Is Magic Bullet worth getting?
 

Just looking for feedback/input: is Magic Bullet looks worth having for use on video/film project.

All feedback and opinions appreciated.

Thanks,

mark

MB is a very high quality plug-in and easy to use. If you have a use for it, it is well worth it. You should download the demo. It is very simple to install and doesn't interfere with anything.

Using the demo you can determine if it will be something you can use.

Magic Bullet Looks is good. Particularly the newer versions which can use the GPU for real time playback even within Vegas. One advantage Magic Bullet used to have was that it processed colour internally at 32-bit precision.

However now that Vegas itself can operate certain filters at this precision this advantage may not be so relevant. DSE will know more, as I'm not sure if the 3-way CC i Vegas works at 32-bit yet or not.

Regardless most effects that Magic Bullet does can be replicated very easily using Vegas' own tools.

I get rather bored of seeing Magic Bullet being used as I can tell instantly when looking at something that they have just slapped a MB preset onto shots.

I think time would be better spent, at much less cost, by learning how to use the CC tools within Vegas. It is capable of some amazing stuff, particularly if you combine the 3-way colour corrector with Curves, and Gradient Map filters.

You've got far more CC ability within Vegas than many of the packages out there. Much better than MB Looks.

its Superb. Worth the dough. U should try it. The rght hand side of the interface allows detailed selections. Much easier than doing yr own colour curves

Thanks all for your feedback. You have given me some more things to consider.

Ciao,

mark

On the contrary to everything said above I have to say that I kicked out MagicBullet long time ago. Yes, it is a nice plugin and some of its filters are good for what called "film look". But actually the looks of MagicBullet are applicable especially in the commercials and some music videos straightly. Ok, just go for example to Apple - Movie Trailers and load any movie trailer there. Then compare it to the look of MagicBullet filters. If you see even only one movie with such a look, just tell me. Almost all the movie productions of the Hollywood movie studios have the specific movie look which much far from what MagicBullet offers. Same about DigitalFilmTools, Cinelook, etc. Am I right or not?!?

Plamen, you are right as such that just "slapping on" a Looks preset will be generic and generally un-exciting.

However, you should look at the presets as examples to further modify and tweak until you get the look you are after. Or better yet, build your own look from scratch.

Looks presets are no different in that respect as any other sample/example that come with any software. Usually these are not what you want.

Also you should not expect to finish a feature length film using looks in 15 minutes. It will take time to get the footage to look like you intended it to. That also presumes you're not using Looks for inspiration, but already have a decent idea what you want that look to be. Whereas it is easy to experiment and create variations with Looks, if you start with 'nothing' you may not be getting anywhere soon...

Looks was not intended to color correct but to work on corrected footage to apply a (creative) look. Colorista is the CC solution from Red Giant and it works great with Looks. That is not to say that you can't use Looks for the whole process, just that it may not be "optimal" (both from a 'features' as a 'workflow' perspective).

Sure you could create some look using standard tools, but Looks offers you a nice interface where you can easlity create and tweak "looks" and then save and apply them to your footage.

You should definately try Looks. It rocks.

George/

It's important to realise that Magic Bullet Looks (Magic Bullet is the company, Looks is the application name) is not just about the presets and that there are a multitude of individual tools that cannot be easily - if at all - replicated using Vegas standard tools. For instance:

Spot Exposure
Grad Exposure
Chromatic Aberration
Swing-Tilt Defocus
Diffusion, with adjustable grades
Lightflex, to emulate the flashing of light in a film box
Star Filter
Anamorphic Flare
Shutter Streak

I think there are something like 45 tools in total. Many of these tools are new to the latest version of Looks. I wonder if some people are reviewing the earlier, limited, version that was bundled with Vegas, or with Looks Suite?

As for Hollywood films looking different from videos that have had a <$400 effect applied to them - yes, I expect they do. I will pass the Movie Trailer Challenge back to Plamen to try and find one such trailer that was made with a video camera ;-)

Anyone considering using Looks to achieve the same thing as a multi-million dollar Hollywood movie should reconsider. They will be disappointed.

Anyone looking for a comprehensive set of manipulation tools and effects to allow them (as George says) to either build a unique look from scratch or tweak an existing preset, will probably be less disappointed.

For me, Looks has become a huge timesaver. I'm a corporate video maker with more work than I can comfortably handle at the moment. Nice place to be, but it means I don't have the luxury of being able to spend time tweaking every video. Looks presets are great jumping off points. Much of the work has already been done and I can just spend a few minutes tweaking to taste.

