Boris Red 3.01GL and Vegas 5

flippin wrote on 1/5/2005, 10:13 AM
Intro to discussion:

I've had Vegas 5 loaded and functioning on a Dell 8400, 2 GigHz, 1 Gig RAM, 120 Gig HD computer for almost 1 year. V5 works well with this configuration, although if I try to open it too soon after closing Photoshop 2 or Toon Boom Studios, the V5 invariably crashes while trying to open. A reasonably small irritation; since I don't know how to fix it I work around it.

Just got Boris Red because I wanted the oft-raved-over titling capabilities and the ability to design and implement my own VideoFX and transtions.

Now that I have Red, I'm a little bit intimidated. It's been slow going but I got through the first Boris tutorial exercise alive and still sane. I then figured out how to make the Boris Red GL choice appear in Vegas's VideoFX menu and transitions menu. I figured out how to launch Boris Red from within Vegas, but right about there I became somewhat overwhelmed. The interface between V5 and Boris Red is not intuitive (not yet, at least!) and the two pages of Boris documentation relevant to Vegas users is, while helpful, not enough. Somebody with sufficient experience might be able to make a little money by writing some good tutorials directed specifically at the Vegas-Boris Red user.

Rather than ask a bunch of specific techno-questions in my first post on this subject, I'd like to first try to elicit general experience and/or advice from the dedicated Vegas (3, 4, or 5) users who also use Boris Red. I know there must be some folks who use this combo enthusiastically because a search of the site turned up lots of fairly specific technical discussion. Boris Red's own forum is not very active and is spread over the needs of ~20 different NLE users--not too helpful to those of us who have made the Vegas choice and now the Vegas-Boris Red choice.

Hoping to hear from you.

Best regards,

Lee

Comments

PAW wrote on 1/5/2005, 11:16 AM

flippin, I'm no guru but do use Vegas/RED and I have actually grown to like the RED inteface. The functionality is awesome.

Happy to help if you want to post any specific query and I think posts usually work better that way/

Your right the Boris forum is not really used.

You might also try the DMN forums, a chap call Chris monitors the Boris RED forum and is a Vegas user.

He has written a book on RED and produced a DVD tutorial

If you look at the Boris site there are training DVD's available from Phil Hodgetts, author of the intelligent assitant provided with RED

Hope this all helps

Paul
flippin wrote on 1/5/2005, 11:50 AM
Thanks, Paul. For starters, your response was exactly what I was hoping for. I've seen your user name in several Boris Red-Vegas threads at this site and I was impressed by your comments. Your disclaimer, "I'm no guru", aside, I've noticed that your discussionss have been concise, thoughtful, and knowledgeable.

I'm not familiar with the DMN forums but will definitely check it out.

I've seen the (expensive) training DVDs at the Boris site; however, I was concerned that these would not be specifically related to Vegas user's needs. I don't really have a problem with the Red manual for that matter, except that it is very sparse in terms of Vegas/Red integration.

I confess that I'm so early on the learning curve that I'm not sure I can frame techno-questions very well. (I'm also not a professional, but an enthusiastic amateur).

For example, for starters I'd like to just see if I can take some preset video effect from Boris, apply it to a clip in V5, then render the clip with the effect in V5. It seemed as though I got a little way into the process but basically I just managed to plug in some default Boris effect without being able to rationally choose one (as per the easy Vegas videofx menu). I could preview this Boris effect in V5 (although, weirdly, the V5 timeline cursor no longer moved during preview process !?) but, to make matters more confusing, when I rendered my little experiment clip as an mpeg2 and looked at it--well, it was several seconds of completely black screen.

Anyway, Paul, thanks for stepping up to the plate and identifying yourself as a Vegas-Red user. It definitely looks like the potential for some awesome uses is there; however, it also seems from posts that more than one novice Red user has thrown in the towel before getting over the learning curve.

As I inch my way along through this I hope to have more discussions with you and other Vegas-Red afficianados.

