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blue/green screening
I’ve recently become interested in special effects/video-in-general (picked it up from dad), and one thing that I’ve often thought to myself while working on the few projects I’ve completed is: I could do so much more if I could isolate that actor (and I don’t want to get into rotoscopy). I’ve known about blue/green screening and keying the actor out, but one obstacle that hinders me is that I don’t have a blue or green screen (or anything of a solid color that could be a backdrop). I figured that with all of the expertise available on these forums, someone would have a good wake to make or acquire one (preferably on the cheap side).
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6 Replies
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Get some blue paint and “redecorate” the family room. Surely your dad wouldn’t mind; you’re following in his footsteps!
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(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great)No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.
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You’re not necessary obligated to have a blue/green screen! Put yourself in front of a wall (with an unique color) and record yourself! Just one thing, don’t wear a color that’s the same as the wall behind you! Or better, you could use “Render->Paint Bucket” to paint your wall in real time.
If you’ve got plenty of time to lose, why not masking?! *lol*
Good luck!
Justin Productions
Tangerin01@hotmail.com
Adobe After Effects 6.0 Professional -
You can use many different colors when chroma keying, so don’t close your options just to blue and green! I used to hang up a piece of green fabric in my backyard on a clothes line, which I found to be suprisingly good. If you plan to do it indoors, which I recommend because of the variables of filming outdoors, it’s worth it picking up some cheap $20-dollar lights from your hardware store. You have to make sure you have even lighting when filming green screen.
Josh M
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Actually:
You need a color that is at contrast to for instance skin color. So brown, orange, yellow or red would prove problematic.
Second: the more advanced keyers are color difference keyers, and they need a good difference between color channels. So preferably a strong red, green or blue background color. We’ve already said that red is not a good idea for keying out human skin, so that leaves green or blue.
Green spill is uglier on the human skin, but the blue channel suffers more from the DV compression so is usually more pixellated than the green channel…
As far as lighting goes: you need a nice and even lit screen. Preferably a parallel light source. If it doesn’t rain, outside is usually the cheapest solution.
Bar3nd
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Thanks for the advice. I think I’ll try the colored sheet (green or blue) outside next time I start a project.
Painting the family is tempting… but I don’t have any paint.
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I was going to try buying one of those big green plastic tarpaulins and maybe give it a coat of matte green emulsion paint. That would give a surface you could put on the floor and use as a backing. It is a good idea if you can stretch it to remove as many creases as possible. The Keylight plugin (AE pro only) is pretty easy to get a fairly good key with.
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