Looks isn't without issues though - in particular the inability to realtime preview on an external monitor. That's a pain.

Conclusion: despite that one (major) niggle, Looks is an essential part of my toolkit. I recovered the purchase price with the first couple of hours I saved through using Looks.

I went thru hoops to get MB Looks, new video card which didn't work, a second video card which works well. However, after all that I could have done without any of it. It is very handy with clips that need alot of help, but, ordinary clips Vegas handles it all. I will use it but only when I need to, it does slow down rendering appreciably, One main objection I have after looking closely is that is handles things in layers, and if you look closely it is noticeable. i.e a layer which rally should be behind subject but now lays on top. The $99 upgrade is the only way to go, that's the only reason I got it, full price no way!

Magic Bullet Looks has only been available for a few months, so it is not possible for you to have kicked it out a long time ago.

As Ians says above, the MB version that came with Version 7 may be what you are thinking and is not the same.

As had been said, the new MB Looks has additional tools and is a fairly complete toolset.

"Spot Exposure
Grad Exposure
Chromatic Aberration
Swing-Tilt Defocus
Diffusion, with adjustable grades
Lightflex, to emulate the flashing of light in a film box
Star Filter
Anamorphic Flare
Shutter Streak"

sounds like gadgets (like all the funny 3d transitions packs between shots, you never use that in a real movie) ... what make the film look is mainly gamma curve and a few color balance, which you can easily tweak with Vegas' builtin filters.

I thought we'd gone beyond the misunderstanding that Magic Bullet Looks is NOT just about 'the film look' as it pertains to gamma, colour etc. Looks is also about recreating things that happen (deliberately or by accident) with lenses and the camera's mechanics, etc.

Things like the swing tilt and chromatic aberration tools are useful creative effects and are devices that are used or appear in many 'real films'. To see examples of both in 'real' movies look at WALL-E where they added chromatic aberration to get a sense of the kinds of artefacts created by old 1970's Panavision cameras. For swing tilt, look at Angela, The Preacher's Wife, Minority Report and a thousand others. Flare? Any film where the sun appears from behind the earth. Lightflex? Pretty much any Laurel & Hardy. And so on . . .

You certainly won't want to use them in every production - indeed I suspect they will be used on odd occasions only - but they are there if you need them to be used in addition to the colour correction tools.

Just so I understand your argument, how are things like spot exposure (the ability to raise or lower the exposure in a specific point on the screen, with fall off), grad exposure (similar, but with a linear or eliiptical gradient) and diffusion considered gadgets? And how could these be easily tweaked with Vegas-native filters? Note the word 'easily'.

Personally I find them all extremely useful tools and absolutely not in the same league as the far-out transitions you mention.

And keep in mind that not all of us are making wannabe Hollywood movies. Some of us make corporate videos, music videos, wedding videos etc - all of which will likely use more extreme effects than a 'real' movie.

Well said, Ian.

...and the look of the "real" movie is what we have all succumbed to...

Hmmm . . . maybe :-)

Personally, I simply like crushed blacks, warm contrast and slightly desaturated colour in my videos. I'm not really concerened whether it looks like film or not. I just want it to look good and for my clients to be pleased. I believe Magic Bullet Looks makes it easier and quicker for me to make my video look good.

Easier + quicker + happy client = greater profit margin. And that's kind of the clincher for me!

90% of my stuff ends up on a website at 320 x 240 (or smaller) anyway so striving to make it look like film seems kinda futile.

Few of my projects require MB Looks, but when used I agree you can't beat it for speed and convenience, and some of the presets are extremely nice in select situations.

Many of us do not have time to tweak to our hearts content due to deadlines and customers waiting for product. I currently have 7 or 8 customers waiting for their videos, and I simply do not have time to play with Gamma settings all day long.

MB looks enables me to come up with someting fast when I need it.

Here you can watch a video shot with consumer-class camcorder Sanyo Xacti Hd-1000. The fx chain consists of just 6 filters only (!!!) and I think they do their job much better, much faster and much easier than MB Looks. Also, I doubt too much that MB Looks can reach such a look:
Hollywood Film Look 14 - Sanyo Xacti HD 1000 - 24P on Vimeo
P.S.: I am not the one who shot that video, I just edited and remastered it in few minutes.

