-
StageTools, should I get or..
Hi All,
I’m working on a documentary with, naturally, a lot of stills. I’ve used StageTools at a job site and downloaded an evaluation copy. It seems to be a great way to animate stills quickly. One also avoids ‘digitizing’ the still and losing quality that way.
Cons for me is the cost. The budget is very low at this point so investing $200 in Stage Tools is steep. Plus we might need to spend another $200 when we conform on a better system.
Thoughts? Are people still using Stage Tools. Is there a better and less expensive approach or is this THE way to go.
Thanks for any and all help
David
Avid XpressPro 5.7 w Mojo on HP NW9440 laptop.
-
6 Replies
-
David,
If cost is really an issue for you, does your system have Avid FX (Boris RED)? You will need to factor in the render time, but all in all it’s not that bad. You get very nice moves on stills with Avid FX.
Regards,
Joe Womble
-
You can also use Avid’s built in “Pan and Zoom” effect. It works fairly well, but lacks Stagetool’s rotation features. Personally, I use Stagetools and am very happy with it, but if your budget doesn’t allow, then you can only do what you can do at this juncture.
Chris
-
Thanks for the suggestion Joe. I’ll give it a go.
-
Thanks Chris. StageTools is a much easier and faster way to go. I may have to just bite the bullet and get it.
-
Marquee actually works quite well too once you get to grips with it. You can import the full res image and do pretty much any type of animation you would need. The only annoyance is that is assumes the pixel aspect ratio matches the project, so if you’re working in non square pixels you get distortion that you need to compensate for. I quite like Pan & Zooms operation but without rotation it’s pretty much useless.
Andy
-
I don’t think you’ll regret it, if you do that kind of work a lot. It’s pretty great.
Chris
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up