What is the best free alternative for Sony Vegas Pro for making GMod machinima?

[76561198397297702]

Hi there, It is Beescy here. And I am hoping to become a GMod animator in the near future, when I can get things put together.




I remember that I had heard that Sony Vegas Pro is one of, if not THE most commonly used video editors for making GMod animations.

But, I am not able to use that program as not only it is too much money for a budget-less lad for me, but it also has very high requirements. I want to know how is Vegas the most popular one.




Does Vegas have some sort of compiling feature for screenshots to put them together into a video for those who use stop motion? Does Vegas have support for pure Direct-X footage to be put into a video for those who use puppetry? Does Vegas give you points for saving and exporting each video (cuz it's Las VEGAS bro!!!)?

I want to know, what kind of features does Vegas have that all GMod animators require? Am I missing out on something? What does Vegas do that other video editors cannot do?




So I am on the hunt for the best alternative for Vegas, that is powerful enough to do what I want, and what is the best one that can also do what Vegas can do, and much more.

Please do not ask me to use any paid-for software, as I have no budget right now, and if it is a free version of a premium one, it needs to still be good enough for it to be worth it for me to use it free.




As of this time, I have 5 different free video editors all at once;




Shotcut,

OpenShot Video Editor,

Kdenlive,

PowerDirector 365 Free,

And Windows Video Editor, the Windows 10 version.




My guess is that PD365 is obviously the best one out of them, as WVE and OpenShot might be a bit too under-powered (but still have nice features), and Kdenlive and Shotcut might be powerful enough, but as they are F&OS video editors, they may not be as well known as PD365 (Kdenlive has some nice professional editing features and Shotcut has good sound editing).




I was planning about the idea of getting other video editors. I had used Hitfilm Express, but it has too much features unusable on the free version and it does watermarks, I had used VideoPad before, but it is limited in export options and tracks on the free version and the Steam version has an overkill pricetag, and I am planning to get DaVinci Resolve Free, but it might be too much for my system. I am thinking about getting VDSC Free Video Editor as well, but it has missing features on the free version.

So, I am asking for help from my fellow GMod animator community, what is the best free alternative for Sony Vegas Pro, what can the alternative do, and if it is good enough?

Because I would need it.