Special Effects and Text Animations

dibbkd wrote on 12/28/2005, 9:44 AM

What programs do you guys use for adding special effects to your Vegas videos? for example, explosions, smoke, lightning, etc..

Also, what programs do you use for making cool text animations, like having the letters of a word fly around, spin, grow/shrink, glow, etc..

Thanks!

Comments

IanG wrote on 12/28/2005, 10:10 AM

I've only ever played with it, but Particle Illusions SE works well for adding explosions etc. For titling, I think you'll find Bluff Titler hard to beat at the price. Version 4's just been released, so that's something new for me to play with!

Ian G.

dibbkd wrote on 12/28/2005, 2:19 PM

I found the Particle Illusions SE for $99 here:
http://www.wondertouch.com/

But I can't find what the difference is between the SE version and their version 3, besides version 3 is $400.

And the Bluff Titler program from:
http://www.outerspace-software.com/blufftitler.html

Looks good, and for $50 isn't too bad.

So do you know where I can find the difference between SE and 3?

thanks for the info, and any other suggestions are more than welcome!

Edit: nevermind, I looked more and found the differences:

http://www.wondertouch.com/se_info.asp

Tim L wrote on 12/29/2005, 8:20 AM

I have absolutely no experience with this product, but check out http://fxhome.com.

Their Effects Lab DV program lets you do particle effects, rotoscoping, light swords, etc. It sells for about $112 US. They also have a program called Composite Lab, which is used for green-screen compositing, or any multi-layer compositing, etc. The only snag is that these programs do not integrate into other editing programs. You would do the effects work in Effects Lab, render it out to an AVI, then bring it into VMS.

Again, I have no experience with these products, but I check out the submitted movies in their Cinema section on a regular basis. In particular, I enjoyed a movie called "It's Coming", and another, "Art of the Sabre". (do a search in the cinema to find them)

Tim L

kcrosley wrote on 12/29/2005, 3:21 PM

That kind of text manipulation is what BluffTitler is all about. You can find some fun BluffTitler output examples here:

http://www.mediablitzed.com/

and download a trial version of BluffTitler 4 here:

http://www.blufftitler.us/

dibbkd wrote on 12/29/2005, 7:59 PM

I've actually tried the Effects Lab DV program, it's not bad, but after downloading a 30-day trial of Particle Illusions, I say there's no contest.

Particle Illusions is much, much better than Effects Lab.

What other effects programs have you guys used?

Know of any that can be a plug-in for VMS 6?