Best regards,

Lee
kentwolf wrote on 1/5/2005, 1:02 PM
Something you definietly want to look at in Red is the Effects Browser; I think you press F9. (I don't think that getting to this is really all that intuitive; I believe it's also on the Window|View toolbar item.)

Then, build (all) the thumbnails (it will take awhile).

This helps give you a good overview of some of the possibilities with Red. There are tons of presets to help.

Just an FYI...
mrjhands wrote on 1/5/2005, 1:02 PM
"I've seen the (expensive) training DVDs at the Boris site;.."

Just curious flippin, you spend $1,600 bucks on Boris GL and you think $79 is expensive for a dvd on how to use it?
(course, if I spent that much on software, a taco would be a setback until i recouped my investment..)
flippin wrote on 1/5/2005, 2:05 PM
Thanks, kentwolf, I will try out the F9/build thumbnails suggestion tonight.

mrjhands, to satisfy your curiosity: no, since I qualify for the academic price I didn't spend $1600 for Red. and, yes, no matter what I spent on the software I consider that $79 is expensive if it's not clear that the training disks are specifically geared toward the use of Red with Vegas. As I mentioned, it's not the Red manual that I'm having the most trouble with--it's trying to figure out how Red integrates specifically with Vegas that is giving me a hard time. I'm reasonably familiar (as PAW might say, "no guru") with Vegas by now, having started with VV3 and upgraded to V5 some time ago; however, Boris in Vegas seems to act differently than Vegas alone.

Since "Boris Red applied in Vegas" appears to be too small of a topic niche to have generated an organized body of good tutorial advice, I decided to try to get the help from other users who have gone down this path before me.
mrjhands wrote on 1/5/2005, 2:11 PM
I have to agree with you flippin.

I have completely avoided the intergration issue and STRICTLY do my Boris stuff standalone and then bring in the QT movie file into Vegas. Maybe I am
not realizing the full potential of intergration, but with your posts and those of
others, I believe I am sidestepping the headaches that you and others are experiencing.
kentwolf wrote on 1/5/2005, 2:26 PM
>>...trying to figure out how Red integrates specifically with Vegas...

Many times, you will make a timeline selection (10 seconds, 30 seconds, etc.), right-click on the just-made selection, create an Empty Event, then drop the Boris Red FX on to the empty event. Then go from there.

That is not all-encompassing, but that may get you started to "make something" from Red in Vegas... :)
mjroddy wrote on 1/5/2005, 3:01 PM
Following kentwolf's suggestions, you will also want to set the length of time for your effect in Boris. Unlike in other NLEs, Boris doesn't seem to know how long you want your effect based on the media you placed it on.
And, of course, if you want to use it as a transition, just drop it in there like any other transition. But you'll need to set the time length there as well.
This is all from memory. I haven't got RED to work in V5 yet. I'm still using it as standalone. I'm not sure what tut DVD is on the Boris web site, but I can say that the Class On Demand DVD set does specifically menion Vegas. He (the instructor) tells how it integrates and how to get around the fact that you don't have a frame-by-frame update in Boris when using it on a timeline clip. I'm pretty versed in Boris (but, like others have been saying, I'm certainly no guru) and found the DVD most helpful in many aspects. Now I'm waiting for an "Advanced Boris" DVD set. If it's less than $100.00 for 2-4 DVD's, I'd go for it (assuming the content appeared worthwhile).
musman wrote on 1/5/2005, 3:25 PM
Damn right. The Class on cemand is the way to go and is well worth the money in saved time. It does show how to use Vegas and Boris together and the guy who made it is a Vegas user.
I called the boris people the other day and they advise the class on demand over their own dvd tutorial. I also asked about the possibilty of a more advanced dvd tutorial along the lines of a total training type thing. They said it was in the works.
Maybe I'm the exception, but there is NO substitute for a good dvd tutorial. Seeing something in action with an expert going at it saves days of your life of frustration and tinkering.
mjroddy wrote on 1/5/2005, 5:11 PM
I'm with you, musman. I'm not a good book learner, but SHOW me how to do it, and I've got a pretty good chance at retaining it. Love video tutorials.
PAW wrote on 1/6/2005, 7:33 AM
I believe the Chris Vadnais DVD covers some of the Vegas integration stuff - I don't have it so I may be wrong

