Hi Guys,

I am very new to editing and capturing and it is just a hobby which I think will turn into a profession, hopefully as I am finding every moment I spent on editing very interesting as it allows me to use my creativity the way i wanted it to be. I have been playing around with vegas 8.0 and recently purchased a HDV Canon HG10. I am currently working on a 1 hour long b-day video which was shot very poorly by me as I was shooting it very casually not thinking about doing any editing whatsoever until last week. Anyways, I managed to do some very basic editing such as intro, Title, and songs and some slow-mo and very basic effects and to be honest it looks very boring and dull. However, I wasn't completly disappointed as this was my very first trial and it took me 2 days and a lot of reading on forums and tutorials. I know I can make it look amazing and its just a matter of time now. I am trying to give it a dvd some what like a film feel to it but I am not sure if vegas will allow me to do so. I was wondering if I really need to use After Effects for certain editing requirement or will vegas be able to allow me to do effects such as 3D Text and other things such as Andrew Kramer has shown in his tutorials VideoCopilot.net Video Tutorials & Post Production. It's hard enough as it is to learn Vegas let alone go through the learning curve for AE. Eventuallly I plan on doing it, but due to the time constraint, it is not possible for me to devote too much time to learning various softwares. I work full-time and will be getting married during May 2008 and although I have a professional videographer, I want to edit my own wedding video in near future and give it an even better look. So main question is, will Vegas 8.0 provide me with all the effects that can be produced using AE or is it necessary to learn AE as well?

Thank you and I look forward to hearing some feedback.

Interesting post.

1] - No 3-D titles in Vegas - period!

2] - There are buckets of fine Wedding videographers doing it in Vegas

So, and for what youve omitted about AE, I wouldn't buy AE until I knew just what EXTRA I was wanting. If you want 3-D titles - yes? - there are plenty of, I think, plugins for 3-D text if that is what you want far cheaper than AE.

And your:
The answer is no. Vegas can not provide all the effects of AE.
My route would be Vegas ( of course!) > 3-D text generator > and then after LONG HARD thought . . . AE.

Oh BTW, I don't have AE. Do I want it? Oh yes please . . !!!

Grazie

Thank you Grazie for your input, very much appreciat it . The thing with me is that when I want to create something I want to give it a very nice look and feel to it before I even present it to anyone else and I am sure majority of the people out there who do this for their living or even part-time feel the same. I know this that I will be taking this hobby to a new level and I know it will take me some time and maybe a few years but I am willing to work at it and slowly creep my way into the world of videography and editing.

I guess I will toy a little bit more with vegas for few weeks/months until I fully understand the program. Right now I use lot of aid and tutorials from youtube and follow their methods but eventually I want to create videos to my personal taste and I guess that will come with time.

I am very much inspired by some of the work I have seen here and on other forums and I noticed that many use editing tool such as vegas and premiere and final cut as well as other programs to compliment their editing creativity by using programs such as AE, Sound Forge and other tools and I was reading up on AE the whole day yesterday and looking at the tutorials by Andrew Kramer and I am so amazed at the things AE can create, especially when I saw that it can do amazing effects like rain drops on screen and I am sure there was a plug-in that you need to purchase to use those effects but I wonder if vegas can also create the effects that AE does too. I will show some examples later on in a bit so you guys know what I mean. I am heading to a meeting at work right now so will post some links tonight.

Cheers .

Of course you do. That's only natural - especially for anyone who's caught "the bug".

Make that years. After 2.5 years I'm very much a newbie and even those who've been using Vegas for a number of years in a professional capacity keep finding new things/new ways of doing things. (By contrast a few weeks with some other packages and you'll be "proficient") The great thing about Vegas is it really can do an awful lot. Often you have to go back to first principles and understand WHAT you're trying to achieve, possibly in data processing terms, but it CAN do it. Just look at the vast number of compositing modes available, then imagine combining them with various parent/child relationships, to say nothing of applying groups of effects/compositing modes to nested projects. The possibilities are endless.

Also make use of the help and download and read the manuals!

But the best advice I can give to someone beginning as a filmmaker is if your current project has come out at 1 hour look long and hard at it and reduce it to 5 mins. The look long and hard at your 5 mins and if and only if there's something essential that is missing replace some of the bits that you've included with the bits that are missing. If really, really necessary you can lengthen the film a bit.

You can always include the full version on the DVD, but I bet you the version that will be watched and shown to others is th 5 minute one.

Best of luck and hope it all goes well for you (and you've got a very understanding fianceé)

__________________
Tim