Any free altnatives to After Effects?

[mcmikemc]

Right now I am importing avi's into Flash to make one long avi and then I use Flash to do different overlays like text and graphics.

I know that Flash was not designed for this purpose thus there are better solutions out there. I used Flash because it is what I had. But if you make a very long movie and have to make changes it becomes a nightmare fast.

I was told that After Effects and Premier are good tools for what I want to do but there are also very expensive.

So now I am looking for a FREE solution that can do the same thing as After Effects and Premier.

[Cunhambebe]

Well, it's somewhat difficult to answer your question. Premiere Pro or just Premiere is Adobe's NLE (non linear editor) and as far as I know, only AVIs are compatible with it (no MPEG2s).
Adobe's After Effects is not a real video editor, but an application that makes visual effects. There's absolutely no effect that AE can't do (as far as I know). Other applications are Combustion, Inferno, Digital Fusion and Boris Red - but all of them are very expensive.
So, if you want to get something free, I definitely don't know what I can suggest. On the other hand, you can get an application that works almost as both Premiere and AE with many advantages (hey, I don't work for Sony - lol). That's Sony Vegas. I consider it much better than Premiere for editing. Vegas began as an audio editor, that's why its audio capabilities are unbeatable - and you can make some visual effects with it too.
-There are built-in video transitions;
-you can donwload for free its Wax plug-in to make more transitions and visual effects;
- donwload for free a FrameServe plug-in and a whole transition library;
- you can work with alpha channels (not the same complete way AE can do, though).
- you can encode as AC-3 with its Dolby Certified plug-in.
Think about it.

[canadateck]

Wax itself can do some cool things to,The Plugin for vegas is really nice.But can be used on its own.

[edDV]

Several available at $99 list and under ($19-29 if you creatively use rebates) that will do that and more.

Free software is very expensive in time wasted and opportunity lost. Buy stuff that works.

[guns1inger]

edDV, that's a pretty harsh call. There is some excellent freeware out there, and some completely crap (and very expensive) payware. I agree with the 'stuff that works' part, but would amend it to 'use stuff that works'.

It really depends on exactly what you are trying to do. If they are simple titles and transitions, even WMM2 can produce OK results, as can most editors nowadays.

WAX2 is worth looking at, as most decent compositing programs cost well into the hundreds of dollars.

[edDV]

OK 'use stuff that works'

WMM2 should have been better than it is. The effects are good, even nice but I hate when they push the noob into WMV when it is not the appropriate format. Someday they may make HIMAT work for video DVD. It's been a long wait.

I need to try WAX2.

[guns1inger]

I thought you could output DV-AVI from WMM2, as well as WMV. Worst case, you can push it back to the camera, then transfer it down again.

[mcmikemc]

The avi's I am making are just avi's connected to gether with a a solid white footer with black text fading in and out on the footer.

Can Vegas do that?

[canadateck]

The avi's I am making are just avi's connected to gether with a a solid white footer with black text fading in and out on the footer.

Can Vegas do that?

Yeah it can,There is not to much Vegas cant do.

[themichael]

If you are just chaining video and adding a bug at the bottom, try VirtrualDub. The logo plugin from Donald Graft will do pretty much what you ar looking for. Free.

You could also try AVISynth. A bit more difficult to work with but could easily do what you want. And more.

[edDV]

I thought you could output DV-AVI from WMM2, as well as WMV. Worst case, you can push it back to the camera, then transfer it down again.

You can output DV-AVI from WMM2 but you need to dig into "save as".