Two questions (twice teh n00b!)

[Earendil18]

1)
My current (and first!) AMV project is coming along nicely but I'm looking to add more dynamic motion within the frames. I want the footage moving all directions within the frame with quick fades, blurs, and interesting overlaying (I'll figure that last one out later O.o).

Is that kind of motion best achieved within Vegas (my current editor) or After Effects?

2)
I need something that will generate winking stars (or similar) that grow and wink out that can be overlayed onto a video. The current Vegas has no plugin that does that by default, so I'm looking into After Effects.

HOWEVER, I have yet to find an online community that has a decent guide explaining how stuff works in AE. Any help pointing towards good tuts (not creativecow thank you) or more Vegas 5 plugins would be most appreciated.

That's it! Reply all you wonderful PEOPLES!!! Thanks!

~Ear

[Noverca1is]

I would also appreciate a guide for AE
if possible, one called "The After Effects for Dummies"
or a good ol, "The complete idiot's guide for dummies"

[TaranT]

1. Vegas will let you do that. Right-click a clip & select Pan/Crop (or click the symbol that looks like a rectangle with bow-ies at opposite corners). Then experiment. Whether this is the "best" way compared to AE, I can't say. It's probably cheaper.

2. Vegas has a starfield generator: at the Media Generators tab (lower left of screen) select noise Texture, then drag the Starry Sky preset to the timeline. This is a static star field, but you can make it twinkle by using the starfield as a mask over a solid color with video noise. Like this:

Put the starry sky clip above another clip that is solid black. Add the Sony Add Noise effect to the black clip. Make sure Animate is checked and set the noise level to about 0.2. Enable the compositing (click the arrow at the far left of the lower track). Then preview. With an all-black color you won't see too many stars. So adjust the black clip's color slider up the gray-scale toward all-white. More stars will appear. If you un-check monochromatic in the Add Noise control window, then the stars will twinkle in different colors. You'll need to play with the differnet settings until it looks right.

[TaranT]

Sorry, forgot a step. That starfield generator will have a color selector that defaults to some shade of yellow. You should set the color to full white since the clip is used as a mask.

[bum]

1)
My current (and first!) AMV project is coming along nicely but I'm looking to add more dynamic motion within the frames. I want the footage moving all directions within the frame with quick fades, blurs, and interesting overlaying (I'll figure that last one out later O.o).

Generaly you should try to be as simple as possible when you start making amv's. Wait till you get scene sync right before attempting to sync effects.

[Earendil18]

Whilst it's my first Anime related video I have done several others with different subject material, but I will keep your words in mind. Ty