EMW

Are the videos you have on the site ALL created with Sony Vegas 8.0, or what?

I've noticed a few similarity's to other programs, such as particle illusion (Wizard aft) And After Effects (many other videos and tests) But After Effects I'm not completely sure about, only Particle illusion.

Good question! Pirate summed it up pretty much. I use Vegas for almost everything. I use to use PI frequently, along with Adobe Premiere, but when I moved to Vegas I never touched them since. Most of my special effects are now down with stock footage in Vegas. We are also moving very quickly towards AE (almost have this one down, especially with Matthew Helms), as well as Maya (Matthew does have this one down). If you are looking for special effects, Vegas can only get you so far. After Effects is OK, but is limited mostly to graphic design. Check out http://www.videocopilot.net for some cool tutorials. Maya is good for all your 3d needs. I find that Maya and AE work very well together. Again, Vegas is a timeline editing program, and one that I have found to be one of the best. Hope this helped!

AE is actually very good for visual effects. It's good for graphic design but it also works really well for VFX. Virtually all the VFX shots in Ryan vs Dorkman 1 and 2 were done in AE and it's used in many VFX studios around the world. If you have the one particle system (can't remember the name) it can do some really cool things. It's also really good for color grading. I don't personally use it but I know many people who do.