Why video software can't be just easy, UX intuitive, like PowerPoint?

Milosz-Nasadowski wrote on 5/9/2022, 12:04 PM

Yes, I know it's apparently 'advanced and not designed for that' but does it really justify why simple things have to be so strangely difficult to do making you need to combine and do some things in Photoshop, Corel draw etc.

Let's state the facts. I'm a casual user and Youtube content creator and even if I was doing weddings etc. I would want to do the simple things I want and have in my head quickly and easily.

1) Adding bespoke background block for rolling text titles.

2) Adding any shapes to flow onto the scene.

3) PiP - Putting video into that or any shape block which I could adjust by just grabbing its sides or corners on the screen.

I just had to come back to PowerPoint for my studies project and ohh god all those things and more, including one click record the screen video and one click place it anywhere you want blown my mind (not to mention morphing transitions). I felt ashamed that a tool I considered amateurish in the area of video or animation did the job so fast.

In Vegas I have to use extra tracks with masks and sub dialog box tools that are opposite to intuitive, they don't really show results on a fly etc. And oh trying to crop videos or position by... moving the background frame and adjusting it to the element rather than the putting simply the element in the corner where I want.

Even the image Slide show tool. The link to add photos is like a browser link from the 90's internet and the tool hasn't progressed, you can't press delete to delete the icons etc. And when you try to add a background in the text tool it adds it to the whole frame not the text!:-)

Don't get me wrong, it's not Vegas, I am probably moaning about the whole video editor market. I am guessing and it looks like they wrote the code ages ago and for compatibility reasons or something it stays ancient and unintuitive.

Yes I may not know all the tools and tricks but the fact that I'd rather prepare 1080p image sizes and gradient transparencies in Photoshop and .png's and simple slide animations in PowerPoint to import them back and chroma keyframe in Vegas SPEAKS for itself. Because the way round is easier and faster and... just intuitive.

Am I missing 1000 hours of professional training in Vegas to do simple things or something?

How do I for example do that number and title in Vegas?

Thank you for your patience! ;-)

Comments

Former user wrote on 5/9/2022, 1:21 PM

@Milosz-Nasadowski

😂 👍

I'm not defending Vegas because it is old software that needs a serious rewrite, but you can do most things with it, it just that isn't already done for you like in other software,

For the text, there's no simple built in option to create a text background with rounded corners, so you have to add a solid colour layer, shrink to fit using Track Motion at the track header, add Soft Contrast, the settings in the pic below will let you round the corners, & adjust the opacity by lowering the level on the black event on the timeline,

Apply text to the track above the black solid, make the solid black a child of the text layer above. you'll have Parent Motion top left of the grouped tracks, you can then move & keyframe those two objects together as one object.

Have a look at Bezier mask for better on screen controls of the shape.

Yelandkeil wrote on 5/9/2022, 1:28 PM

If you have the enthusiam to learn as you got PPT or your English, it's simple and easy.

Reyfox wrote on 5/9/2022, 1:37 PM

I have no aversions to using a pre-made template in some videos. Why re-invent the wheel so to speak. While some automation is nice, a "one size fits all" isn't going to happen. In the more "professional" software, there might be some "one click" things, but as a whole, if you want to make your video "yours", you will have to customize it yourself. And that is what must "professionals" want.

A lot of consumer editors have these features If I want to not re-invent the wheel, I'll use a consumer editor, and a few clicks later.. done. But honestly, for me in editing, I prefer Vegas. But what you ask @Milosz-Nasadowski is something that I too would like to see.

Vegas has made steps forward with provided templates for titles, but not enough. Hoping for the future.

Former user wrote on 5/9/2022, 1:40 PM

@Reyfox Agreed, there's plenty of software that will do all the premade effects/transitions & texts, but a lot don't let you adjust them to your own liking, there's plenty of plugins too that will let you do one click,, but same again, you're limited to the control of them,

This that one i posted above, it took more than a couple of clicks but not too many,

Milosz-Nasadowski wrote on 5/9/2022, 2:32 PM

@Former user and @Reyfox Yes it looks like I am one of those people with a specific vision and if it has to have a graphic with a rounded corner then it must have it. And if you say (as I understand) that there is nothing wrong with using other graphic tools in order to achieve that then that's fine.

All I know is that the social media video market, including YT is getting crowdy and more competitive so people want and need the results fast because there is no time to edit a video 3 days if you have 3 hours.

Not being fluent in most of video software (I come from 2D vector graphics) I always thought that there are tools for doing things really quickly and I mean far quicker than digging frame by frame in After Effects etc.

THank you all for the comments. I will carry on working round and coming up with solutions haha.

lan-mLMC wrote on 5/9/2022, 2:34 PM

@Milosz-Nasadowski

The workflow you need is a lot of Templates/ Presets built in so that you can use them directly.

Vegas' workflow is to give you the professional features & freedom to do better effects than Templates/ Presets step by step. Then you can save your effects as custom Templates/ Presets for later use.

