Anyone else using Digital Juice's new Ready2Go for Vegas?
 

I had a chance to play with DJ's new Ready2Go templates for Vegas over the weekend. Apparently, it took some effort to port the templates from AE (I believe) to Vegas, but at the loss of some flexibility. True, the veg files that comprise each template have many tracks that can be muted at will, but this doesn't overcome what I perceive as a major limitation (see below).

The animations and masks that come with R2G are essentially baked into video events, with some native Vegas text events layered on top for customizing text. Most of the templates have 4, some up to 8, video "place holders" that can be replaced by any media.

In my opinion, they're a visual feast, but with one major limitation that I can't seem to overcome: there isn't a way to remove or add to the number of video placeholders. Since the animation of all elements moves across the screen in only certain, pre-determined directions, it just doesn't make sense to me how I could cut out just one part (or add to a template) without ruining the whole project (you know, like buying a pineapple upside-down cake, and then not wanting the pineapple: removing it it possible, but messy!).

So, has anyone else had a chance to play with the Vegas-specific R2G templates? Impressions?

-Steve

Re: Anyone else using Digital Juice's new Ready2Go for Vegas?
 

So . . . no?

I just finished a project with one of the R2G templates as intro material. I used Photoshop to assemble some nice credit boards that I inserted in place of the video holders within the template. Yes, I had to choose 4 of them to make it fit, but, man, it came out looking very nice, especially on Blu-ray shown on my 52".

Re: Anyone else using Digital Juice's new Ready2Go for Vegas?
 

Steven, thanks for sharing, I'll have another look, but it's not on my radar. It looks pretty cool though.

Re: Anyone else using Digital Juice's new Ready2Go for Vegas?
 

Hi Steve,
I just recently had to deal with this issue. This may not work for some of the templates due to the nature of the motion involved.
I took the "Every Which Way" template and added another frame-sequence to it. I created my initial video with the standard template, then I nested it on a new timeline. Then, I used the template again, editing only the single frame-sequence I needed, and nested it on the same timeline. I chopped up both templates so that the frame-sequence of the second template merged with the original template with about a 5 frame crossfade between cuts.
I could have refined it to make only one cut by using the ending sequence from the second template. I'm probably not explaining this very well. The nesting feature of Vegas works miracles for this kind of stuff. Let me know if this doesn't make enough sense and I will try again. Hope this helps. There could be an easier way, but I found this to be pretty quick.

Bob

Re: Anyone else using Digital Juice's new Ready2Go for Vegas?
 

That's a great suggestion, Bob. I bought all three sets for AE not knowing if they're planning to do any for Vegas but it is a steep learning curve for me to be able to customize it in AE. I wanted to add more video placeholders and split the template for intro and end of a project. Nesting may do the trick.

Re: Anyone else using Digital Juice's new Ready2Go for Vegas?
 

I also wonder if somebody has compared AE & Vegas versions. Are AE templates more customizable just by virtue of being AE?

Re: Anyone else using Digital Juice's new Ready2Go for Vegas?
 

Bob, (a tardy) thanks for your reply. Yes, I think I understand what you did, and that principally is how I thought I would have to go, at least for the templates that allow that kind of 'brute force' splicing. I hadn't thought to use nesting, but that makes complete sense: I would hate to have to manage 40-50 tracks!!

Steve

Re: Anyone else using Digital Juice's new Ready2Go for Vegas?
 

I have it. Although I would buy them again if I was making the choice again, they are not perfect. The backgrounds are .mov clips in many layers. Thus you can tweak the colors of the layers and mute individual layers, but aside from the speed, the movement is locked in. Mov isn't that efficient in Vegas so imagine lots of layers with inefficient playing .mov and some 3d compositing on top of that... very slow previews. None-the-less there is some good stuff there and I would like them to do the other three volumes as well.