in another thread that a rotoscoping plug-in is coming for Vegas. It was assumed that he was working on one of his own, but he could have been referring to Boris Red.
AlamDV doesn't work with native Vegas files, you have to render your segments as an uncompressed .avi. After much frustation with and without clients looking over my shoulder, here's a tip: Make sure "save project markers in media file" is un-checked when you render your uncompressed .avi. I believe this caused my uncompressed .avi to appear distorted in AlamDV (like it was cut in half with the halves reversed). When I rendered with the box unchecked all was well in AlamDV land.
That was cute with the kids! It would have been funny to beam the two older kids to the living room, and the younger one right next to a cookie jar or something! I'm just waiting for my daughters to ask for their lightsaber video...
All,
My 16 year old son has done the light sabre thing in Adobe Photoshop 7 and imported it to Vegas. His show is on the Chienworks site at the below link: http://www.vegasusers.com/vidshare/textdisp?stewartr002-light_saber_movie.txt
The method he used was very time consuming but the result was pretty good.
Randy
You could use Jasc Animation Shop, which comes with Jasc PaintShop Pro 7. (for those of us who can’t afford Adobe Photoshop). Animation Shop will simply load your AVI file, let you paint on it, and save it back as an AVI. No need to export as still images. It shows your AVI as a film strip and even has “onion skinning” so you can see the ghost of where you painted in the last frame. It also allows you to do things like color replacement automated across all frames to fix inconsistent blue screen, etc. There is a free trial and the Jasc web site. Might be worth looking at.
Holy... I tried to figure it out once with no success... I looked at the Jasc site but couldn't find any info regarding the method you mentionned. Do you have a specific link? I'd really be glad to get this since I've been asking exactly for what you came up with for MONTHS !
The onion skinning is the greatest feature that can be for this kind of application. Just type 'rotoscopy' in the search engine to look at all the solutions/turnarounds that have been offered... Thanks JohnnyRoy; after all this waiting you seem to have the best tip so far!
Oh, by the way, Satish is working on a plugin to make all this come true **inside** Vegas. Can't wait to try it!
Here is a direct link to Jasc Animation Shop 3. It cost $39 standalone, but I got it included free with PaintShop Pro 7. They just came out with PaintShop Pro 8 (which I just ordered) so you might want to buy that instead. Don’t forget to download the trial and make sure it does what you want.
The one problem with Vegas AVI files is that you have to export the AVI you want to rotoscope with the Create an OpenDML (AVI version 2.0) compatible file option unchecked. I explain how to do this on my web site. Several programs have this problem. I wish there was a way to turn it off during Vegas capture.
The way Animation Shop is behaving is the best I've been trying, even better than SF's -RIP- Viscosity (now Sony's ScreenBlast ImageEdit or something like that...).
I tried your method for the AVI files but it doesn't work (uncheking the DML box). I can't open anything rendered as an AVI uncompressed file in Vegas 4. I tried with old files I got that I captured with CamStudio (a small free program that captures what's on the screen; you draw the area you want to copy and run the app) and *these* AVI files worked.
The turnaround is to render as MPEG files in Vegas 4. These MPEG files will open in Animation Shop.
I'm going to experiment a little more tomorrow.