Keying and HD

[Infrared digital]

I am just wondering but,

what are people using to key green screen footage ?

and what is the a good piece of software to view MXF files just like we can view images or movies on explorer ? I have tried Raylight but it won't install properly and the website isn't very helpful.

Any suggestions would be grately appreciated.

Thanks

Niall

[LarsSonparsson]

I'm using Combustion for keying. Autodesk keyers are really good.

Sometimes, when I'm working with After Effects and don't have much
time, I use Keylight in After Effects. Powerfull tool too.

-LarsSon

[Infrared digital]

Hi

Thanks for your reply.

We are using AE and I am pretty sure that Keylight is the software that we should be using - do you know if it works with 64bit ?

[joconnell]

There's no 64 build of after effects as of yet so you'll be running the 32 bit version on windows 64 so no conflicts. And actually in terms of keying it depends what breed of hd you're suing - if it's hdv then probably the dv matte pro keyer is your best bet, if it's something that compresses the colour channels a lot probably the same, then key light for something like 4:2:2 p2 footage from a hvx200 or a higher quality 1920 x 1080 hdcam / hdcam sr camera.

[Infrared digital]

We are using a Panasonic P2 HVX200 camera and recording to 1920 x 1080 P.

Does dv matte pro work with AE - it seems like it only works with Final Cut Pro ? If so then Keylight would be our main option.

Also, what software would you use to view the raw MXF files ? I have been refered to Raylight but cannot get the demo to work. There is a P2 Viewer but is insanely difficult to use.

There is another program out there from Adobe called Ultra which seems interesting - has anyone used it ?

Thanks

N

[joconnell]

DV matte pro does indeed work with ae (see what you mean - couldn't find the product page but it's out there - http://www.dvgarage.com/prod/prod.php?prod=ctk) but if you're using p2 then you'll get proper colour depth so keylight will be fine.

In terms of mxf file sI installed the following bits and I could drag them into ae natively:

https://eww.pavc.panasonic.co.jp/pro...pcdriver_e.htm
https://eww.pavc.panasonic.co.jp/pro...p2cms_dl_e.htm
http://www.apple.com/support/downloa...omponents.html

[Infrared digital]

Thanks for that but, honestly - I have tried to get this P2 Viewer/manager software working but cannot for the life of me make sense of it. And how the hell you got those 3 programs to somehow allow you to import MXF files into AE natively is so far beyond me that maybe I should move on to another occupation !

[joconnell]

Weird - I had some codec packs installed on my machine at the time so maybe that did it - try doing a search for k-lite codec pack - it might have something in there that's doing it.

[panthon]

Hi!

I've been using the HVX200 + Keylight combo in some projects and it works quite well. Nowadays, Premiere 3.1 (premiere 3.0 won't) will let u import MXF natively, and I believe that the last update of AE too. I haven't checked with AE but it should be that way.

I purchased Raylight way before Premiere added the MXF functionality and used it to convert MXF to AVIS. The good thing was that it didnt create the whole file, but an AVI "wrapper" for the MXF, which had a fraction of the filesize.

As far as HVX200 go, if you run into trouble will be because of the lens instead of the format. 4:2:2 should be enough to pulll a key, but beware of the HVX's halo effect which can make ur keying more painful. Check with your DP for methods to avoid strange "unpremultiplied matte-like" areas around your characters. Don't try to oversaturate your green, since it won´t help. Many people told me it was better to work with 720p, as it is the native HVX200 format, so I did it and no complains. 1080 is not a real format in this camera, but more of an interpolation and some people advised not to try to pull keys from that. I haven't tested it though, but I thought it would be good for you to know.

Hope it helps!

UPDATE: After effects 8.0.2.27 allows to import MXF files, I have just done it and it works.

[Infrared digital]

Many thanks for clearing that up for me Panthon.

What a shame that the 1080p is not a good recording format - I must admit that I have noticed that on some footage that I took yesterday when keying it this morning.

What do you mean by DP in the following ?

'Check with your DP for methods to avoid strange "unpremultiplied matte-like" areas around your characters.'

Is it definetly better to film in 720p for green screen work?

[joconnell]

dp is a director of photography or camera operator. In terms of the 1080, I think the panasonic is uprezzing rather than supporting it on the sensor so you're better off shooting native 720p and resizing yourself - then you have control over it. In terms of halos that sounds odd - is there any kind of edge enhancement going on?

[panthon]

dp is a director of photography or camera operator. In terms of the 1080, I think the panasonic is uprezzing rather than supporting it on the sensor so you're better off shooting native 720p and resizing yourself - then you have control over it. In terms of halos that sounds odd - is there any kind of edge enhancement going on?

Yes, I agree with the uprez part. It has been confirmed by some other people too.
About the halo thing, I couldnt tell. I don't know about the exact details of the camera settings, but I'm pretty sure no edge enhancement was used. Just because it happened to me, it is likely that it will happen again, so u'd better off looking into it. Im not an expert at using the HVX200 so i let it in the operator hands...but I honestly thought it wouldn't be a problem when I saw it and in the end it made my keying much more painful. But hey, don't get me wrong; it's doable.

Plus, the HVX200 is quite noisy in the shadows, which made KEYLIGHT go crazy when despilling the character. I had to mask some parts by hand and deactivate the despill part of Keylight and use Combustion's color suppresion.

If I had a chance to redo the shooting, I would dump the HVX200 and use the HPX500 instead:

http://www.hpx500.eu/features.php?lang=en

Less noise and interchangeable (and higher quality) lenses would have made a difference here.

Offtopic: I'm shooting a short film in september and I will be using a RED ONE! Yeehaaa!!

[Infrared digital]

By uprezzing do you mean - making the captured image/movie bigger ?

With regard to green screen filming, are there any specific examples of lighting setups and light types that you would recommend ?

I have checked out alot on the net but I would appreciate your experienced opinions.

[joconnell]

Yep - the hvx can't shoot 1920 x 1080 without using some software interpolation in the camera to bring it up to this size - the sensor in the camera won't do it without uprezzing - the issue is that it might be fine, or you might get better results by doing it yourself so it's better to leave yourself the option.

In terms of lighting normally you'd light the foreground subject first and then add in additional lights on the screen to brighten it up and even it out. Ideally you'd have the subject stand quite far away from the screen to reduce spill bouncing off. You could get wardrobe to make sure that people don't wear anything white (since it'll pick up a tonne of spill) and ideally don't have any fuzzy hair since it's a pain to key. If you're shooting a locked off camera and the subject isn't moving, consider turning the camera sideways so you get more resolution on the person. If you've got a moving camera, make sure you put some x marks on the screen with bright blue tape - ideally get matte tape so that it doesn't pick up any kind of specular highlights. If you use blue tape then you can use a blue key to remove the markers and a green key for the background - there'll still be a bit of manual roto but not much. Light wise you can actually get green tubes for lighting screens that work really well.

Panthon - the red is good but it has a few issues with 3d tracking if you use a lot of quick pans - the sensor scans from top to bottom each frame so if you've got vertical lines or poles in the shot and you pan across them quickly, the bottom of the pole will lag behind since the bottom of the pole is in a different place. You can take it into account when doing 3d tracking but it's going to be an issue when you try to render fro a 3d program and try to match the lag :/

Here's some footage of a grid and some lines showing the issue - you'll get it with any camera that uses a cmos sensor - http://ftp.datausa.com/imageshoppe/o...utter_test.mov