What's new in VEGAS Pro

VEGAS Pro 20 update 3 (build 402)

• Multiple Smart Masks

  This enhancement to the Smart Mask feature enables you to create more than one mask at a time. This will be useful if you have more than one object in a video frame that you want to mask.

  For more information, see Smart Mask

• Smart Mask generated shape improvements

  The Smart Mask plug-in now uses a depth-based model to generate masks over identified objects. This results in more accurate masking and less time spent modifying the mask in the Beziér plug-in.

• Transfer Text properties

  This button in the Titles & Text media generator enables you to instantly apply the characteristics of one text event to all other text events on the same track. For example, if you have dozens of lower third text events in your project and decide to use a different color, font, size, and/or other characteristic for all of them, you only need to change the characteristics for one of the events and then can instantly apply the change or changes to all of the rest of them

  For more information, see Transfer Text Properties

• Window docking improvements

  Improvements to the window docking feature make it much easier to accurately customize your window layout. Much larger and well-defined target areas enable you to accurately select the docking target (existing dock area, new horizontal dock area, or new vertical dock area). The new outline indicators help you to see exactly where the window will dock when you release the mouse button.

  For more information, see Window Docking Area and Floating Window Docks

• Select a device for RAW processing

  A preference on the File I/O tab now enables you to specify the device you want to use for RAW processing. This delinks the RAW processing accelerator from the video processing accelerator and enables you to specify the best option for both of them. This is especially useful to you if you have multiple GPUs in your system because you can spread the processing work between two of them. This gives you higher overall GPU utilization and access to more processing power.

• RAW processing with CUDA

  CUDA processing enables VEGAS to take advantage of the native API of NVIDIA GPUs. This further accelerates RAW processing for real-time preview, reduces rendering times, and improves stability.

• Improvements to the Welcome screen

  You can now choose various frame rates for your new project from a new drop-down list. Switching to a list also creates room for another drop-down list that you can use to specify your project resolution.

• New Sharp Model for Upscale plugin

• Support for Mocha shape data

  Track the shape of an object with Mocha, then import the shape data into the VEGAS Motion Tracking workflow and to the Bézier Mask plug-in.

VEGAS Pro 20 update 2 (build 326)

• New AI engine

  This new engine makes better use of a wider range of GPU power supplied by graphics cards. This results in significantly faster processing of AI functions.

• VST3 support

  VST3 is the latest version of the VST standard for supporting audio plug-ins such as reverbs, delays, equalizers, and so on inside digital audio software. VEGAS Pro can now support VST3 audio plug-ins along with the VST2 plug-in support that it has supported in previous versions. Support for VST3 ensures that VEGAS Pro can work with the most modern VST audio plug-ins available.

• Hover Scrub bypass

  This enables the user to bypass the default hover scrub behavior in the Project Media window. With hover scrub bypassed, the user can move their mouse across the thumbnail without scrubbing through the file and thus seeing the thumbnail change.

  For more information, see Bypass Hover Scrub

• UX Improvements for File Drop workflow

  The workflow has been improved to include visible buttons for creating new File Drops, managing an existing File Drop, and other operations that were previously only available through a right-click context menu. These buttons are invisible until the user points their mouse to a File Drop collection or the File Drop collection set at which time they appear and are easily noticeable and accessible.

  For more information, see File Drop

• Netherlands and Belgian Dutch voices in Text to Speech

  The user can now generate audio in two Flemish variations—Netherlands Dutch and Belgium Dutch—in one male voice and one female voice each. Text can also be translated into these Flemish variations.

• New Newsfeed Mechanism

  This provides the user with more relevant and useful news information from VEGAS creative Software.

• Higher quality audio output for Text-to-Speech

  Text to Speech now supports a sample rate of 48KHz. The user can choose between 24KHz for when they want to minimize file size, and 48KHz when they need the maximum available sound quality.

• Add or replace plug-ins in an FX chain

  The user can decide whether a newly selected audio or video effect or effects package will be added to the existing effects chain (with the Add button), or replace the existing chain completely (with the new Replace button).