Very nice work. However this look is not far at all from what can be achieved with MB Looks, unless I'm missing something.

Thanks! I think MB Looks can't achieve this. Also I can say in addition that filters like "Brightness & Contrast", "Color Curves", "Levels" are not in use in my video example!!!

You might be right. Your video did look very good...

It would be easy to criticise for the sake of it, which is not really what this board is about, but I'm afraid I couldn't detect anything significantly different from what could be achieved using Looks.

You mention in the notes at Vimeo that you used a 'custom 24p conversion' to achieve the 'Hollywood' look. Can you give more details? Also, I (and I'm sure others) would be interested to see the .veg or at least a list of the fx and settings.

I'm really not trying to pick a fight here but you haven't convinced me that a Vegas chain of 6 filters has any advantage over using Looks, for the reasons I mentioned before. What you have achieved is absolutely fine (maybe a little underexposed for my taste, but that's a subjective opinion only), I just don't subscribe to your suggestion that it's any better, faster or easier than using Looks. I'm totally prepared to re-evaluate my views though!

Out of interest, have you used the latest version of Looks?

I have MB looks; and - I'm of two minds about it.

Now, I typically improve contrast and saturation to a basic "Hey, this looks good and clean" in FCP, using the single-wheel simple color corrector. That gives me a good place to start and it's usually pretty quick. But as for color-grading... well, as far as colorizing is concerned, MB Looks greatest value for me is doing automatically (and simply) what you would have to do manually in a complex application like Apple Color. It really is, it seems to me, that the best analogy is that MB Looks is to Apple Color what iMovie is to Final Cut Pro.

The only problem, of course, is that MB Looks takes FOREVER to render, so it's probably best to leave it as the exact LAST step of the process.

No, because after my last computer crashed, this one is much stronger but still with build-in video card. So, I still can't use MB Looks. But I watched a lot of examples on MB website, on VIMEO, etc. and I really don't feel satisfied. It is not a matter of critisism, I just see that Looks can't reach what I want.
Ok, just go to the link of the original source (raw) video of my work and try to process it with MB Looks (I attached the original link below my video in VIMEO), then upload the results. Waiting...

Yes, this is the general "minus" of MB at all, what to do. With my custom fx chain I shorten the time more than 6 times than MB!!!

You should try the demo. It's free and you can get a good idea...it really has some interesting tools.

Sorry, Plamen, i wasn't suggesting you were criticising unnecessarily - what I meant was that it would be wrong for me to pick holes in that piece of video for the sake of it, just because we have a differing opinion.

Having said that . . .

I think it's perhaps a bit dangerous to state that your method is better, faster and easier than using the latest version of Looks if you haven't actually used it (and cannot, because of your video card). How would you be able to judge that it is easier to use? I'm also unclear how you can claim a six times better performance without actually being able to test it.

On that subject, personally I only experience noticeable drops in rendering speed when I am using some of the more intensive tools like Swing-Tilt Focus (although I only actually used that once!). Otherwise - with a decent graphics card and processor - I am unable to detect any significant hit over and above similar correcting filters in Vegas. I do stress this is with a fast gpu and cpu which I realise not everyone will have.

Despite the fact that I couldn't see a way to download the raw footage, to be honest I'm not sure any 'showdown' would be a fair test - as far as I can see from your Vimeo postings, you started working on your Hollywood look 12 days ago so you have had a bit of a head start! Also, you talked about a 'custom 24p conversion' - would that affect the appearance? Are you able/willing to share your fx chain settings with us? I am genuinely interested to see how you are achieving your looks.

I'll close by saying that both sides of this argument are perhaps a little pointless anyway. This is a subjective choice - you either like Looks or you don't. I happen to like it because it saves me time, it's easier (for me) to use than the Vegas filters and the results make me and my clients happy. If you don't happen to like it then that's entirely your choice!

Still, I like a good debate!!

Just make a registration in WWW.VIMEO.COM, it is fast, then you will be able to download the original footage I mentioned above. After registration go to: Bremen-Vegesack - Soccer Party EM 2008 on Vimeo , then go to the lower right end of the same page > Downloads and you will see the direct link (i.e. not smashed by vimeo). Or, after registration just go directly to: http://www.vimeo.com/download/video:...5b8e7192e49fc9

Please, do it, because I am really interested in the results of what MB Looks would do to the same video. Also, anybody else can do the same so that to share the way of his own processing.