There really isn't that much to consider though

I put an empty event on the timeline and then add the RED plugin to the event

Due to limitations in the Vegas plugin architecture no timeline information is passed to the plugin so you will have to set the length of the timeline within RED and also change the preferences so that the Video aspect etc match the project. This is a one off unless you change the length of the Vegas event in which case you will have to change the timeline length within the RED plugin again.

As Vegas does not pass frames to the plugin (just a single frame from the timeline postion at the point you launch the plugin) you will not be able to preview the composited timeline in RED as you work in the plugin interface.

To preview apply the plugin and preview from the Vegas timeline. For previews to work correctly the Vegas RAM preview setting in prefs needs to be set to zero.

If a RED preview of the composite is needed for timing purposes etc the best option is to either frameserve to the standalone RED engine or render out to a temporary file (try a low resolution for speed if that helps with the render time).

The other consideration because of the limits of the plugin architecture are that filters that are time based will not work via the plugin. Examples of this are the motion tracking filters and all the time filters.

It would be an incredible combination if Sony would improve the plugin interface but it is what it is today.

I use the plugin for text and some other stuff where you need the capability of RED as a composition tool and for adding effects.

You mentioned the effects browser within RED. If you are adding an effect within the plugin interface make sure to click the option within the effects browser to add it to the compostion and not create a new compostion.

A new compostion will replace the V1 track within the plugin which actually represents the hosts timeline. Double clicking the preview will create a new composition by default.

This is not a problem if you are using a transparancy track within RED as the plugin will still act as expected.

Hope this brain dump helps.

Stick with it RED is a great tool

Paul
flippin wrote on 1/6/2005, 10:36 AM
Thank you, Paul, and everyone for your responses. This discussion has been most helpful to me. I haven't fully digested all of your comments nor found the necessary time to experiment again; however, the encouraging message that emerges is that Red is a great stand-alone application (I've been able to prove that to my satisfaction) and that, with some work, it will integrate powerfully with Vegas (I still need to invest a lot of work into that aspect).

Hopefully, this discussion thread will help keep the subset of Vegas-Red users talking together to solve problems and/or share tips. I hope to be on the "sharing tips" side someday, but I sure appreciate the efforts of all of you who are already there...

Best regards,

Lee
flippin wrote on 1/11/2005, 10:08 AM
Okay, I have had a little time to play and things are coming along...

I have taken a page from mrjhands' book and, for now, I'm trying learn Boris Red as a stand-alone tool. I must say that "titling and effects application" doesn't quite do justice to the power of Boris Red. Will still be trying to integrate Red and Vegas, but only after I'm more comfortable with Red--still, without too much trouble I've been able to create my kid's basketball team name in 3D extruded text, convert it to a spline object, wrap it around a 3D colored sphere, make the text revolve around the y-axis of the sphere (in essence creates a rotating planet effect) and export this to an avi. movie file for use in a larger Vegas project...that is, the basketball game highlights themselves.

One of the coolest things I've found to do in Vegas with kid's sports video is (after editing out all of the messy junk time) isolate a truly good play, say a give-and-go play, let the play go in real time right up to when the basket is made, and then put in a velocity envelope on the shot itself to slow it down to about 17%. The audio track needs to be edited for this--I just cut and paste the crowd cheer to synchronize with the slo-mo basket event. An Acid-composed soundtrack takes up the slack in the audio that would normally sound choppy and weird because of the necessary editing to accomodate video event velocity changes.

Okay, this is not ESPN but man is it fun--the kids love to see well-edited highlights with some special effects and transitions thrown in.

Havin' fun!!!

Best regards,

Lee