Vegas vs AE

farss wrote on 5/14/2011, 2:25 PM

"I'm trying to learn After Effects which I find really unintuitive because it uses different windows to edit the clips and the composition"

Not true, you can change the in and out points in the composition's timeline.

" effects have to wait for RAM preview,"

Not so, you should see the result of applying an FX to the current frame immediately, running AE and Vegas on the same hardware here and with a complex comp AE is WAY faster than Vegas to show me the preview. Vegas can take a minute to show me what AE shows me immediately. That's a big difference when you're trying to position something.

" the timeline automatically sets to a specific time rather than adjusts to the length of the longest clip and changing clip lengths takes longer."

You specify the comp's length when you create it.

" Is there a way to think about AE that helps make more sense out of it or is it a case of learning bit by bit? For some reason I just got Vegas but AE really confuses me."

Don't compare the two, I've found I really need to switch my brain around when I go from one to the other. They're two very different tools for doing two very different tasks. AE is a compositor and compositing in my view is primarly about space. Vegas is an editor and editing is about time. I'm neither a heavy AE user or guru but some of my AE projects are "nested" 4 or 5 comps deep, Vegas would just die trying to do that. On the other hand no way would I try to use AE to edit 9 hours of video from several cameras or mix audio. For what it's designed to do AE is fantastic for me because I can break the task down into simple parts (comps) and easily bring them all togther or work on the output of one in another.

Best thing I did to learn AE was to watch a lot of VideoCopilot tutorials and really grasp HOW he works. I'd watch maybe just a few seconds several times here and there. Then I'd download the projects and play around with them and try to work out how it was that he could work so fast. Getting the basic keyboard shortcuts down pat in my memory really, really helped, especially using the "~" key.

Mostly I just render out a reference clip from Vegas and take that into AE, Avid's DNxHD codec is good for this. Then I'll build the element I need inside AE, turn off the reference layer and render out the thing I've created and bring that back into Vegas and comp it into my video.

Bob.

subchaz wrote on 5/14/2011, 2:35 PM

I agree with BOB on this one that Vegas and AE are tools for different jobs

and if your using AE in the right way you can see what efxs your doing
straight of the bat so to speak without waiting

Vegas is great and i use it all the time for editing and putting everything together
but AE will do amazing things if you spend the time to learn it,

just go looking around you tube and there are lots of ideas to try out with AE which will get you moving with it

crocdoc wrote on 5/14/2011, 5:08 PM

To add to what the others have already said, trying to run AE as a video NLE program will only confuse you. I'm relatively new to video but have been working with static images for a long time, so to me AE really is Photoshop for video and I work with it in a similar way. It's a compositing program and all about layers and effects. It's not nearly as intuitive as Vegas (then again, nothing is less intuitive than Photoshop the first time one launches it) and I used the Visual Quickstart/Quickpro Guides from Peachpit Press to get me started (and now, occasionally, for reference). The Classroom In A Book series is also good, as it takes you through a number of lessons to learn a few basics.

I used to work at a wildlife park and aquarium and would usually have both programs open at the same time, jumping back and forth between them. Here are three examples of crocodile videos I did, using varying combinations of AE and Vegas.

The first is a video using AE only (it was for a species identification LCD screen above a new crocodile exhibit - it added movement and interest when the crocodile wasn't).

The second half of the same video uses a combination of AE and Vegas (It's text heavy because I grew up in Canada and my mid-Pacific accent wouldn't be the sort of voice-over tourists would want/expect during their Australian experience)

This clip I did for the company's Facebook/youtube/website pages was done almost entirely in Vegas (with the exceptions of a few slow motion effects done in AE and the end graphic)

vtxrocketeer wrote on 5/14/2011, 6:14 PM

crocdoc, just when I was bemoaning the absence of dramatic chicken-eating videos on this forum, you post. To opera, no less. Thanks. Now I'm off to dinner...

crocdoc wrote on 5/14/2011, 6:17 PM

"Now I'm off to dinner... "
Order the chicken, but make sure they pluck it, first (unless you can swallow it whole).

ushere wrote on 5/14/2011, 6:45 PM

you want fries with that?

excellent work crocdoc!

crocdoc wrote on 5/14/2011, 8:24 PM

Thanks!