OK, when I get a chance I will take a look. But you haven't answered the other points so I'm still not sure if it's worth the effort!

Ok, using Radiance for Vegas is a very huge hint...

Ah, OK, so you aren't doing this all within Vegas native filters.

Sorry, I thought this discussion was "I can achieve a better result, more easily and render it more quickly than MB Looks with native Vegas filters". I must have misunderstood ;-)

So what other filters are you using? And what about the 'custom 24p' conversion? I think I need a little more to go on before I take up your challenge!

OK, very quick and dirty comparison. I've just taken stills from the Vegas timeline rather than rendering footage (I've spent too long on this discussion already!). Note that I added a letterbox to match Plamen's version. The stills are approximately from the same location in the film, but as the raw footage was unedited I may not be exactly on the same frame.

Depending on how this screen is presented to you it should be:

1 2
3 4

1. This is the raw footage.
2. This is Plamen's version, using an fx chain comprising VM's excellent Radiance and five other unspecified filters, which we know does not include Color Curves, Levels or Brightness/Contrast.
3. My attempt to use MB Looks to very roughly recreate Plamen's version (note, just trying to approximate it - not improve on it. Looking at the stills I can see several areas where I could have done a better job of matching the two). This took about ten minutes of tweaking.
4. The same clip using the Basic preset from MB Looks, just for reference.

Personally, I prefer the Looks Basic preset and with a few more tweaks that would deliver a much nicer image (in my opinion)!

Ok, but why don't I see any difference between raw frame (1.) and MB frame (4.) ?!?

Yeah, I agree, they do look similar.

I think you would see the difference more easily if you compared them side by side at full res rather than the thumbnails. You'll see obvious diffusion, the blacks are ever so slightly darker, the contrast difference is also very noticeable in the hair on the guys in the bottom left of the frame, the yellows/reds aren't quite so vivid.

It is also much more obvious when you see it on the Vegas timeline, but I do agree they are similar in the thumbnails!

I'm not trying to suggest this is anything like a realistic film look - just that it lifts the image slightly, without any effort. In a real situation, you probably wouldn't want to use the preset straight out of the box, of course.

Plamen, if you are REALLY interested to see what MB Looks can do, YOU should download and try the FREE demo.

I see now, Ian where he did say his card won't support, my bad.

Personally, I didn't like #2 OR #3. I took #1 and dropped the new NewBlue Color Fixer Plus plugin on it and like the results I got there MUCH better than any of those images. But, I guess it's whatever look you're going for.

Me neither! But in fairness, the test was to see if Plamen's look could be approximated in MB Looks, not to come up with the prettiest appearance.

In my case, I separately tried an instance of VM's Soft Contrast on the clip (without Looks) and for me that beat everything hands down, using only the 'soft moderate contrast' preset. As you say, it's what you're looking for.

Be interested to see the result of Color Fixer Plus. Any chance of a still for comparison? Strangely, having installed the Video Essentials pack, Color Fixer Plus isn't appearing for me. Odd!?

Jeff, I think the issue with Plamen is that his video card won't support MB Looks. Plamen, please correct me if I'm wrong.

You are right, Ian, I missed it. Thanks for catching and pointing that out...

Ian, it should be listed under the Effects as "NewBlue VE Color Fixer Plus"

Here's a Q&D version:

Yep, I like that, Edward. Not dissimilar to what I got with the VM filter.

For some reason my Color Fixer Plus is called Autobalance - just checked it out - same functions in both. Could be because I was a beta tester? Just updated to 1.1 - still Autobalance. Weird!

Well, this has been an interesting thread!

I think that regardless of everything that has been said above, you are NEVER going to get video to look like film because a) the colour information is not there in the first place and b) the resolution is so much lower. You can simulate certain characteristics of film to an extent, but that's as far as it goes.

But that doesn't prevent us from achieving a more pleasing look than plain video through using the filter(s) of our choice, be they native or third party.

And I still maintain that the tools in the latest MB Looks provide us with a number of new creative choices that we didn't have before!! ;-)

I agree with all that Ian has said.

I would also like to say again to Plaven: the look you achieved was very nice, as I said before...it did have a real film-like quality. So since you cannot use MB yet, it appears you have found ways to create nice effects on your own. Good work.

Ian, that should change. Vegas apparently caches some information so even though the name changed it takes a while to be recognized.

It's nice having multiple tools available. Magic Bullet is good at what it does and is definitely another option people can use.