Of the hundreds of TrueType fonts dumped into my Fonts folder (usually without permission), very few have small caps, old style figures, ligatures, superscripts, inferiors, or fractions. Very few come in more than two weights and there's minimal choice when it comes to Greek or Cyrillic. Many are poorly kerned, some not at all.

Until very recently few major type foundries released any TrueType fonts at all and a lot still don't. Even where comprehensive families are available I'd be willing to bet that 99% of users (maybe even 99.9%) don't have a single one installed on their PC.

You're happy with your ‘909 TrueType fonts’ and you'd ‘have a darned near impossible time even dreaming up a font that is noticeably different from anything i've got now’. You're an amateur. For your basic requirements Vegas' typographic support is sufficient. That's fine but why post on a subject - suggesting you have some level of expertise – if you don't know what you're talking about.

I almost never use TrueType except for the web. I have thousands of pounds worth of PostScript and OpenType fonts installed (some families made up of more than forty fonts). Every designer I know is working with PostScript fonts; every corporate identity I've ever had to deal with has used them. For me it is extremely frustrating that they can’t be used in Vegas.

Ouch,

Breath deeply Barley. No need to rip anyone apart. Our illustrators and graphic artists use a combination of font types and libs. Yes many of them are True Type. Some are PS. While our type of design may be different than you are invovled in, I would hardly call our folks amatures because they use True Type fonts more than occasionally. We are the leading design firm in our industry.

Enough on that part. The fact is, if you are doing a title or graphic layout complicated enough to need PS fonts etc over what True Type fonts have to offer, then you should be laying out your graphics serperately and compositing them in VV just like every large post house does. Heck it is normally done by an entirely different department than the edit department.

I appologise that I did not say every True Type font on your computer, but that is no reason to blast Kelly.

We all have things that we would like to see in VV. Some are not worth the extra fees and some are not worth bloating the program with. Some are great ideas. I am sure if you suggested the addition of PS fonts they would look at it. I bet the answer though is the code bloat and liscensing fees are best kept in a graphics program rather than an editting tool.

Keith <--- slips on his flack jacket and prepares to be blasted.

Theory: If you are a Pro graphic designer who cannot live with TT fonts alone, you likely also cannot live with the functional but admittedly limited kerning, inter-character spacing, and deformation capabilities found in Vegas, or most other video apps.

If you fit the description above, you should do what the agency art directors doing high-budget spots have always done: Get the titles laid out in Illustrator or the pro typesetting tool of your choice. No need to burn a slick anymore, just save the file out as a psd, png, or tga (with alpha channel). Vegas will open an key those nicely.

Also: With video as the destination, beware of fine serifs. Take pixel aspect into account during layout.

oh, and I noticed kkolbo just beat me to this same point.

:) But you said it much better!

K

No need for the flack jacket! Apologies if I've caused any offence. I tried to keep my response moderate (though I confess it does annoy me if I feel a post is (in the literal sense) incompetent) but still seem to have raised some hackles.

The first thing to say is that there is absolutely nothing wrong with TrueType fonts (far from it) and no-one is an amateur (which I meant in a rather more neutral sense than it's been taken) because they use them. On the other hand, anyone who is satisfied with the TrueType fonts they just happen happen to find on their computer (i.e. most people) is what I would consider an amateur in this field.

Of course one can prepare graphics elsewhere but it doesn't mean that it isn't sometimes frustrating not being able to use Vegas' text generators. I'm genuinely surprised that you think that it's quite OK that there's no PostScript support and would consider the addition of such as potentially unnecessary bloat: in almost every application I use (there are a couple of not-very-distinguished exceptions), fonts (of whatever format) just work, and that's all I expected of Vegas.

If I could only keep two programs on these computers, Vegas would be one of them (the other being Adobe InDesign – a program with which Vegas has in many ways a lot in common).

I've never had a problem importing graphics and can't imagine that the process could be made any more straightforward.

I really love Vegas. It's a fantastic program.

Am I frustrated that I can't use PostScript fonts in the text generators and do I think it's an embarrassment? Yes. Am I also a little disappointed that you're not more sympathetic? Yes.

