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ADVANCED: Sony Vegas Pro 13 and Chroma Keying Problem
I have used SVP for at least 8 or 9 years. I’m not a pro, but I’m good enough to do a ton of great work.
I’ve setup a green screen environ and have the proper three point lighting setup and am still having trouble keying perfectly.
Included is a link to a 30second clip. It’s 1920×1080 30fps, 1/125 shutter and wide aperture for max light at that shutter.
I want to a) reduce motion blur and b) completely remove all the green.
Using BCC Chroma Key, matte cleanup, choke it looks awful.
Using NewBlue Chroma Key Pro is doesn’t look great either.
Using Sony Chroma Keyer is the best I can do. BUT, I still get green screen in the webbing of my fingers, which is just something I cannot figure out how to make disappear. At this point, I’m about ready to go to Premiere because I read they have a great keyer. But, I’d prefer to stick with SVP because I have so much knowledge of the product.
The file is 110MB and is a quick download if any keying experts might want to have a go. Then, perhaps you could create a .veg and include any special instructions? This would help me greatly, and I’m sure it would help the many others who are having same/similar issues.
Thanks,
Tomhttps://drive.google.com/open?id=0BwzeAnBZUdDSdHpEekVvQjVDOFk
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5 Replies
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I see two immediate problems:
(1) You are lighting your subject with the same flat lights as the background. Don’t do that. The green screen should be lit evenly as you did with soft boxes but the talent should be lit with a separate set of lights. At a minimum a key light and a bounce card to create shadows and definition. There are just no shadows to pull your subject away from the background and so the image is very flat and not sharp at all. This is why you’re having a hard time keying. The image just looks too soft to me. There is also a fair amount of spill which makes your fingers look green and causes problems when keying.
(2) You are shooting with a highly compressed AVC/H.264 format that using 4:2:0 chroma subsampling which is not good for chroma keying. You want to shoot chroma key with a camera that uses 4:2:2 or 4:4:4 chroma sampling. So you are not starting with a lot of color information to begin with.
I got a lot better results with the BCC Chroma Keyer than with the built in Vegas Chroma Key.
You might want to watch my Boris TV Episode: Chroma Key & Mattes in Sony Vegas Pro
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQnSIogLeg0
Webinar Replay: BCC 9 New Features Round-Up for Sony Vegas Pro
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXugmuTPgTE
The Boris Keyer is exceptional. I doubt you would need to switch to Premiere Pro just to get a good key.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
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John,
I found, watched and bought the BCC stuff precisely because of that tutorial some months ago. great stuff.
From what I see I guess the issue is the 4:2:0. I am shooting with a Canon 70d, and I don’t know if it’s 4:2:0 or what.
As for lighting, I use 5500k CFL lighting on everything. I have four lights on the screen and have waveformed the lighting such that is as evenly spread as possible. And I have a key light at full power with 4ea 5500k CFL bulbs. I have a fill with 2ea 5500k CFL bulbs and I have a kicker (hair) light that is 1ea 5500k bulb.
Do you think my MAJOR problem is the lighting or the 4:2:0? Or are both major problems?
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[Tom Edwards] “From what I see I guess the issue is the 4:2:0. I am shooting with a Canon 70d, and I don’t know if it’s 4:2:0 or what. “
If the file you linked to was directly from your camera, it is definitely 4:2:0. I checked it with MediaInfo.
[Tom Edwards] “As for lighting, I use 5500k CFL lighting on everything. I have four lights on the screen and have waveformed the lighting such that is as evenly spread as possible. And I have a key light at full power with 4ea 5500k CFL bulbs. I have a fill with 2ea 5500k CFL bulbs and I have a kicker (hair) light that is 1ea 5500k bulb.”
The screen is lit perfectly. I just feel there is too much light on the subject. It is extremely flat and featureless. There are no shadows but more importantly, the colors are washed out because of the amount of light.
This is why I use a key light and bounce card instead of a fill light. Sometimes the fill is just too much. You want shadows on your subject. Shadows give definition. Light without shadows is uninteresting. The most important thing about good lighting is shadows (unless you are shooting a product in a light box and want it to be shadowless).
I saw the hair light, and one trick is to add a magenta gell to the hair light to offset the green spill. The other way to avoid spill is to move further away from the green screen.
[Tom Edwards] “Do you think my MAJOR problem is the lighting or the 4:2:0? Or are both major problems?”
While the 4:2:0 will limit what you an do, getting the lighting correct will help a LOT. As I said, you’ve done an outstanding job with lighting the green screen. Just get some more contrast in the form of shadows on your subject and it should be easier to pull a good key.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com -
Thank you John. All very good info… I now know what I need to do. Again, thanks!
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