Troubles with Film Effects Filter in Vegas 6
 

For some reason, it doesn't work. It seems like the grain and the scratches stay in one place and never move. Can anyone help me?

Hi Joel,

Yes, I've been disappointed by this effect in Vegas as well. It just seems to put a generic "mask" of scratches et al over what's playing in behind, instead of getting the "scratches, dust and hair" to move all around the screen like it should look.

I've tried to think of other ways you could do it (like composting something, then superimposing it over my main video, but I haven't experimented yet.

Possibly, you could open a video timeline above your main video timeline and "insert empty event". Apply the "film effect" you desire to that event for seven or eight frames, then insert another "empty event" for another seven to ten frames, applying the "film effect" more heavily...keep repeating the process for as long as you need it, applying the effect heavy, light, lighter, heavier (mix it up). When the "empty event" with the desired effects on it is superimposed down on your main timeline, it will have the "appearance" of moving around, since the lines, scratches and dust will change every seven to ten frames.

I know this isn't the answer you wanted, but it might work. (I'm going to try it as soon as I finish typing this..lol).

Hope someone else can help you more.

P.S- Save and render your "empty event" with the effects on it for future use!

The filter works perfectly well for me, the particle fx aren't stuck in one place at all. I'm using Vegas 7, but I don't recall having the problem you mention when I used it in 6. Do you have that problem with all the presets?
That composting idea of Fred's sounded interesting, but I need all I've got for the wife's garden...j/k Fred...

Agreed it's not the best 'old film' filter available (I think you need to look at 55mm or MB's plugins for AE for a more realistic effect - hackneyed as it is!!) but personally I am not experiencing the non-movement of particles and scratches as suggested.

Are you aware you can control the individual particle types (ie 'on or off' and 'amount') by clicking on the 'Type' drop down menu? It's a bit misleading at first glance as the 'enable particles' checkbox appears to relate to all particle types at once, rather than individually.

Also, the separate Film Grain filter seems to give marginally better results than the Grain control in the Film Effects filter (go on, someone tell me they both use the same engine!) with control over Amount, Granularity and Chromacity.

While typing this I've had a quick play with the two filters in combo.

Depending on what you want to achieve I think you can actually come up with some reasonably pleasing results if you use the particles in moderation - especially hair and scratches, which tend to be the least realistic.

Lose the grain in the Film Effects filter and use the Film Grain effect instead.

I also added a velocity envelope to the clip, set at around 140%. That added a little something. Shooting your footage with a slow shutter might help this along.

You might also add just a split second every now and then of the TV Simulator with all values set to hard left except Line Sync (hard right) and Vertical Sync (around half way) - you'll see what I mean! Just a half second should do it. A graphic overlay of just the edges of a piece of celluloid would look great here!

You have a little more control over the film tinting if you use the Sepia filter rather than the Color function in Film Effects (set 'tint' to zero and 'convert to greyscale' checked on in the Film Effects filter).

More? I added a real tiny splash of Glow (reminded me of Flash Gordon or Sky Captain) and experimented with (and then removed cos I didn't like it) a little Sharpen (depends what look you want).

Finally, don't shoot microwaves, jet aircraft, SUV's or punk rockers. They just don't look like they come from the right era.

There you go, something to play around with!

Ian . . .

I remembered that in V6 there was a bug that was fixed in V6b. This from the SONY Update site for V6: "A bug that prevented animation of the Film Effects plug-in has been fixed. "

What Version and build of V6 are you running?

BOY WAS I WRONG!!!

Okay Joel,

After a little tinkering, I think I know how to do the effect you are looking for.

1) Open up the video effect of "film effects"...set up whatever effect you want, dust, scratches, jitter, etc.

AT THE VERY BOTTOM OF THE BOX THAT OPENS when you select film effects, there is a "shuttle" at the bottom (that little vertical bar that crosses over our timelines that shows up where we are)...You have to MOVE IT AS YOU CHANGE YOUR EFFECT...in otherwords, the effects you apply to the piece of footage will simply stay STILL if you do not move the little shuttle at the bottom of the box along and change the effects slightly as it goes along. The more "intervals" in which you change effects, the "quicker" the scratches, dust or jitter will move.