Mindmatter wrote on 5/15/2011, 1:32 AM

Really like the fish vid. I've always wondered how those pans on a static pic are achieved with the different layers moving at different speed and perspective making it so real and 3-dimensional. Is it really like photoshop layers moving one on top of the other, and then you program a different speed, blur and movement for each layer?

farss wrote on 5/15/2011, 2:01 AM

" Is it really like photoshop layers moving one on top of the other, and then you program a different speed, blur and movement for each layer? "

In AE you can place each object in three dimensions, add a camera and move the camera. For the camera you specify the focal length of the lens and f stop etc and the software does the rest as you move the camera.
Still though it is only 2.5D, not 3D, as each object is only a planar surface. Vegas is the same but lacks the concept of a camera.

I can't recall much that I've done in AE that I couldn't have done in Vegas, it's just sooo much easier in AE because of the way it works and the way you can break the problem down into nested composites and of course expressions really help. AE does include quite of few Boris FXs out of the box which is also makes the asking price quite reasonable.

Bob.

RRA wrote on 5/15/2011, 2:15 AM

Hi,

Looking on scope of ongoing updates, target for SCS seems to be clear and reasonable :

1) implement all capabilities to promote Sony hardware,
2) improve reliability (especially after implementing OFX).

After that will be good time to develop also features connected with camera track and 3D composition - these are still on "entry level". Believe that, track grouping, soloing etc are first attempts to manage groups as 'containers' (what is absolutely necessary in order to achieve 3D compositing).

Best regards,

RRA

amendegw wrote on 5/15/2011, 2:55 AM

@crocdoc: Really good. All three held my interest. I really liked the use of the bubble sound during pans & zooms.

...Jerry

PS: You never know when you might have to distinguish between a "Seven Spot Archerfish" and a "Banded Archerfish" - now I'm prepared!! [grin]

crocdoc wrote on 5/15/2011, 6:51 AM

As Bob (farss) said, it was mostly a simple a matter of putting the fish, background and crocodile on different layers, setting them all to 3D (through ticking the 3D box on each layer) so that they have a position in the 3D space and then setting up a camera that is moved around (as well as its point of view, which can be moved independently of the camera) . The focal length of the camera and blur levels determine what is and isn't out of focus, but I often fiddled with the depth of field as the camera moved in so that background objects were really out of focus and not detracting from the 'hero' fish/turtle/crocodile. I also fiddled with the colour balance of all of the fish (and turtle) so that they blended into the background when seen at a distance (as they do in the tank) but gradually decreased these effects as the camera moved in on them until you were seeing the original flash-lit photo of the 'hero' animal up close.

The sound effects were a mixture of home-made foley and a bit of sampling. My microwave oven features heavily (the 'ping' of the maps is my oven telling me dinner is ready), as does my old flatbed scanner.

The trickiest part of that video was maintaining the sense of the water's surface. The original crocodile image has the meniscus going across its head and the background image also had a water line. Because the crocodile was a 3D object (well, a 2D object on a 3D plane), when I moved in on any of the animals the crocodile's head would rise above the water line and would look odd, so I sometimes had to move the camera in weird ways to avoid that. It's most noticeable when I move in on the scat (one of the fish species) behind the crocodile, as the camera goes straight in until the meniscus is out of frame and then ducks down and under the crocodile's neck in a rough 'Z' trajectory.

A. Grandt wrote on 5/15/2011, 8:08 AM

I'm not using AE, yet, but the topic reminded me of an image I once had forwarded to me. I have no idea if it is for real though: 59984f5e92b004fd16a9ffc8c1859726.png

Mindmatter wrote on 5/15/2011, 9:55 AM

Thanks a lot for the infos Bob and crocdoc., fascinating stuff!

