After Effects vs Sony Vegas 8: main differences?

[Brendan Coots]

For starters, Vegas is an editing app and AE is a motion graphics, special effects and compositing application. Vegas may allow you to do basic graphics, but I assure you it can’t do 99% of what AE can as you stated. The benefits of using After Effects over an editing app for graphics and special effects are far too numerous to list.

Really it all comes down to your personal needs. If you are struggling to see the benefit of AE, then clearly you don’t need it in your pipeline. At my shop advanced motion graphic design is a huge part of what we do, and I would sooner shutter our doors than have an editor do this type of work in an editing app.

[Lifetypo]

i have a hard time believing you have done all the tutorials and read all them books your talking about .. i really really doubt you have if your asking a question like the one you are .. im sure you prolly havent even opend up adobe after effects before
stick to your vegas editing . in couple yrs when you wanna really step it up in the industry you will be coming back to ae

[Michael Zoppo]

” (c’mon, you experienced AE folks.. what’s the “Big deal” that AE can do, that I can’t already do in Vegas, with fx plugins?) ”

Dont mean to be rude, but I believe you have made yourself look a little ignorant, there is quite an obvious difference between AE and Vegas, as the above posters have noted, there for I can only believe that your lying about getting “in deep” with after effects because if you had , i would not be typing this post right now. I mean , all’s you have to do to notice the difference between the two is to watch the promo videos for them and you will notice. I can understand asking the difference between AE and motion or Vegas and Final Cut but not that Vegas can do almost anything AE can do. Have fun trying that.

Mikey

[Bob Bonniol]

Whoa… easy there fellas…

A whole lot of trigger happy condemnation just poured out.

Let’s assume that you are sincerely interested in finding out the difference between the deep compositing capabilities of AE as opposed to the fairly robust Motion Grpahics add ons one can find in any NLE, vegas included.

After effects is optimized specifically for the application of heavy compositing and FX. WHile Vegas enjoys some great plug in support, it cannot compare to AE in terms of sheer numbers of plugs.

AE offers industry leading motion tracking tools. Through Keylight, it is inherently an amazing keying engine; and through the addition of some even more powerful plugs (i.e. Silouette Roto) it becomes a really robust rotoscoping tool.

AE represents a TRUE 3D compositing space.

AE is capable of dealing with images in extremely good color space.

AE is capable of multithreaded processing.

Through powerful tools like expressions, and layer parenting, the application of temporally based or attribute based procedural keyframing is possible. In simple terms, AE is capable of using almost any variable to trigger and shape other variables through the use of expressions.

Of course it is possible to crop, resize, do basic geometrics, etc, within Vegas, or with most NLE’s for that matter. But AE is capable of much more complexly computed geometrics, things like mesh warps, corner pinning, or other extremely precise AND ARTIFACT FREE distortions.

This is scratching the surface of course.

AE is capable of industry class digital intermediary, color correction tools that dust Vegas, as well as deep histogramatic and image control variables. AE does this non destructively while maintaining maximum bit depth.

An analogy: A screw gun could probably be used to drill a good hole. But if you were going to need to be absolutely precise, you might use a drill press, right ? Same thing. A compositing app is worlds more powerful than an NLE at what it does. Conversely, most compositing apps are not so good at all for actual cutting of media.

Right tool, right job. I know plenty of great editors who do decent motion graphics on their NLE programs. But you get to a certain point where more precision, more options, or mor deep controls of attributes are required, and then you need a real compositing app.

Hope that helps…

Best,

Bob Bonniol

MODE Studios
http://www.modestudios.com
Contributing Editor, Entertainment Design Magazine
Art of the Edit Forum Leader
Live & Stage Event Forum Leader
HD Forum Leader

[Rob Webster]

I’ll jump in and add to what others are making clear to you: The tools are very very different. And it’s hard to believe you’ve really read all those After Effects books and not realized this. But you do say that Vegas does all you need it to, so I think that’s your answer. Get a program that’ll do what you need to do, and when your needs are greater than what your program can do, then get another program under your belt.

But here’s one more idea: Get After Effects. You can download the trial version for free. Open up those books you’ve bought, and try some 3D layers with complex camera moves, some of the CC effects plug-ins that come included, and try some motion tracking. Then figure out what all the 3rd party plugins would cost to try to do these things in Vegas. First, you won’t find plugins to do all these things (and if they do, then not as well), and second, the costs would potentially total more than the cost of AE. Trust me: You cannot use plugins to make Vegas do what AE does natively. They’re different tools with different purposes. So get the trial version and just see for yourself. That’s why the smart marketing people at Adobe put the trial versions out there: So skeptics like you can see for yourself what a tool does. And if you realize it does lots of things you’d never need, then by all means, stick to Vegas.

