[Andrew Somers]

You don’t need a custom output simulation – just select “Display Color Management” and use the HDTV simulation.

You won’t notice a big difference between sRGB and rec709 working spaces – they are virtually identical in linear mode – but there is (or was) a bug in AE that did not linearize rec709 correctly. Other than that, Rec709 and sRGB use the same primaries.

But again, the first issue is that your camera is not white balance correctly for your lighting.

[Andrew Somers]

I stand corrected on the Panasonic – One brochure I read led me to believe it was a single chip camera. regardless I have never liked Panasonic cameras in practice, for what it’s worth.

Regarding your WORKING SPACE.

When working in Linear, you ALSO must enable “Display Color Management”: for each sequence/comp (this is a COMP setting and NOT a project setting, so it could be on or off for every comp in your project).

ALSO, make sure your monitor is calibrated and profiled correctly. AND, it is important to note that when working in LINEAR space that you *CAN NOT just go out via video preview – you first must pass through a LIN to VID profile conversion to use After Effect’s Video Preview (unless you have an HD card that uses LUTs that you can setup for the lin to vid conversion).

The sRGB example you posted above is the first thing I’ve seen you post that is close to correct in terms of the green screen – I was able to pull a PERFECT key in under 20 seconds in Keylight.

I can’t say the same for the version set to “None” and it was also very noisy.

I don’t use “Neat Video Denoiser” so I can’t advise there, but you may find that with the correct settings elsewhere that you don’t need it at all.

[Andrew Somers]

Even 8-bit RGB is *NOT ENOUGH* for wide gamut feature film work. 8 bit gives you only a tiny latitude that you have to fit the image into.

According to tests, the HDMI out of the D4 is 1080i, not 1080p. (Also, the output drops to 720P if you are recording on the camera itself, though that should not be an issue if using an external recorder).

All specs I have read is that the HDMI out is 422, which is YUV (technically it is YCbCr), and NOT RGB.

And again, if Nikon was able to make the D4 HDMI out work at 10 or 12 bit 1080p24 with the possibility to apply a LOG-C curve, this camera would be a total game changer.

As it *stands* it’s a good solid camera, but not a choice I would make for principal photography for a feature film.

[Andrew Somers]

You are still white balanced incorrectly for both cameras.

The Sony is better because (aside from the fact that Sony makes better camera’s than Panasonic), the SONY is a 1/2″ THREE chip camera, and the Panasonic is a 1/3″ SINGLE chip camera.

A single chip camera requires debayering, that substantially reduces the true/effective resolution (relative to the seonsor native resolution) (which is why you actually want a chip that is much higher resolution than what you are “ending up with” for single chip cameras).

As for AE workingspace: Set AE to:

32 bit
sRGB
Linear
Compensate for Scene Referred

WORKING SPACE:

If you are shooting with a dSLR like the Canon, set it to sRGB, and make sure that sRGB is the colorspace that the footage is INTERPRETED as in AE.

If your footage is from an HD camcorder, then it will most likely be Rec709, and should be interpreted as Rec709 – but your AE working space should still be sRGB linear.

REASON: Rec709 and sRGB both use the same primaries, however, the gamma curve of Rec709 does not linearize well as a working space in After Effects (appears to a be a bug).

[Andrew Somers]

Oliver said: “My lights use a Color Temperature of approx. 5400K. I have experiemented with the white balance settings… I think I shot around 4900k.”

Don’t do that.

With lighting at 5400K, setting WB to 4900K will fill the green screen with BLUE. If you were shooting RAW, you could fix it later, but because you are shooing to an 8 bit format, with 4:2:0 color and highly compressed H264 – you must white balance your camera such that the green screen is ending up in the green channel, and not the red or blue.

Oliver said: “Should I be using a 18% grey card for setting my white balance manually?
“

Yes.

You want to WB your camera to your lighting, ESPECIALLY the lighting on the green screen. You want your camera to give you a file that has that green screen in the G channel, and NOT in the R or B.

This is ESPECIALLY critical in 8-bit, 4:2:0, DCT compressed files.

If you bring your footage into After effects, in LINEAR 32-bit space (which you should always be using for compositing), and you eyedropper the GREEN screen, your numbers should look like one of these examples:

Your screen does not look like that, here are values for the file you gave me last month:

This is not good. Your blue channel has barely a stop difference from the green channel.

Again, if you were shooting RAW, it could be corrected – but shooting in 8Bit, your camera is having to debayer this wacked white balanced footage,, then cram it into a 4:2:0 H264 container. And then you’re stuck.

RAW does not have a whitebalance – your white balance is what guides the camera in how to debayer, gamma encode, and YUV encode the file. If your white balance is wrong, so will be your shot.

LET’S GET BACK TO BASICS:

1) Use a green that is *very narrow band* (nearly florescent, or Ultimatte, etc.).

2) Light it evenly, and keep it at meter and no more than 2 stops UNDER meter. Overexposing will hurt you, so err on the side of exposing it darker. I normally aim for one stop under meter for green screen exposure.

3) Whitebalance the camera to the light source, and make sure that the Green Screen is mainly in the G channel, and not in the R or B. There should be about 3 stops (or more) difference between the G and the next brightest channel.

