Very nice graphic. Thanks for sharing it. Looks great on my laptop.

Do you do anything in PS to avoid jitter on interlaced displays (avoid thin lines, add blur etc) or do you control that within Vegas?

Believe it or not, even though I don't own Adobe Photoshop, my vote goes to it.

The reason is that it obviously has everything and more that my cheaper Ulead and Paintshop Pro have, but most importantly, it allows you to preview your graphic to and external TV monitor. This would save me a lot of time.

Now I create the graphic, put it in Vegas, preview it, go back and tweak it, etc. Takes a lot more time.

My next vote goes to Pixelan's Rise n' Shine filter which smooths and takes out jaggies in my Vegas created text. That's much easier than creating a graphic in Ulead, then previewing it and so on.

Nice Logo J!!

I use PsP and can save as PSD and import them into Vegas as with DVDA too.

Feeling mean Ken? PsP cost me er .. $45? That was when.

Actually Vegas does a great job with jitter and interlace issues already. It's only when I try to create something using Vegas' included titling tool that I'll have issues. I make my graphics in Photoshop, export-to-web: PNG 24, slap them into Vegas - they are ready to go!

My personal technique to avoid jitter/distortion is, when using Photoshop, not to work in DV Pixel Aspect Ratio. I use square pixel-aspect-ratio equivalents, like 720x540 (which is an included preset in Photoshop, with guides) or 655x480 (great when making menus for DVD Architect). Letting Vegas make the conversions to DV and/or DV Widescreen pixel-aspect-ratio gives me excellent results. It is really ironic that the native Vegas titling tool results in such bizarre jitters and distortions of text in DV pixel aspect ratios - you would think it would be better than my Photoshop technique.

As for interlacing, I've never really had a problem, but I also remember a rule someone mentioned here, that, when using resized graphics, switch to BEST for rendering.

Thanks for checking out my graphic, I wish I had more use for it, but I'm just a video hobbiest. I really need to start plugging my abilities on this board; I need work! :)

if ur having issues with teh vegas titler, jsut change the resolution to HD (if working in SD)
this will give u a higher res source...

i use bluff, as its easy.. dead fast, and i can output to almost any format i need to use in vegas.. it also does cutom resolutions, so HD isnt a problem..

Boris Red 3 or 4 are as good as it gets for titles, rolls, anything text or 3D. Red also does amazing animated pie charts and graphs with lines zooming up and down in 3D and Z space and all that. (Which is unfortunately what most of my projects require and all I've been doing for the past 72 hours. )

Bluff Titler is an amazing program, especially for the price. They give you the option of doubling the resolution when you render to uncompressed and this does smooth out a lot of the jaggies.

Personally I think I should invest more time in it. Haven't done any transparent overlay titles with it yet, just standalone.

It's easy to produce quick glitzy stuff with it, but I think it's potential for polished, professional looking titles is unlimited. Also I'm considering it as a much more interesting way to create slide-shows than even Vegas. Once you work with it for a while you get better at creating exactly the motions you want.

Cayman seem to have a very good reputation in the industry, most of their product line targets the broadcast sector and their offerings are setup for fast text creation per project. For example it manages fonts per project, if you do a lot of titles that should save no end of time.

Sad to see that they've pulled support for Vegas, obviously not enough of us supporting them for them to support us.

Many of the other apps I think are really designed for creating web content, there's a difference between graphics for web content and video content. The differences are subtle but that's what makes CNNs text and graphics look that bit more polished. Less aliasing, line twiter etc.

Somewher on the web there's a very good article by one of the engineers who used to design text generators for broadcast. back then the things cost a bomb and used KWs of power but the principles are still the same.

Good looking text really is a complex business, I'm currently using PS to do DVD menu backgrounds with text and well it sucks, rounded edges are being truncated, other parts of the text is getting staircased, problem is no sub pixel rendering. No time or money to waste on these jobs to make it any better but on other jobs I've spent a lot of time with an external monitor carefully lining up text with scan lines to avoid these problems, right PIA.

Bob.

I have an "ancient" 3D program called Crystal 3D Impact Pro - it was an upgrade from Crystal Flying Fonts, which came free with Premiere 4.2 about 10 years ago.

On the rare occasions when I want "flashy" titles, this program does it all for me - I can use any texture I want, metal, wood, glass etc, with bezels, rounded edges etc, and it has lots of 3d ways of arriving, should I so desire.

In real life I hardly ever desire this, and find the Vegas Titler more than adequate - so it sort of amuses me to watch this constant search for "better Titlers ........"

