Comments

BillyBoy wrote on 4/28/2003, 3:15 PM
Boris Red plug-in coming soon. Suppose to be sometime this quarter. :-)
kameronj wrote on 4/28/2003, 3:20 PM
Kewlness. :->
kameronj wrote on 4/28/2003, 3:32 PM
Okay....so if I wanted to rotoscope something right now....suggestions??

I'm playing around with video techniques and I want to try two effects.

1. The all popular "star trek" beam out using different visual elements of the "particle" beam. Suggestions?

2. The all popular "star wars" light saber light. I have an idea for a short I want to use these two effects on.

Thanks
Jessariah67 wrote on 4/28/2003, 3:55 PM
Kelly Chien has a site up -- I forget the url. There are actually a lot of cool clips and how-tos there, including a "beam up" and how it was done.

I'm sure he'll be around to give it to you.

Kelly....?

BobMoyer wrote on 4/28/2003, 3:56 PM
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'.

Bob
BillyBoy wrote on 4/28/2003, 4:06 PM
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.

http://www.csb-digital.com/alamdv/about/index.php
David Settlemoir wrote on 4/28/2003, 5:16 PM
I'll second the AlamDV suggestions. I just did a video for some med students, and here is the first test of using AlamDV:

www.settlemoir.tv/test01.wmv

VERY VERY time consumming to do right. I really just half did it because of time constraints.
Sr_C wrote on 4/28/2003, 6:08 PM
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.
kameronj wrote on 4/28/2003, 9:04 PM
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.


THanks for the tip!! Great product.
Luxo wrote on 4/28/2003, 11:03 PM
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.
briggs wrote on 4/29/2003, 3:29 PM
Here's a "beam me up" video I posted on Kelly's site awhile back...

http://www.vegasusers.com/vidshare/textdisp?briggs-beam_me_up.txt

I didn't play around too much with how the actual "beam" looked. I'm sure there's alot of variations that could be done.

-Les
David Settlemoir wrote on 4/29/2003, 10:45 PM
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.

"May the force be with ya'll" (Arkansas Jedi)
David Settlemoir wrote on 4/29/2003, 10:50 PM
Les-

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...
randy-stewart wrote on 4/30/2003, 12:26 AM
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
kameronj wrote on 4/30/2003, 9:13 AM
Very nice indeed!!
MUTTLEY wrote on 4/30/2003, 2:22 PM
Okay, newb question. How do you export a vid to work on it frame by frame in Photoshop ? And how do you bring it back in to VV ?

- Ray

ray@undergroundplanet.com
www.undergroundplanet.com
kameronj wrote on 4/30/2003, 5:53 PM
Ray asked "Okay, newb question. How do you export a vid to work on it frame by frame in Photoshop ? And how do you bring it back in to VV ? "

...and I think that is a very good question because I was going to ask the same thing today.

:-)
FadeToBlack wrote on 4/30/2003, 6:25 PM
kameronj wrote on 4/30/2003, 7:03 PM
sweet. I get it.

Thanks
JohnnyRoy wrote on 4/30/2003, 10:25 PM
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.

~jr
FuTz wrote on 5/1/2003, 8:06 AM
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!
JohnnyRoy wrote on 5/1/2003, 9:51 AM
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.

~jr
FuTz wrote on 5/1/2003, 10:55 PM
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.

A *big* thanks for pointing me there Johnny!
briggs wrote on 5/2/2003, 7:59 AM
Here's an example of rotoscoping in Photoshop to get the light saber effect:

http://vegasusers.com/vidshare/textdisp?briggs-light-saber-fun.txt

-Les