In fact, the Vegas team definitely also wanted to provide rich presets and templates. For example, in the Sony/Sonic Foundry era, Vegas Team made many presets for Vegas Checkboard, Vegas Color Gradient, Vegas Noise Texture, and Vegas Test Pattern.

But right now they don't have enough people to make presets. New Features / Performance Improvement / bug fixes are still the highest priority for the team.

If you really need a lot of presets and templates, I would suggest you trying Filmora, Magix Movie Studio, Power Director, etc.

Milosz-Nasadowski wrote on 5/9/2022, 2:46 PM

@Milosz-Nasadowski

The workflow you need is a lot of Templates/ Presets built in so that you can use them directly.

Vegas' workflow is to give you the professional features & freedom to do better effects than Templates/ Presets step by step.

No, quite opposite, I need quick solutions but not templates or presets. I am talking about tools that would give me freedom in an intuitive way and I can't agree actually that Vegas gives that freedom which has been proven in this topic. You don't have a pen or shape tool to draw or position directly on the preview window wherever you want place and time wise and use it for whatever content you want, for example to drag and drop image or video there, and then reshape it by just dragging side or corner handles.

RogerS wrote on 5/9/2022, 3:24 PM

You can crop intuitively with the crop Fx or try Picture in Picture for easy resizing and moving right on the preview window. Timewise you still need keyframes but can sync them with the timeline cursor by clicking that icon.

Yelandkeil wrote on 5/9/2022, 4:05 PM

No, quite opposite, I need quick solutions but not templates or presets.

Give me a pencil and I draw the whole world for you - naiv or bizarre?

Behind that pencil there's a complete industrial chain.

lan-mLMC wrote on 5/9/2022, 4:15 PM

@Milosz-Nasadowski

You don't have a pen or shape tool to draw

VEGAS Bezier mask FX

or position directly on the preview window wherever you want place and time wise and use it for whatever content you want,

VEGAS Picture in Picture FX

for example to drag and drop image or video there,

This method of dragging video/image directly onto the preview screen can only be placed on the top layer, and can only be placed to the 0 second start point, which is a backward and outdated method, currently only used by some softwares such as Powerpoint.

Most NLE softwares use an advanced way of dragging video/image into a timeline so that it can be firstly placed in layer 2 or 3, and firstly to the any time that you want as start time.

and then reshape it by just dragging side or corner handles.

VEGAS Picture in Picture FX, VEGAS Bezier mask FX, VEGAS Crop FX

Yelandkeil wrote on 5/9/2022, 4:15 PM

I'm out. Thanks.

Former user wrote on 5/9/2022, 4:24 PM

@Milosz-Nasadowski templates or presets are quick solutions, I had Rounded corners already saved as a preset, all i had to do was type round in the fx search

There's tools to shape an inserted image like Mesh Warp, it has onscreen control points, those points could be better & if the screen would zoom in & out that would be good, but that's something that is wanted by many inc some on this thread & has been mentioned a few times in other threads,

btw I'm not defending Vegas, because it does have some improvements to make & in a way you're right it doesn't do everything that's why i have a few extra plugins to help it along (pic below), I too have other software, one that renders 3x faster than Vegas & plays 4k video transitions no prob at full res, the other is good for 3D files, but when i want greater control i come to Vegas, At the moment it's a case of swings n roundabouts between different editors,

Former user wrote on 5/9/2022, 4:27 PM

I'm out. Thanks.

@Yelandkeil Why do you feel the need top say that, I hate this 'I'm out' bollocks, If you don't want to continue then don't,

MikeS wrote on 5/10/2022, 11:27 AM

>you have to add a solid colour layer, shrink to fit using Track Motion
You don't need the solid colour layer, nor Track motion. Just stick the Soft Contrast effect onto the Event fx of Text layer, but move it in front of the pan and crop effect. It'll use Text's background colour

Musicvid wrote on 5/10/2022, 3:10 PM

Although PowerPoint can be saved as a video, that's where the similarity ends. Welcome to the learning curve; it begins at

MikeS wrote on 5/11/2022, 10:53 AM

>How do I for example do that number and title in Vegas?
So here's my version in Vegas using the method outlined above:

jetdv wrote on 5/11/2022, 11:37 AM

Personally, I've never considered the PowerPoint UX as "intuitive"... Especially as the menu options kept moving from version to version. For example, I used to be able to do "such and such" by going to "Menu - Option". Now the new version was released and the menus no longer exist?

daniel-t wrote on 5/11/2022, 12:25 PM

While there are always improvements that can be made, unfortunately power typically comes with greater complexity, and sometimes the simple and intuitive UI choices that work for something basic, won’t work when you need to offer more flexibility.

Vegas is far from perfect, but I find it so fast and simple for basic editing tasks, and yet it also offers a lot of power beneath the hood, which is often not that complicated once you get certain keyboard shortcuts down pat.

I find it pairs well conceptually with CorelDRAW - another program that is definitely not incredibly intuitive, but is very fast once you know how to use it.