Me too Peter. I just wish, to make things a wee bit easier, it would be able to sync the key frames to the timeline.

thanks for all the tips... agree re PS is great.. actually I like macromedia Fireworks, because it seems to load up faster, and I'm always starting/closing my various video/graphics apps... though PS is a higher-end/better graphics program, it always seemed very memory-intensive/"heavy" to use..

what I'm after, is the ability to create 3-plane rotated beveled text that slides around the screen professionally, like CNN / FoxNews etc.. eg so the text can come into/out of x/y/z planes, and have light reflection and lens flare effects and other high-end fx..

ken

Oh, get busy with Boris Graffiti - anytime. Loads of opportunities there Ken. I can highly recommend it. When you learn how to do the 3-D thing get back to us - yeah?

>>Boris Red 3 or 4 are as good as it gets for titles...

Ditto.

Am I to understand my Cayman Graphics is not a plug in for Vegas 7.0?
I find it crashes 6.0d from time to time.

BluffTitler = Easiest
AfterEffects = Most Compatible in my Post Workflow
Boris RED = Best Results

> Boris Red 3 or 4 are as good as it gets for titles...

+1

> mostly sliding reflective text, lens flares, stuff like what you see on CNN and CNBC and other high-end broadcast television shows..

The guy that does the outstanding graphics on CCN is NOT the editor who is cutting the show. It is a graphics designer who is trained to use the tools that create those graphics. If you want that level of quality and sophistication then you need to be willing to spend the time learning the tools that can make that happen.

Cheap, Fast, Quality, pick any two! (you don’t get it all)

You further qualified your original questions with 3D otherwise I would have said Cayman Graphics but that’s only 2D.

If you want fast, easy, and don’t have time to read the manual, then you’re already using it. (Bluff Titler)

Ulead Cool 3D can do some nice stuff in 3D very easily. I think it gives you a little more control than Bluff in that you can also import 3D objects (i.e., spinning globes, airplanes, etc) to add to your titles.

But to answer your 3D qualified question, Boris RED is hard to beat. There is a steep learning curve but lots of functions means lots of stuff to learn.

~jr

I also use Crystal Graphics,

Whenever I use it, people ask "Who did your Graphics?" (But, what about my video?) They do stand out.

http://www.crystalgraphics.com/web/3dimpactpro.main.asp

Inexpensive, and easy to use. Many presets available so you can produce quickly. Has a limited 3D model library available, also ABC used it, for the last 2 years, in the sports graphics. They seem to have moved on this year. Has not been updated in 3 years or more.

TV sports graphics has really come far from last year to this.

For Credits and such, I also use the Text and placement in Generated Media. John

I had planned to buy Cayman Graphics Power CG rfs this week. Here is what they told me:

Hello Mike,

We have discontinued the Sony Vegas Plugin of both the Power CG rfs and Power CG Plus.
We will continue to support our current customers. As we add new features to our product line, they will be made available to our existing users if they are useful in a "Plug-in" version of the software.

Best Regards

Jeff McOmie
Cayman Graphics

For "today's" titling needs, the simplistic Vegas tilter is just fine.

If this were 10 years ago, when beveled, glassy, hairy tumbling text was more in vogue (hard to believe it ever was), then Vegas would be lacking. But the trend "now" in titling is clean and crisp, not tacky and overdone.

Just a word of advice, and don't take my word for it, ask someone you know who works for a major network.
Most common cause of program rejection. Text and graphics.
Although the title and graphics tools in Vegas aren't the best in the business at least they have out of gamut warnings.
Beyond that any text / graphics tool that you're using to create content for video should be video savy.
Take a moment to consider this. The rest of your content is taken with a video camera, you control the look of your video to a large extent by adjusting a number of controls on the camera. Any tool that's going to create content should have the same controls, it should be asking you frame size, frame rate, interlaced or not. If it's creating text that moves in 3D then I'd add focal length, shutter speed and aperture to the list.

The Vegas Titler isn't bad at what it does. Working harder that I wanted, I've managed to turn out some very slick stuff with it. Photoshop and After Effects are where I go when I need more, but Bluff shure has good word of mouth.

I agree that PS is great, but let me suggest a little program called Draw Plus 8 for creating titles and lower thirds. You can do transparent backgrounds, including a transparent black, bevel and 3D letters, shadows and whatever you want. It also works with layers and you can save each layer as a PNG and open in Vegas. Other than the fact it is not a plug-in, it is just as flexible as Cayman Graphics. Then you can fade and move various layers in Vegas. I use it all the time to create opens and closes with various layers moving in different directions and all coming together in the end. Check it out at serif.com.