Spectralis wrote on 5/16/2011, 2:01 AM

Thanks for the advice and examples they really helped me understand how to use AE. I'll have to spend more time with it rather than giving up each time and going back to Vegas.

If I want to composite a small section of a longer film I'm editing in Vegas what is the best way to exchange clips between Vegas and AE? Should I render the section I want to effect in Vegas and then import this clip into AE, composite it, then render in AE and import it back into Vegas? I'm mainly working with SD video so how do I do all this without degrading the quality of the clip too much?

Rory Cooper wrote on 5/16/2011, 3:37 AM

Nice work crocdoc.

Even without the voice over I could tell you aren't originally from Oz
The guys I know from Oz would leave a tape measure next to the screen so you can measure the croc yourself. :-)
Nessun dorma while bird watching is very Oz, so well done all round.

Did you film the footage yourself?

farss wrote on 5/16/2011, 4:14 AM

" I'll have to spend more time with it rather than giving up each time and going back to Vegas."

Just try doing some fun stuff so there's no pressure to get it done. Some of the Video Copilot projects can be good I've found and you've got the working project to fool around with.

"If I want to composite a small section of a longer film I'm editing in Vegas what is the best way to exchange clips between Vegas and AE? Should I render the section I want to effect in Vegas and then import this clip into AE, composite it, then render in AE and import it back into Vegas? I'm mainly working with SD video so how do I do all this without degrading the quality of the clip too much?"

I'd just render out the clip or part of the clip you want to work with. As it's SD you could use Uncompressed without eating up a lot of disk space. Working in HD I use Avid's excellent and free DNxHD codec, others use Cineform. Both are so close to lossless it doesn't matter and I'm pretty certain Avid's codec will do SD.

The other alternative if you don't need to actually change the original video and just want to add something is to render out a reference video to use in AE and then out of AE render the element you need minus the reference and comp that back in with Vegas. Titles and such like motion graphics things are an obvious application for this workflow.

Not that it's any special but that's how I did this:

as the camera didn't move I just took a still from Vegas and used that as my reference to get the 3D camera in the right place (almost) and then rendered out a 1920x340 AVI with alpha. I then positioned that in Vegas to lineup with the balcony railing. Piece of cake as AE had taken care of the perspective etc.

Bob.

crocdoc wrote on 5/16/2011, 5:37 PM

That's a great effect, Bob.

crocdoc wrote on 5/16/2011, 5:49 PM

Thanks, Rory.

Yes, the footage was all taken by me. Most of the sequences were shot on a Canon 7D, with a few taken on an HVR V1P and/or FX1. I'm still getting a handle on focusing with the Canon so I'd often struggle to keep the crocodile in focus when it swam towards me at an angle, for it was hard to gauge its speed and determine whether or not it was actually in focus at the same time (even looking through a Zacuto viewfinder). That's why the focus seems to 'hunt' now and then on some of the close-up shots.

farss wrote on 5/16/2011, 6:22 PM

"That's a great effect, Bob."

Thanks, it did cause my client a bit of a double take. He rang me from OS to say he didn't remember St Andrews have such a display :)

I have to say I found your work fantastic because it was so well thought out to keep the interest up while communicating information. I liked the idea of showing the variants of a species side by side. I've found in museums or zoos it's oftenly impossible to tell from those little placards but you've really nailed it, well done. So nice to see motion graphics used to help tell the story rather than distract from it.

Bob.

Spectralis wrote on 5/16/2011, 8:00 PM

Thanks Bob and crocdoc - excellent examples. I've learnt more about how to use AE vs an NLE from this thread than anything else I've read about AE. I'll have a go at a few simple projects first and work my way up from there.

crocdoc wrote on 5/16/2011, 11:27 PM

I'm not surprised your client did a double-take, Bob. While watching the video the thought that came to my head was that it was so well integrated that most people would assume there was scrolling text up there on the day and not look closely enough to see what it was being displayed on.

Thanks for the comment on my work, too.