Dexcon. Thank you. Taken your advice and downloaded the trial. 30 days to go. Back to the tutorials.

Update on Trial. - Render is limited to 2 minutes. Can do work, learn etc. But, 2 minute videos? Most home movies exceed this time. Disappointed. Going back to VMS.

Regards

Ross

I completely missed the fact that Vegas Pro has layer-blending. This is IMPORTANT! The Magix site should make this feature more prominent. This is DEFINITELY a reason to upgrade to pro. I was planning to wait until Vegas Pro 19 was released to upgrade, but this very recent epiphany may make me jump to Pro 18 NOW.

Just to be clear, there is no layer-blending (i.e., track-compositing) feature of any kind in Vegas Movie Studio 17 Platinum, correct?

I just realized the offer is only for Vegas Pro 18 Edit which is currently bundled with BorisFX Titler. I would want the Vegas Pro 18 Suite instead which adds:

• ActionVFX Action Pack.
• Boris FX Continuum Film Style Unit 2020.5.
• Boris FX Continuum Particles Unit 2020.5.
• Boris FX Continuum Image Restoration Unit 2020.5.
• NewBlue Transitions 5 Ultimate.

Of which, the BorisFX Particles Unit is the biggest draw. The Pro 18 Suite upgrade price is still $299, so there's no special promotion price offered at this time (the normal upgrade price to Pro 18 Edit is only $50 more than the current email/pop-up $99 offer). I'll probably just wait until August and make the jump to the Pro 19 Suite then.

I have VMS 17. I typed 'compositing' in the help, and got full information about compositing. Layer did not bring me much. Hope this helps. If I'm talking rubbish. Ignore me.

Ross

Yeah, I just searched the VMS user manual for layers and compositing and came up with nothing. I'm still considering the $99 upgrade just for the compositing feature. I was looking at some of Vegasaur's effects media which seem pretty nice. But they're media files, not a plug-ins, so you must have pro's layering features to be able to use them at all.

When I bought VMS, I didn't even know Vegas was capable of Photoshop-like blending. This is an incredibly powerful and useful tool, especially for the artsy kind of videos I've been attempting recently. This is an essential feature for me. Hmmm . . . what to do? I guess $99 is less than $149, so . . .

Plus, Vegasaur's Particulas media pack is only $39, and it's super-cool. It's actual photography of real-world elements, so is far more realistic than BorisFX' particle generator; though, that has other creative uses which Particulas cannot produce.

Update on Trial. - Render is limited to 2 minutes. Can do work, learn etc. But, 2 minute videos? Most home movies exceed this time. Disappointed. Going back to VMS.

@Ross-Jackson It is only a trial.

Studio-4: I sense a learning opportunity. For me that is.

You said: completely missed the fact that Vegas Pro has layer-blending. This is IMPORTANT!

Why? What is layer blending. What does it do?

You said: Of which, the BorisFX Particles Unit is the biggest draw.

Why?... same question.

You said: I didn't even know Vegas was capable of Photoshop-like blending. This is an incredibly powerful and useful tool, especially for the artsy kind of videos I've been attempting recently. 

What is Photoshop-like blending? Why would I like that?

Hey... Inquiring minds gotta know!

Oh, sure! Um, where to begin? Have you used Photoshop or GIMP or anything with layers? I'm not a Photoshop expert and am using Pixelmator for macOS instead (which is excellent!), but layer-effects are super cool. There are like a couple dozen types of blends you can do in Photoshop layers. Here's a similar menu from Pixelmator:

You can get all kinds of wild posterization and texture-effects, plus tons of ways to combine images in more subtle ways. One of the more common uses is for superimposing titles and graphics over video. It's also essential for compositing luma- and chroma-keys. Take any image file (or in the case of Vegas Pro, any video clip) capable of supporting a transparent-layer (e.g., PNG), and you may superimpose that over any other file (e.g., titles, or a flying superhero). It's capable of much more than I can type here; try an online search for a Photoshop tutorial on layers to see all the possibilities.

As far as the particle-engine, it's well suited for the applications in which I'm interested; i.e., video-synthesis. It's an art form based in analog TV technology where you intentionally corrupt the signal and distort the color to achieve interesting abstract visual effects. The particle-engine in particular would serve as good for source-material for the other analog video-synthesis tools I have in my studio.

Below is an example of some 240fps footage I shot which I ran through an analog "glitch" module, a Tymkrs' GlitchCRT. The unstable sync is deliberate and part of the "art."

Perhaps a purer form of the genre, below is my first glitch-video ever, produced a couple weeks ago (warning: it's boring—:30 seconds of the same thing!):

That's displaying a signal generated by a $900 video synthesizer, an Erogenous Tones Structure, sent through a $75 analog glitch-maker, the Tymkrs' GlitchCRT.

Here's a composite of my video-synthesis hardware rig:

By the way, would someone mind posting a screenshot of the available blending options' drop-down menu in Vegas Pro, similar to the one I posted above for Pixelamtor? Thanks!

Also, I got the download-link for the PDF of the user manual for Vegas Movie Studio 17 in my registration email, but I don't know where to find the user manual for Vegas Pro 18 without yet owning a license?

@studio-4 Download the 30 day trial for Vegas Pro Edit and you can then find the answer to all your questions.

As for pdf manuals Magix only make them available on purchase. Silly I agree as I like to study the manuals of software I'm interested in looking into.

Aha! I had a feeling they did that! If someone wants to save me the trouble, just a text-list of the available blend modes would be helpful.

Here tis (Vegas Pro 18) ...