headsup: Vegas needs a LiveType equivalent. Found something close….

[Richard Bartlett]

Looks like Bauhaus’ product has been welcomed in onto Sony’s radar:
see 3rd party tools
https://www.sonymediasoftware.com/shopping/category.asp?id=109

I have to say that I’m very pleased with Mirage and Bob Tasa’s TitleFX. Recommended if you want those LiveType features and a tailored but quite unique flavor to your titles, lower thirds etc. Mirage doesn’t even overlap with Vegas or DVDA, it compliments both. Enough, just wanted to share my thoughts and that Sony have spotted this “paintbox” wizardry too.

[Adam Rose esq.]

me being an AE noob, how would you say it compares to Mirage etc for Livetype-style graphics? Have been editing a large-ish project on FCP recently, so got to use Livetype and like it as a dedicated text tool. The G5 doesn’t belong to me and is going back to its owner next week, but have AE 6.5 Pro arriving next week, finally. Saw that it has 250+ text effects, I am hoping…….

any thoughts?

TIA

Fuddam

[Adam Rose esq.]

bump

[Richard Bartlett]

Mirage has more in common with PaintShop/Photoshop (and Amiga/PC programs like NewTek DigiPaint/Aura and EA DeluxePaint) than with vector/3D oriented compositors like AE or DigitalFusion. A guy once pointed out to me that you can use Excel for quite a good word processor, if you want. It comes down to choice, your intentions, planned workflows and familiarity (oops, and money).

I’d say the most informative way of seeing the target for Mirage is to check out the tutorials over at https://www.bauhaussoftware.com/training_tutorials.php . As with most things CG and art, there is overlap, but I’d wager you’d find yourself using Mirage as many folks I know have both AE and Mirage. There is slightly more about Mirage that merges real world drawing/painting/cell-animation tools into what you see in the application. Subpixel calculation, 16bit dynamic range per plane, and any resolution you desire. This is what Mirage has as its backbone that you ultimately you find yourself relying on. However I am quite hopeless in my attempts to do anything with real world art, but in Mirage, I am able to hide this fact and create things that hold up against my wife’s work. She is a good painter.

Animated brushes, 2 or 4pt pixel tracking, alpha rub-in rub-out,….

Oasis is a slight exception. Whilst setting up the plug-in there is more of a scalable vector based engine activity going on. Mostly by virtue of the way that the fonts are rendered, but this plug is a quick way of creating luxurious animated and motioned text graphics. By driving Mirage manually, it would be possible to achieve something like the same results, but Oasis is a labor saver. The two parts together (Mirage/Oasis) have more in common with IndiaCG and LiveType. However with AE, you’re not exactly limited in what you can do manually either.