  For more information, see Adding or replacing plug-ins in an FX chain

• Hue vs Luminance color curve

  This curve enables you to define a hue or the average of a range of hues in the video and then adjust the luminance of just that color. This way you can control Luminance levels that range from the entire video to very targeted areas of the video based on selected hue. For example, you could sample a range of blues and then increase the luminance to make the color look brighter

  For more information, see Hue vs Luminance color curve

• Saturation vs Luminance

  This curve enables you to define a range of saturation levels in the video and then adjust the luminance level of just that range. You can control luminance levels that range from the entire video to very targeted areas of the video based on current saturation levels. For example, you could define a saturation range that includes everything below a certain level and raise the luminance on that range to make everything in that saturation range look a bit brighter.

  For more information, see Saturation vs Luminance

• Luminance vs Saturation

  This curve enables you to define a range of luminance levels in the video and then adjust the saturation level of just that range. You can control saturation levels that range from the entire video to very targeted areas of the video based on current luminance levels. For example, you could define a luminance range that includes everything above a certain level and raise the saturation on that range to make everything in that luminance range look more vibrant.

  For more information, see Luminance vs Saturation

• Picture-in-Picture plugin enhancements

  You can now easily change the aspect ratio of the Picture-in-Picture box so that you can stretch the image inside the box vertically, horizontally, or both. You can drag any side of the box to change its width and height without first switching the mode to Free Form. This enables you to quickly and intuitively change the aspect ratio of the position box and thus stretch the image in the box.

• Language support: Brazilian Portuguese

  You can now set your user interface language to Brazilian Portuguese when you install VEGAS Pro.

• Smart Mask (beta)

  This plug-in analyzes a video frame and uses artificial intelligence technology to identify objects in the frame that you can generate a mask for. You can filter out any objects below your accepted confidence level. Once the tool has identified an object you want to create a mask for, the tool will add a Bézier Masking plug-in to your FX chain with a mask already in place. You can then fully adjust your new mask to correct for any masking inaccuracies.

  For more information, see Smart Mask

• Welcome Screen

  On startup, VEGAS will display a dialog which will quickly let you select a project to open to, or create a new project. If no recent projects exist, the option of two different window layouts is presented to the user. If the user would prefer not to see this window on startup, a preference has been added to turn it off on the General area of the preferences dialog.

• Animation control over individual Bézier mask points

  You can set keyframes to control the shape and position of your mask at various times. As with other keyframes, VEGAS then animates the settings from one point to the next. With this, you can animate the shape and position of your masks over time.

  For more information, see Animation control over individual Bézier mask points

• Indicator of active Auto Ripple Edit mode

  When you engage Auto Ripple mode, the event boarder that highlights a selected event turns from yellow to red. The timeline cursor also changes to red. These indicators will help you avoid accidentally making ripple edits when you’ve forgotten that you are in Auto Ripple mode.

  For more information, see Applying a post-edit ripples automatically

VEGAS Pro 20 update 1 (build 214)

• Hue vs Saturation color curve

  This curve enables the user to define a hue or a hue range and adjust the saturation of that value. Thus, the user can change the saturation of anything from the entire video to a very specific hue in the video. For example, the user could define a range of blue values and raise the saturation of those values to make the blues in the video more vibrant.

  For more information, see Hue vs. Saturation color curve

• Saturation vs Saturation color curve

  This curve enables the user to define a range of saturation levels in the video and then adjust the saturation level of just that range. This enables the user to control saturation levels that range from the entire video to very targeted areas of the video based on current saturation levels. For example, the user could define a saturation range that includes everything below a level of 150 and remove the saturation from that range so that everything that was originally below 150 would now be completely desaturated.

  For more information, see Saturation vs. Saturation color curve

• Color selector for color curves

  With this the user can easily sample a value or a range of values in the video to which the curve adjustments will apply. This makes it easy, for example, to target a specific hue or a range of hues that will be affected by the adjustments made with the curve.

  For more information, see Color Selector

• Zoomable preview

  The user can now zoom into and out of the Video Preview window. This helps especially to see the details of an object while working with the Bèzier Masking tools and seeing fine details of color grading adjustments. The user can zoom into any target area of the video preview window and scroll the zoomed view to see different areas without first zooming back out.