Anyway, I know you've got the message so I'll shut up in future. I should point out that I actually only posted to correct kkolbo's statement that ‘VV will use any fonts that you have installed on you computer’.

>>I don't know how much you could afford, but it doesn't have to be that expensive, unless you want some of the bigger names like Maya, Max or Lightwave.
I have been using trueSpace from http://www.caligari.com professionally ever since version 1 (it's now at 5.2) and I think it is a great program with very few limitations. It's not expensive, and I believe they are selling older version at very reasonable prices. <<<

OOOOOOHHH you should have never done that! Yes I would love to have something like Maya, but I wouldn't know how to use it :( I can use a 3D titler like Uleads Cool 3D but a 3d Artist I am not. Sooooo, I went and looked at TrueSpace anyway. OOOHHH BOY. Bought version 4.3 for $99 yesterday. Looks like a great tool. I can do simple things with it but I can also learn over time how to work in the 3D modeling world. It is not an amature tool although it is intuetive enough for me to learn on. It has very few limitations other than my imagination and skill. V 5.2 is what we have been looking for at my firm. I am going to suggest it over Max. For me, V4.3 will do plenty for my videos as well as allow me to mock up relationship models for scenery. I will never be able to take advantage of 30% of it's capibility. At $99 on sale for Easter it is quite a bargin. If I was going to buy 5.2 I would buy 4.3 now for $99 and then upgrade for $299 rather than buy 5.2 for the $500+.

Thanks for the tip. I will now have another reason not to sleep at night.

Keith

I've also tried Cool3D. It works ok, but the results aren't always smooth. I downloaded Xera and will give it a try.

However, the application that I found years ago, that I still use for all my 3D titling (and a bit more) is Web3D from Asymetrix. 3DFX is an identical package that was aimed at the 3D enthusiast, rather than the Web enthusiast--but Web3D had more 3D clipart included. I have used version 1.0 and 2.0 (it is from 5 years ago, when I launched 3D Website Builder (VRML) and bought it thinking it competed). It has been a jewel of a find. It has hundreds of templates for real exotic 3D images with Wizards that ask you for your changes. Or you can create your own in minutes. The rendering can be with or without ray tracing, with whatever resolution you want and however many colors, spins, etc.

My copies are 16 bit only and work with my 98 and ME systems (with only a few unusual effects (with ME))--I don't know if they would work with XP at all. If anyone knows of a later release, I want it.

It took me about 20 minutes to figure out and start my first animation w/ Web3D (titling, spinning boxes, shinning lights/chromes/golds, spinning pictures). It is fantastic--I save out as an AVI and it works directly in VV.

I also use Autodesk Animator Studio (a 2D animation package) at times to import an AVI animation made with Web3d and paint sparkles. However, the resultant AVI's are ONLY readable within VV (they must be non-standard for Windows Media File but acceptable for VV).

I also own Truespace3 (I knew Caligari's President, Roman (I competed against him and would swap products)) and I also traded for Ray Dream Studio. However, both of these require you to be an artist--rather than an application user.


Hope that helps.

Chanimal

You say you can avi out in ulead.
I am trying the demo and am having no luck getting an alpha channel from the program on rendering down.
I go to create animation files and choose avi.
From there there is no choices for alpha.
Can you help me on this before I make any choices on what to buy.
Thank you for all this great feedback.
That is out to everyone here.
What a great team.
Dr

Select AVI as you have. Then click options, then compression, select none. Then under data type on the compression tab select 32bit. 32bit uncompressed avi contains an alpha channel. When you render in VV you select an uncompressed 32bit AVI and then select with Alpha.

The key is when you place the file on the time line in VV you have to right click it and go to the properties popup. Then on the media tab select Alpha Channel straight or something like that to turn on the alpha recognition for the event or media file.

Sorry I don't have everything open right now or I would be beter with the instructions.

I would also take a look at Asymetrix a s well. I used to use there old 16bit product and it was good. I just haven't checked them out in a while.

Keith

I used the 16bit versions of Web3d and loved it as well. I used to do fun animations and graphics with it. Now on Win XP I can't use it. I haven't seen a 32 bit version.

:(

Keith