4) Never use sharpening in camera.

5) Never use filters on the camera, except ND or polarizers.

6) Be careful what “picture style” you use in a Canon dSLR. I can’t say if Cinestyle is the right choice, but it might work great. I don’t use Canon, so I can’t experiment here.

7) A camera that shoots RAW like the Red Epic or Scarlett is IDEAL for green screen.

PECKING ORDER OF MOST PREFERRED, TO MOST AVOIDED, CAMERA/FILE TYPES
For Green/blue screen.

BEST: RAW.

SECOND BEST: After “RAW”, the next preferred solution is RGB or 4:4:4 YUV in 10 bit or 12 bit.

THIRD BEST: 4:2:2 in 10 bit or 12 bit with moderate compression or uncompressed.

FOURTH BEST/AVOID if possible: 4:2:2 and 4:2:0 in 8 bit. 422 8-bit is better than 420, but 420 is not that much worse that 422 8 bit.

420 is not the end of the world – it is useable if shot and handled correctly. Some formats like HDV do much worse – but HDV is not bad just because of the 420 – it’s bad because it also uses non-square pixels that have to be stretched, and it uses severe compression. Some say that HDV is bad for greenscreen because it uses 420 – but in reality HDV is bad for greenscreen because HDV is overall a very low fidelity format.

So don’t use HDV. Having said that, I’ve pulled plenty of good keys using 420 dSLR video.

DO NOT USE: 4:1:1 or 3:1:1 for green/blue screen work. Just don’t. (unless you are a masochist.) Unlike 420 that has equal color res both vertical and horizontal )1/2 res vertical and 1/2 res horizontal), 411 has 1/4 the horizontal res, making it nearly useless. Similar issue for 311.

And having said that, I’ve pulled “useable” keys from 411 and 311. But I wasn’t very happy about being in that situation.

8) Keep your subject as far away from the green screen as possible – among other things this allows keeping the green screen as out of focus as possible.

I’ll add some more tips later, dinner time… 🙂

[Andrew Somers]

Half the price of the Scarlett, yes – BUT even with the uncompressed HDMI out, it is STILL 422 and STILL ONLY 8 bit.

8 bits is not enough.

The Red give you RAW – and the difference is astoundingly important.

As for resolution – vertical and horizontal resolution is not as important as you might think. A frame of 35mm motion picture film is really only about the resolution of 2K. 4K does not really give you substantially greater sharpness – but more to the point, sharpness is not the critical factor in image fidelity.

Dynamic range and gamut size IS. So bit depth is more important than spacial resolution.

Don’t get me wrong, the D4 is an amazing camera, and it pretty much destroyes anything Canon offers in that range – but it isn’t a RED and it isn’t an Alexa. Both RED and ALEXA have substantially greater bit depth, and an 8-bit system will never compete with them.

Now, if Nikon were able to get that HDMI output up to *at least* 10 bit, and also be able to use a LOG-C type curve as the Alexa can, then Nikon would pretty much own this market segment.

[Andrew Somers]

Halo as in reacting with the atmosphere?

There is no “atmosphere” in AE – though you might be interested in the plug in LUX from Trapcode, which might help you achieve the effect I think you are looking for. It makes AE’s comp light visible.

[Andrew Somers]

I’m assuming we are talking about the same shot of the blonde in a tux.?

To address the noise in the first place, as I indicated in the earlier threads, your “greenscreen” is not a good narrow band of green – it contains a lot of blue, at least as you are shooting it.

As a result, you are making the keyer (Keylight, what have you) work harder, and when you make it work harder, you may then be causing noise to become more obvious.

Since you also have the “white line” in the red channel issue, this could be an artifact of the debayering or the compression algorithm due to the excessive blue in the green screen you are using.

NOTE: how are you white balancing your camera? It is VERY important when shooting green/blue screen that you NEVER EVER use AUTO WHITE BALANCE.

White balance to a neutral grey card that is lit with the same color temperature lighting used on the green screen (and use that same color temperature lighting for the subject).

This is critically important especially when shooting to an 8 bit compressed format like in a dSLR.

If you ARE properly white balanced, try this:

https://www.rosco.com/us/scenic/ultimatte.cfm

[Andrew Somers]

If you must use a sharpen tool, it needs to be after you pull your key.

As for why you see the white line – since I don’t use Canon dSLRs, I can’t speak regarding how they may handle the compression in H264.

I did tests just now with my Nikon, using a dark and black objects in front of my green screen, and got no white line. The Nikon compresses into a 4:2:0 space as well.

But as you may recall, in a previous post I pointed out that your green screen is NOT sufficiently narrow band to get a good key (from what I can tell in the images you posted).

[Andrew Somers]

Input Contract Violation? Well obviously your AE has gone on strike!!

But seriously:

You are not giving us enough information. What are the comps, what is in them, and what plug ins are you using?

As for RAM – 8 GB is not enough for useful multiprocessing on a quadcore – I’d suggest 16 at least.

Though Multiprocessing is used only when rendering (including RAM previews), it would not be an issue when making a copy of a layer.

Tell us more, and/or upload the project here.