  For more information, see Zooming and Panning in the Video Preview Window

• Comment field for File Drop

  This gives the user the ability to add a custom message such as instructions or explanation to the collaborators they invite to their File Drop session. Anything the user enters into this field will be added to the invitation email that the collaborator receives which invites them to the File Drop.

  For more information, see File Drop

• AI-generated Thumbnails for File Drop files

  This intelligently chooses a frame of the video file uploaded through File Drop to represent the content of the video. This avoids the problem caused using the video’s first frame when files fade from black.

VEGAS Pro 20 release

• White balance controls:

  The White Balance controls in the Color Grading panel help you correct colors caused by light temperatures that weren’t accounted for in the camera during shooting. Different types of lights have different color temperatures with sunlight of around 5,700 Kalvin being used as a “natural-light” baseline target. The Temperature slider enables you to adjust your color temperature to more closely match sunlight so that whites really look white instead of having a color cast from incorrectly set color temperature. The Tint slider enables you to lighten or darken your colors by adding a magenta or green tint. The Color picker enables you to sample a neutral color (white or gray) and have the software apply an automatic temperature adjustment for you.

  For more information, see White Balance controls

• Hue vs. Hue color curve:

  This curve enables you to isolate a specific range of color (hues) in your video and change the hue of that range to a different hue. For example, if someone is wearing a blue shirt, you could isolate a range of blue hues and then adjust just that range of hues to a different hue value in order to change the color of the shirt without affecting any other colors in the video (although anything within that blue range will be affected, not just the shirt). This can be used for a drastic special effect such as this, or for more subtle color grading and correction that affects just a specific color range in your video.

  For more information, see Hue vs. Hue color curve

• Automatic project collections:

  A Project collection organizes all of your project’s assets into a single view that you can easily access through the Hub Explorer window. These collections provide fast and easy access to all of your projects and their associated files. When you save your project, VEGAS Pro automatically creates a project collection, or updates your existing collection. You can then access the media within a project collection and use it in the same or a different project. You can upload your collections to your VEGAS Hub file storage to archive your projects and the associated media

  For more information, see Automatic project collections

• File Drop:

  The File Drop feature enables you to quickly gather media for your project from collaborators no matter where you or they are located. It makes transferring files to the project’s editor very easy. With File Drop, you can invite anyone to upload files to your VEGAS Hub storage space and from there quickly download those files to your local drives so you can use them in your projects.

  For more information, see File Drop

• VST 32-bit bridge (beta):

  The new improved VST 32-bit bridge allows legacy 32-bit VST plugins to be used within VEGAS (which requires 64-bit). This provides improved stability and performance of these legacy VST plug-ins.

• VST3 support (beta):

  VST3 is the latest version of the VST standard for supporting audio plug-ins such as reverbs, delays, equalizers, and so on inside digital audio software. VEGAS Pro can now support VST3 audio plug-ins along with the VST2 plug-in support that it has supported in previous versions. Support for VST3 ensures that VEGAS Pro can work with the most modern VST audio plug-ins available.

• New GL transitions:

  Two new transitions have been added: Honeycomb creates a honeycomb effect that transitions from one video to the next. Color Planes breaks the images into their RGB components, changes from the first image to the second, and then recombines the three color planes into one composite color image of the second video

  For more information, see GL Transitions

• Transition Progress envelopes with animation:

  The Transition Progress envelope enables the user to control the rate of a transition over time and animate the progress so that it goes fast, slower, or even in reverse. This gives the user power to create custom transition behavior and includes Bèzier curve tools for complete control over the rate of change between animation points along the curve.

  For more information, see Transition Progress with animation

• Scene detection creates regions:

  The Scene Detection plug-in now features the ability to automatically create regions over the detected scenes of the clip inside a timeline clip event. These regions appear on the timeline and can be useful in a number of ways including as a mode of the Batch Render script to enable the user to quickly render individual files for each separate scene that has been detected

  For more information, see Create regions