Special effects software

Billae wrote on 8/18/2005, 12:52 PM
I am looking for a special effects software program to use with Vegas. I Love ParticleIllusion, however the software has problems importing DV and can't handle Mpeg files. Does anyone know of, or has a recommendation of a special effects software that works as easy as ParticleIllusion and has a great end result. Thanks everyone.

Comments

skibumm101 wrote on 8/18/2005, 1:13 PM
What type of special effects are you going for?

And how much do you want to spend?
Billae wrote on 8/18/2005, 3:57 PM
Basics like fire, laser smoke etc. maybe some morphing. Easy keyframing. To simplify, something Just like Particle Illusion would be perfect and like to stay under $500.00 if possible. Particle Illusion is really what I like. It just has some quirks, like not working with DV or importing mpeg. Thank you.
rs170a wrote on 8/18/2005, 5:09 PM
Take a look at EffectsLab DV & Chromanator. There are demos of both to try out.

Mike
PeterWright wrote on 8/18/2005, 6:13 PM
There's a thread near this one:

http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=407055&Replies=16

Several people are using PI with Vegas - the most popular way seems to be exporting frame sequences.
GregFlowers wrote on 8/18/2005, 6:44 PM
It really depends on what you are using it for. ParticleIllusion is a very powerful and more expensive program with a couple of little quirks. If you think you will be using particle effects a lot, get Particleillusion. Alam DV or Effects labs is much less powerful and more limiting, but fine if all you need is the occassional lightsaber, laser, explosion or fireball. If you are going to be doing any pro work, I'd get PI. If you want to see your kid with a lightsaber, get EffectsLab. Both are good programs. PI is more for professionals and Effectslab is more for consumers to use at home. If you already have Vegas, why not just render your DV avi clips as something Particleillusion can use, such as the lossless free Huffy codec? That's what I usually do and it works fine. Just render from Vegas using Huffy as 654 x 480 for 4:3 video or 872 x 480 for 16:9 video to convert to 1.0 pixel aspect ratio so ParticleIllusion can display it correctly without stretching.
Billae wrote on 8/18/2005, 7:31 PM
Great! Thanks everyone for your help. I am considering effects lab and will try out their demo tonight. Have a great week. Billae
Klausky wrote on 8/18/2005, 7:34 PM
In addition, effects lab dv is opening Effects Lab Vault which will include explosions and other useful effects.
kentwolf wrote on 8/18/2005, 9:21 PM
>>...the software has problems importing DV..

Make sue if you are trying to import Vegas-rendered DV footage that the "Create an OpenDML (AVI Version 2.0) compatible file" on the video tab is NOT checked.

Checked = PI choke.
RichR wrote on 8/18/2005, 10:44 PM
you can render an uncompressed avi. PI will handle that fine.
Marquat wrote on 8/18/2005, 11:57 PM
Greg, you import a 654x480 PAR=1 background in PI. Are those also the stage and export specifications?
GregFlowers wrote on 8/19/2005, 11:15 AM
Yes. ParticleIllusion only imports and exports as square pixels (1.0 PAR.) Background footage with different PARs will be made 1.0 PAR by stretching horizontally or vertically. Projects are always rendered with 1.0 PAR. In Vegas, just open the 654 x 480 1.0 PAR file into a regular 720 x 480 .9 PAR DV project and it should fit perfectly. You can choose to composite the effects and background avi together in ParticleIllusion or you can render only the particle effects and composite in Vegas (or After Effects, Combustion, Commotion, etc.) I usually composite outside of ParticleIllusion for greater flexibility. If you do this you must render it as an image sequence i.e. TIF, TGA, or PNG and check the "save alpha" box just before rendering. In Vegas, you open the entire image sequence at once, by selecting the first image of the sequence and the check the box "Open still image sequence" box. Make sure in the image preference tab that alpha is set to "straight." It is set to straight by default on my computer.