I think it reasonably to say that FCP is probably Vegas' HD nemesis. The two products are so good if you are coming into this game without any baggage. You probably choose between them based on two criteria:
1. Do I want a Mac as I've already got a Windows PC?
2. Is there a career prospect for me by having FCP on my resumé?
Personally I've gone up through the Vegas release train from VV3 and am happy with what I can do and look forward to each new release. The 3rd party generated-media/FX plug-ins provided, trialed/demo'd and commercially available have also been something I've followed, but I've often felt that what I've seen with Apple LiveType was only possible to do for myself if I dabbled in Flash oriented products. So I've been looking for something along the way. Indeed I think I was quite lucky as I almost bought IndiaCG a few years back, which was "sundowned" when the company was acquired by Apple and this technology became LiveType. Close, but not close enough....
Well, my other interests in digital content creation have kept my eye on paintbox products. Ones that can recognise pressure and have paintbox tools that mimick real world paint, pencil and other craft/artistic tools. The result being that I bought a
copy of NewTek Aura1 when it was being sold off as end of line. I then had an
economic upgrade path to Bauhaus' Mirage product. In the content creation world I'd call this application the "people's canvas". Sold also on its great DV paint-on-video/preview, compositing and pixel tracking tools.
Where it works like LiveType is something special that you add to it. Bob Tasa writes commercial plug-ins for Mirage (and is a big contributor to the NewTek VT suite with plug-ins not unlike we have for Vegas from Vasst.com (Ultimate-S / GearShift) and jetdv.com (Excalibur)). Bob has written a bolt-on called Oasis for Mirage.
It isn't quite released yet, but I've tested it in its limited-feature demo against the latest Mirage demo and it is looking like it'll rock for my SD and HD CG work that I cannot quite do using the built-in tools of Vegas.
Judge for yourself, but like SeriousMagic (DVRack and Ultra), sometimes you need to stick with Vegas but supplement it with standalone product - to add to your arsenal of creativity.
I thought this find was worth sharing and timely given the number of folks that have
switched to HD work recently.
http://www.toastergarage.com/thanks.wmv
http://www.toastergarage.com
Oasis tutorial:
http://www.toastergarage.com/oasis
(the swf isn't always forthcoming on non-IE browsers)
http://www.toastergarage.com/oasis/oasistutorial.wmv
http://www.toastergarage.com/oasis.zip
http://www.bauhaussoftware.com/2D_Animation.php
I wanted to do a shoutout for this finding. Perhaps it'll be the subject of review on the other forums at some point?
I'm 90% targetting it for HD lower thirds and I think I can incorporate the functionality with other ideas to make a unique feel to my work.
Has anyone found anything else like this for the PC? I'd love to hear other folks opinions on font animation solutions before I take the plunge?
1. Do I want a Mac as I've already got a Windows PC?
2. Is there a career prospect for me by having FCP on my resumé?
Personally I've gone up through the Vegas release train from VV3 and am happy with what I can do and look forward to each new release. The 3rd party generated-media/FX plug-ins provided, trialed/demo'd and commercially available have also been something I've followed, but I've often felt that what I've seen with Apple LiveType was only possible to do for myself if I dabbled in Flash oriented products. So I've been looking for something along the way. Indeed I think I was quite lucky as I almost bought IndiaCG a few years back, which was "sundowned" when the company was acquired by Apple and this technology became LiveType. Close, but not close enough....
Well, my other interests in digital content creation have kept my eye on paintbox products. Ones that can recognise pressure and have paintbox tools that mimick real world paint, pencil and other craft/artistic tools. The result being that I bought a
copy of NewTek Aura1 when it was being sold off as end of line. I then had an
economic upgrade path to Bauhaus' Mirage product. In the content creation world I'd call this application the "people's canvas". Sold also on its great DV paint-on-video/preview, compositing and pixel tracking tools.
Where it works like LiveType is something special that you add to it. Bob Tasa writes commercial plug-ins for Mirage (and is a big contributor to the NewTek VT suite with plug-ins not unlike we have for Vegas from Vasst.com (Ultimate-S / GearShift) and jetdv.com (Excalibur)). Bob has written a bolt-on called Oasis for Mirage.
It isn't quite released yet, but I've tested it in its limited-feature demo against the latest Mirage demo and it is looking like it'll rock for my SD and HD CG work that I cannot quite do using the built-in tools of Vegas.
Judge for yourself, but like SeriousMagic (DVRack and Ultra), sometimes you need to stick with Vegas but supplement it with standalone product - to add to your arsenal of creativity.
I thought this find was worth sharing and timely given the number of folks that have
switched to HD work recently.
http://www.toastergarage.com/thanks.wmv
http://www.toastergarage.com
Oasis tutorial:
http://www.toastergarage.com/oasis
(the swf isn't always forthcoming on non-IE browsers)
http://www.toastergarage.com/oasis/oasistutorial.wmv
http://www.toastergarage.com/oasis.zip
http://www.bauhaussoftware.com/2D_Animation.php
I wanted to do a shoutout for this finding. Perhaps it'll be the subject of review on the other forums at some point?
I'm 90% targetting it for HD lower thirds and I think I can incorporate the functionality with other ideas to make a unique feel to my work.
Has anyone found anything else like this for the PC? I'd love to hear other folks opinions on font animation solutions before I take the plunge?