Comments

barleycorn wrote on 1/19/2003, 4:53 PM
"The main thing that matters as far as text is IS IT READABLE? Everything else is fluff."

Incredible ignorance.

1. Readability is of course a most important thing but what a difficult thing to define. You make it sound as though there should be a single 'most readable' font we should all be using. I wonder why type designers down the centuries have bothered. Maybe we should all be using one of the OCR fonts perhaps? OK, one finds a promising font but what if something could be done to make it just that bit clearer at low resolution: do you need a bigger x-height, maybe something slightly more extended, would adjusting the kerning help...? Ah, here's what we need but, oh dear, it's only available in Postscript Type 1 so we can't use that in Vegas. Maybe we'll have to compromise on readability after all. Fluff? Damn hard work requiring a lot of expertise.

2. Readability is of course a most important thing and yet it's only the beginning. You're a complete beginner (as well as an ar$ehole) and perhaps you'll never understand how expressive a typeface can be. Baskerville and PMN Caecilia; both readable faces; could they ever be used interchangeably? I think not. Could one ever set a technical manual in Adobe Jenson? Shakespeare in Franklin Gothic?...

Fluff? Depth.

"other people puff out their chest with pride over their collection of 2,000 fonts installed"

Is this addressed to me? I think you'll find that people working with type all the time usually use a font manager and only activate fonts as necessary for each job. This is not a question of being able to use lots of fonts by the way; what matters is being able to use the right fonts.

"Can anyone name a single commerical or film where they remember what font was used?"

I personally can't help noticing the typefaces used in almost everything I ever see. There's no reason why most people should though, anymore than I'd expect them to analyse the details of a film score or the camera work (though specialists will of course notice such things).

Why are you bothering to 'contribute' to this thread? The issue clearly doesn't matter to you and you manifestly don't have any expertise in this field.
brey wrote on 1/19/2003, 5:43 PM
billyboy just doesnt like new and unique fonts. hes a generic guy. but thats just him.
Former user wrote on 1/19/2003, 6:21 PM
Thanks for the interest in my site:-) The link should work. I just copied the link from my previous message and pasted it into my browser and it worked...
seeker wrote on 1/19/2003, 9:15 PM
Brey,

Yes, I am surprised about no PostScript fonts in Vegas 4. I was anticipating PostScript Type 1 support in Vegas 4 and full OpenType support in Vegas 5. Although I have only one OpenType font on my system right now, in my opinion OpenType is "the wave of the future" in fonts.

I don't have a MultiMaster font at the moment, but I suppose I should get one just to see what works with it. MultiMaster fonts can do some neat stuff. Adobe was surprised and disappointed that MultiMaster fonts weren't more widely supported, so they are throwing extra effort into the push to get OpenType fonts supported. Adobe recently completed converting all of their font library of thousands of fonts to OpenType.

However, Vegas's support of TrueType titling is sufficient for me for the time being. Today the majority of my fonts are TrueType, mainly because they cost much less than PostScript fonts. Less than a third of my fonts are PostScript at this time, and most of them are "inherited" from my Windows 3.1 days.

Only two or three of my PostScript fonts look like they would work well in video. I have found that the majority of my TrueType fonts are not suitable for general video use. Most fonts with extended serifs and all fonts with hairlines don't read well or at all. Any horizontal character parts that are only one or two pixels thick tend to strobe or dance in an interlaced display. Fonts that are designed for FAX use don't have any thin parts, so they tend to work in video when sized large enough to avoid thin horizontals. For smaller type sizes you may need to go to Bold to make even them work. I am not aware of any fonts that were designed specifically to meet the special needs of video, although, with the multitude of font designs that are out there, some of them should accidentally fulfill video's requirements.

I like fonts. I might even be a fontaholic. And I would have been pleased if Vegas 4 had supported both PostScript and OpenType and, what the hell, MultiMaster. But I am not bitterly disappointed. With the growing possibility of adding surround sound to my productions I am, in fact, quite happy. I think I can "make do" with TrueType for a while longer.

But, SoFo, for Vegas 5, think OpenType, PostScript, MultiMaster, the works. OpenType's UniCode fonts could give Vegas some truly international titling capability.

-- Seeker --

Former user wrote on 1/19/2003, 9:38 PM
Yep. I'm "neutral" on the idea of including PS support in Vegas. But, what I'm not neutral on is your superior attitude. You only want someone to agree with you? Is that how your world works? Everyone agree with "Barlycorn" and everything will be okay. I paid my hard earned money for Vegas just like, I assume, you did. So, sorry to be the bearer, of what you might see, as bad news but I have just as much right to state my stance as you do.

Like I said. Show me some of your work -- or are you just a mouth screaming at the other end of keyboard?
barleycorn wrote on 1/20/2003, 3:02 AM
"I have just as much right to state my stance as you do..."

You do indeed.

"I'm "neutral" on the idea of including PS support in Vegas"

Well that was fascinating.
Grazie wrote on 1/20/2003, 3:30 AM
Jim - YES it works! Excellent site - but you knew that anyway. Love the graphics. I'm a bit of a Graphics Groupie. Really like to see clean and informative sites. PLenty of white space. You've gone into my favourites as an example of Good Design Practice - GDP! Sounds like a country's economic statement.

If you need some "short" clips of London-ish stuff - perhaps we could talk.

Grazie
barleycorn wrote on 1/20/2003, 5:28 AM
As long as you have Adobe Type Manager installed, Multiple Master fonts work just work like any others: applications don't need to be specially coded to use them. Adobe InDesign can automatically use the correct optical size (if the font has an optical size axis) but for other usage all the work is done in ATM.

Using a font at a larger size than it was designed for can be very useful in a low-resolution context since the stroke contrast is usually much less. This doesn't just apply to Multiple Masters of course: some of Adobe's "Pro" OpenType fonts come with opticals and there has always been the odd family (like ITC Bodoni) that's designed for use at various sizes.

Adobe hasn't quite finished the conversion of their entire library to OpenType by the way (Robert Slimbach's Kepler hasn't been done yet for example) but OpenType is certainly the future for fonts. Working with InDesign 2.0 and the "Pro" OpenType fonts (the ones with more comprehensive sets of glyphs) is an incredible pleasure and it's positively painful having to go back to anything else.

Also, the Text and Credit Roll generators are about the only places in Vegas where the support for multiple languages is actually OK. I've been working on some Russian subtitles this morning.
barleycorn wrote on 1/20/2003, 6:27 AM
Marquat,

Another supremely constructive contribution on the subject of typography.

I shan't dignify this with a response except to say that I offer no apology for tendering my support to brey and cheesehole (who has campaigned on this issue much longer than I have).

I'm sure BillyBoy can look after himself by the way. Splenetic my reply to him may have been but he can give (and has given) as good as he gets.

If my posts are so unpalatable to you may I suggest that you Ignore This User?
Former user wrote on 1/20/2003, 7:35 AM
Thank you so much for the kind words :-)

My real "job" is freelance 3D illustrations and post production. It's been a great experience working on what makes me happy and still make a living at it ;-) My children are married and out of the house now, so I can just sit in front of my workstation in my home office and mouse away to my hearts content.

Quite a bit different from when I started in this business in television in '75. Back then it was 2" Quad tape, Chyron character generators, Grass Valley switchers that needed two racks of support equipment, etc.

To help keep this reply message "slightly" on topic, I'll mention that we upgraded the Chyron to a $125,000 Vidifont 5 that came with just a few fonts. Each new font was $750 -- so if we wanted a Normal, Bold, and Italics version of a typestyle then we would have to shell out $2250!