But please don’t post here saying you know everything AE does and ask us to defend it to you. It’s hard to believe you’ve made the full inquiry you claim. Just download the trial and figure it out for yourself.

[Kencalhoun]

Hi – thanks everyone for the comments… especially Bob B … that’s what I was looking for, and you articulated it perfectly .. thanks very much.

Here’s the thing. I’m a (fairly well known) marketer in the stock trading business, run DaytradingUniversity.com, TradingTelevision.com , ForexOnFire.com , CopywritingUniversity.com and dozens of other six-figure selling sites.

But I’m relatively new to video editing and all the rest of it. I just started using Vegas 2-3 years ago, and that was it, and I’ve focused primarily on that, and it’s been a solid tool.

I *am* looking to create more broadcast quality graphics to stay ahead of competitors, and to make my video more differentiated from youtube-type fare out there… which is where I first got interested in plugins for Vegas, and recently, in After Effects.

In working through the AE tutorials, many of them just focus on things like layered effects or pan/crop movement of text, or motion blur, all of which I can do already in Vegas easily.. so that’s where my questions came in.

I suppose I need to spend more time with it, and like you said, Bob – to gain more detailed 3d compositing control of effects, with more detail, is where it appears AE really makes a difference.

So thanks for the comments, as someone who’s entirely new to AE, I just wanted to know the differences between it and NLEs, for those of you who are experienced with both.

Regards,

Ken Calhoun, Pres.
Daytrading University

p.s. Also, I’m very well connected; those of you making helpful posts, thanks.. I’m always a potential client… for those who attacked me, well there’s consequences for that, too. 😮

[Michael Zoppo]

p.s. Also, I’m very well connected; those of you making helpful posts, thanks.. I’m always a potential client… for those who attacked me, well there’s consequences for that, too. 😮

I am 18 years old and I know not to say those things, this is a place for posts, not a place for idle power trips or things of that nature, stick to your topic and show a little respect.
We did not attack you, your post sounded as if you thought you were a know it all and that AE was not as great as it is. Sorry for the miscommunication but lets have some decency.

[Omnidecay]

https://www.studiodaily.com/main/technique/casestudies/8355.html

…Can vegas do this?

[Erik Pontius]

I like a lot of Stubbings work. Also done primarily in AE.
https://www.stubbings.ch/

Check out the Motion Design section. If you want to see AE in action, check out the “6er Gascho clip” music video…then watch the behind the scenes clip that shows how he built it all in AE.

Vegas might have a hard time doing that…

I’d also recommend the “After Effects in Production” book by Trish & Chris Meyers, for real world examples of using AE in more broadcast uses. It’s a little dated, but still applicable.
“After Effects Studio Techniques” by Mark Christiansen also has a lot of real world application of AE…certainly beyond panning and cropping photographs.
If you want new ways to create more engaging better looking motion graphics, start experimenting more with AE. It’s a whole new toolbox to work with.
Years ago, I thought that the built in effects and capabilities of various NLE’s were fine…then I started experimenting with AE, first with simple things that I could have done in the NLE and then into more advanced things as I got more familiar with AE and it’s capabilities. Try it you’ll like it.

Erik

[Ucinema]

Well, I see afew people beating up on the person who made the original post. I think people need to chil-lax. I do however find it hard to believe that the tutorials from Lynda.com served no purpose in that you learned nothing different than what can be done in Sony Vegas.

I love Sony Vegas, especially Vegas Pro. It’s my choice application for HD and DV editing when the final format isn’t film. If I’m goingt o transfer to film I use Avid HD. The ease of use and just the overall program trumps(in my opinion) Premiere pro and Final Cut. Vegas was first to offer HD editing over Final cut, Premiere and Avid Xpress. Final Cut 3-4 you had to get the cinema tools plugins and so on.

Vegas suffers in the industry because it’s not a popular application and because of this a lot of plugins aren’t made for it.

I do agree that you can do a lot in Vegas Pro…32bit color and some powerful plugins that are also used in AE. Boris Red and Magic Bullet editors are two popular plugins that are made for industry standard apps like AE but they’re also wonderful plugins for Vegas pro.

It’s great because Boris FX acts like AE and what’s also cool is you never have to leave Vegas, you can cut and add post effects using Boris FX. In Boris FX you also get a very, very popular plugin for AE called Sapphire. You can use Sapphire in Vegas Pro through Boris FX.

Now AE is another animal and it’s worth every penny!!! I love AE as well…I also love Combustion and Fusion for compositing.

I use Cinema 4d and 3D Studio Max as well but I would not render camera movement or light changes in those apps because the render time of quality CGI takes a long time. I’d out the 3D image as a AE file with the G buffer intact and use the camera in AE.

To make a long post a little shorter. USE VEGAS PRO and use much effects as you can (workflow reasons)and also use AE or the like app if you REALLY WANT to do amazing things or the ability to do more things!!