(I believe this is the effect you are looking for)...or maybe I'm right out to lunch, but I had the same problem for months and I just figured how to get them to "move" today. Shoot me an email if it works. If you can't figure it out, I'll even call you and walk you through it!

Freddie.

Hi Fred,

I think Grazie's previous answer might be nearer the mark, to be honest. He's right when he says that a bug was fixed which caused the particles to remain static in an early v6 release.

The particles should appear to have motion regardless of whether you keyframe them (but obviously keyframing does allow you to increase/decrease the amount value over time).

Cheers!

Ian . . .

Are Joel and Fred both running V6a?

Yes, I assume we are both running V6.

Fred, the question is: WHICH VERSION of Vegas 6 (.0 or a, b, c, or d?) If you're not on 6.0d, download and install the newest version and that effect will work correctly as it was fixed along the way.

Thank you everyone...all is good in my land again!

When I am editing, the 'hair' looks great in the preview window - the hairs are of a decent, realistic size, and the hair and dust randomly appears, and as quickly as you would expect.

However when I render to a full size avi it looks really bad - the hairs are tiny, and what's WORSE is, the dust and hair seems to just 'flash' - like, the same layer of dust and hair will be spread over at least TWO frames, which obviously isn't realistic at all. It just.. flashes... then there's NO dust... then there's loads of it... then none... just looks really crap. And the dust is all of equal size...

Are there any custom made filters out there that are better?

I'd suggest that you have an issue with the render, rather than the plugin. I've been using this same plug for 4 years and I don't recall anything similar to what you are explaining.

So, "other" plugin? I'm sure there are. Does the Vegas plugin work properly or as it is described? Yes it does. My point is that there maybe something "else" happennnging with your local situation. Getting another plugin may mean you end up with a similar prolem? Yeah?

Grazie

If you are rendering to an NTSC or PAL standard avi file, but viewing it on a computer monitor, you're seeing effects of interlacing being displayed on a progressive screen.
yes, there are better film grain/FX filters out there, such as those found in Boris RED. RED is the only great film-look plug that also works in Vegas. Otherwise, you'll need to step to another host or processing tool.

Well, that's odd Douglas. I just did a test - LCD 2nd Display Monitor compared to an External f/w to PAL CRT - and I can not, for the life of me, see a difference. I am now checking frame by frame too. I see dust changing on each and every frame, and this is on my LCD.

The rendered file is a Selective Pre-rendered file using 25fps, uncompressed LFF.

Grazie

http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/mbforeditors.html

For the sake of completeness, there is another film damage plugin for Vegas - Misfire, part of Magic Bullet Editors v2.

From their website:

"Misfire offers controls for Fading, Funk, Splotches, Dust, Flicker, Vignette, Displacement, Grain, and 3 different types of scratches, Microscratches, Basic Scratches and Deep Scratches. Each category of effect can be turned off individually using the category switch. All of these effects are also offered as individual plug-ins."

There's even more detail as well as before/after images at http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/mabued.html

Keep in mind it's part of a suite and not available separately (same as the film damage effects in Red) - but that does mean you get a whole bunch of other goodies, including the Look Suite, Look Library (65 presets) and compression correction/deartifacting. Oh yeah, that lot makes the list price $399 but for the extensive control over way more than just film damage I believe it's worth it.

Boris Red is a much more comprehensive solution, closer to After Effects in terms of what it does - and what it costs ($995). From their website (http://www.borisfx.com/product/red/):

"It integrates 2D and 3D compositing, titling, paint, rotoscoping, a full suite of tools to create and extrude vector objects, 3D creation and animation. . . "

I use After Effects as well as Vegas so I can't really comment from experience on how usable Red is within a Vegas host, nor how good the film damage effects are. One advantage of Red that I can see is that it opens up a whole load of third party After Effects filters to Vegas users (by no means all of them - many don't work with Red) but, as with AE, you'll have to learn a whole new interface and I'm not convinced the integration with Vegas is anything but clunky.

