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software comparison for green screen keying question
The reason I’m asking this question here is that most people who are FCP users are probably not very experiened AE users. And I want to know the answer to this question from the point of view of someone like me.
I’m considering buying either zMatte, dvMatte Pro, or After Effects to do my keying instead of using the chromo keying that comes with FCP. I’m trying to figure out if there is a real difference in keying quality (our source footage is 4:1:1 DV) and learning curve.
I’m sort of leaning towards AE because AE offers other things that I’d like to have like motion tracking and a host of other cool tools. I’ve even considerd the Boris products. But price is a mild consideration.
Anyone have any thoughts on this?
-Trevor
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7 Replies
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Boris Continuum Complete has an excellent set of keying tools. Actually it’s just a great set of filters and effects for FCP that I highly recommend.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.comDirector, “The Rough Cut”
https://www.theroughcutmovie.comNow Posting “Good Eats” in HD for the Food Network
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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There are free trials of all of the packages you’ve mentioned, including AE. Why not download them & give them a whirl with some test footage? Also, you can purchase 3rd party keyers for AE, if you like the workflow or other capabilities. Visit toolfarm.com or pluginz.com to see some other keyers that you may have left out. Good luck!
Arnie
https://www.arniepix.com -
You may want to take your footage to another codec before compositing. That’s the impression I got reading this article on chroma by Graham Nattress:
https://www.lafcpug.org/Tutorials/basic_chroma_sample.html
Nattress has a plug in to help with this, called G Nicer, part of Film Effects package:
https://www.nattress.com/Products/filmeffects/G_Nicer411.htm
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AE will give you so much more than just keying…but even so I think most people use 3rd party plugins when keying in AE. For DV shot stuff we have used DV Matte Pro in AE and it worked pretty well, though DV is usually a pain to key no matter what. I think the choice keyer around these parts for most of our keying needs is primatte. Though the built in FCP keyer it is usually terrible, I have actually been able to pull a decent key with it…though the footage was HD and lit extremely well.
Best,
Eli MavrosEli Mavros
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Shake along with primate is another powerfull option. Although Shake has somewhat of a steep learning curve.
John Daro
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If you’re looking at AE, don’t forget to check out Autodesk Combustion. Combustion has better roto tools than AE, so when you come across a tough problem that keying alone won’t handle, Combustion’s roto tools will really help. Combustion comes with two keyers, the Diamond Keyer and the Discreet Keyer. The Diamond Keyer is a quick and powerful keyer with knife-edge precision. The Discreet Keyer, while not necessarily a one-click solution like some other keyers, gives you a comprehensive set of tools to work with for pulling very difficult keys. You are also free to use plugin keyers as well, similar to AE.
The tutorial videos on the Combustion site offer a quick look at Combustion’s many great features. I find Combustion to be much more versatile than Shake in a video environment, and I find its user interface to be far ahead of AE’s.
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Using AE or Combustion is excellent. I like to do everything in the timeline & I don’t have time to mess with it. If you want the perfect key inside fcp & you have an extra $1,500 in you pocket, go with Ultimatte. I pull a perfect key everytime with no more than 3 mouse clicks. Because it figures everything out for you, expect a long render. I do them all over night.
-dMR
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