Pre credit logos
 

Hi,

I've noticed that a fair amount of films submitted here and on other sites have really nice pre credit logos, either animated or not, at the start of the films. These normally identify the real or fictitious production company. I'm curious how these are done. Can it be done in Vegas directly or by plugins. Or would it be specific software or a combination of packages like after effects, photoshop etc. Any generalised guidance would be great.

It really depends on what level of complexity you would like your logo. If you want just a simple logo with just a little animation with logos/images you already have you can use the track motion tools within Vegas. But whether you use just vegas, after effects, plugins or photoshop or a combination of all of these...what really depends on what your logo idea is. A lof of the limitation is also your imagination. You don't necessarily have to use all these programs to create a logo effect you want.

What I would recommend before moving onto other programs and plugins and spending more money would be to really use Vegas until you know its stregnths and weaknesses that way you have a better idea whats lacking and what you want. Some very interesting stuff can be done in Vegas with just your imagination mixed with the tools already on offer. An example of this is on Logo I did for a very basic training/recruitment video. All I did was to have the logo text in White text with a black background a very simple jpeg image, for this example say it was "DV INFO Productions". I think I just used GIMP a free photoshop type program, or even just to create/edit this. I then put this into the timeline in vegas and set layer to Difference. Then whatever was behind these letters would show through. I then recorded a match strike and some flames and used that as normal alpha layer under the letters. This then created the DV INFO Productions logo to have and effect of fire. This was just one very simple effect but looked quite good and made an already created company logo into a little interesting.

With just vegas you can use tools such as track motion, 3d motion, cookie cutter and other tools with as many multiple layers as you like to create lots of interesting logos. Just playing around with Vegas for a few hours can help to see its limitations, but also help to inspire you with new ideas to effectively use the tools at your disposal. I would recommend this before looking to other tools and programs - it will save you money but also help you understand Vegas better, and if after then, you still have fustrations about certain limitations...you will have identified those limitations and have a better understanding of what program to move onto next.