Both have trial versions.

You might also consider Artbeats stock footage collection Film Clutter, which comes with pre-built mattes. Also not cheap!

http://www.artbeats.com/prod/search....lutter&ct=&fm=

http://www.artbeats.com/community/article.php?id=35 describes how they were made which is quite interesting.

Ian . . .

Good information Ian.

However, I'm still having success with the Vegas one. On both external and my 2nd Monitor.

My point is, would our friend STILL have the issue even with the other plugins?

Grazie

Likewise, Grazie, I still am happy with the results from Vegas - especially if they are used sparingly! I too suspect Jonny's issue lies outside the filter itself.

It just occurred to me, Grazie, is your second Windows monitor set up as a Vegas secondary display? If so, do you have the 'apply deinterlace filter' box checked? That could be why they look the same?

Best,

Ian . . .

Yes.

No, no I don't. I just checked.

Grazie

Just a thought!

Abso-bloody-lutley! Sure!! No problem Ian. It's just that I don't like to think that our friend here may just rush off and purchase something else when the solution "maybe" in front of him? Yeah? AND the problem could re-surface too?

Here are some other options:

* Previewing FULL on the Vegas Timeline Preview when it isn't fully expanded - this will show up hair bigger than IS! And ahving the LCD running, as it should, with the complete frame showing and thence the hairs appearing small - yeah?

* Does our friend here have other CPU intensive stuff running - Scopes? Antivirus? It;s when it "hits" the LCD monitor he's having grief.

* What parameters are there on the final "render" template?

* Can the LCD "read" or "see" all that noise. Noise = Maths = CPU power? Could this be the issue? Most likely not, 'cos after it it IS rendered then the noise thing aint the issue . . er . . what else?

Grazie

Hmm right - on 'preview' mode, in the preview window, the hair looks of a realistic size. how it would actually look if it were on 35mm film. If I set the preview window to 'Full' mode, the hair goes tiny, as if it can't increase its resolution so has to go smaller.

That's really bad :S

AND the dust just 'flashes' - one sheet of rather dense dust will cover TWO frames (hmm, unrealistic) then... there'll be hardly anything on the next few... then another sequence of 2 frame flashes... it looks really crap... I'm watching the render now and it is literally like, one frame will be coated in dust, the next few will have NOTHING on it, then there'll be another sudden layer of dust...

AND why when I output a 16:9 project to DV tape in 4:3 does it apply the filter to the LETTERBOX as well? Argh

To demonstrate the problem I'm having with the dust just 'flashing', I've taken some screenshots of 18 sequential frames of the filter:

http://bodvideos.co.uk/filter/01.JPG
http://bodvideos.co.uk/filter/02.JPG
http://bodvideos.co.uk/filter/03.JPG
http://bodvideos.co.uk/filter/04.JPG
http://bodvideos.co.uk/filter/05.JPG
http://bodvideos.co.uk/filter/06.JPG
http://bodvideos.co.uk/filter/07.JPG
http://bodvideos.co.uk/filter/08.JPG
http://bodvideos.co.uk/filter/09.JPG
http://bodvideos.co.uk/filter/10.JPG
http://bodvideos.co.uk/filter/11.JPG
http://bodvideos.co.uk/filter/12.JPG
http://bodvideos.co.uk/filter/13.JPG
http://bodvideos.co.uk/filter/14.JPG
http://bodvideos.co.uk/filter/15.JPG
http://bodvideos.co.uk/filter/16.JPG
http://bodvideos.co.uk/filter/17.JPG
http://bodvideos.co.uk/filter/18.JPG

I mean look at 3, 4, and 5. It's unbelievable how bad that is, the dust practically stays in the same place over 3 consecutive frames. Then there's no dust on frames 7-12 and then there's suddenly a big sheet of it on frames 13 to 16.

Well done Johnny!

It is good to have a colleague posting actual issues. However, I've not looked at all he JPGs, but the ones I have viewed are devoid of anything? What does this mean?

Grazie

Morning Grazie - check out frames 3-5 and 13-16.

Jonny, can you pst the .veg file?

Morning Ian!

Tell me? What IS in the background? Anything?

Grazie

. . and yes!! Gimme that VEG! Now! . . please . ..

Hmm, looks like just a solid colour. Nothing obvious!

Well, I'd like to see this up against some variation of colour and density. My point here is that all we are seeing is those particles up against ONE background. As the particles density and variation in size could be affected by the BG.

Just done a test.

1] T1 Sony Solid 50 sec event

2] Start K/F: WHITE = 255, 255, 255

3] End K/F: BLACK = 0, 0, 0

4] Roll/Scrub and notice the "Hair" size change and then disappear over the solid BLACK area.

As I said, I'd like to "see" our friend's BG working with this? Yes?

Grazie

I have posted a link to the veg file at the bottom of this post, however, it still does exactly what I show in those black screenshots there. Well, similar anyway. That was just a demonstration of what I mean, and the black background I used so that it was easier to see.

It means some of the frames have no dust and others have crap loads of it on them. It's silly.

Veg file: www.bodvideos.co.uk/filter/1.veg

How are you going to see that from a veg file?

Bear in mind also the other problem with this film effect is, the fact that the hairs look decent size on the preview window but tiny on the output...

Jonny, just got back from my primary clients offices - they have an extensive collection of Artbeats stock footage, including the Film Clutter footage I mentioned earlier. This contains real footage of ACTUAL dust, scratches etc on real bits of film. I thought I'd take a quick peek at what real film damage footage looks like and see if I could replicate it using the Vegas filter.

I'm afraid I didn't have time to make stills (I was, after all, working for them) but I went through every frame of a 6 second stock clip (180 frames) and counted no fewer than 56 frames with no dust particles at all and four instances of 3 frame or more sequences with no particles. If you include frames where the particles were barely visible you can more than double that. (How anal am I ????). There were around 20 frames with loads of particles and the rest contained anything between one and four or five.

I looked at the veg file you supplied and replaced six seconds of your footage with a black still taken from an 'empty' frame of the Artbeats footage, but retaining the same settings you used. Your dust particle setting seemed quite low and I would suggest increasing it. Also, try putting the B&W filter before the film effects. I got a remarkably similar look to the Artbeats 'real' footage.

Now, I can't comment on the hair size issue other than to say that for me the hairs when rendered were the same size as when previewed full size. What I find unacceptable about the Vegas hairs is that they all look the same!

Finally with regard to the hairs 'spilling' onto the letterboxed section - yeah, that's naff.

What about the dust being in identical places, almost, over the course of 3 frames? Haha...

Ah okay, I'll try that...

No I mean the hairs look better, more old-fashioned and low budget, when in 'Preview' Preview mode. Bigger.

Clever dust?

Well, I think we're all agreed that the Vegas film damage plug ain't the world's best.

Question is: will your audience notice it?

If you answer 'no' then all is well. If you answer 'yes' then whip out your wallet cos you're gonna need one of the other solutions!

Cheers,

Ian . . .

Thanks Guys! This HAS to be the funniest thread I've been involved in, in years!!

G . . .

It's not that my audience will or will not notice it, I'd rather create a convincing project that looks like film rather thatn some crappy DV project with a really bad film filter slapped on top. I'll notice it and it annoys me. Sigh.

Also, I wanted the dust to be larger, and only sit there for one frame in the same place. The fact that it's tiny and flashes... something dust on film just DOESN'T do... yeah I think the audience will notice. It's meant to look realistic. Sigh.

I looked at Magic Bullet software, $399 for that? And it's not even GOOD, still. UGH.

You're welcome.

Oh I meant to add that just by adding a film damage filter you aren't going to make your project look like film. You will make it look like video with a film damage filter on it which WILL be noticeable because it will just look plain wrong.

If you want it to 'resemble' film (which is the best you will ever achieve - check out the hundreds of other threads on the subject in this forum alone) then you need to invest a huge amount of time in tweaking a whole variety of filters or a huge amount of money in a set of film-look plugs.

That's weird, the size of the hairs is much bigger in this test video I did...

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=0_6eKdG8ks8

I wonder how I managed that...