[Jeff Rouric]

Hey Mathew,

The selective color filters have saved me in other parts (besides hair) so should I just use no selective color filters on hair parts?

I don’t have money, I’ll have money after this gig, but not right now, so I can’t buy anything new, but it sounds really nice.

I don’t know what camera this guy used, but I know that

– He barely prepared the greenscreen and shot these guys on a whim (seriously, some of these guys are wearing green.)
– The files are MTS (I think that’s an AVCHD format, so already heavy compression I think)

And I’ll try the Luma Key, thanks!

Any insight on the fringe about the first problem? (that little outline that doesn’t respond to expansion)

[Jeff Rouric]

Hey thanks man that really does make a lot of sense now, and I’m a starving artist so I’m sorry I can’t get you on that hundred but you win!

The extra pixels in the other was probably due to effects/nesting structure or something, and in the future I’ll prepare for that by making smaller masks than I intend.

Thanks

[Jeff Rouric]

Well I’ll tell you it even happened when I tried it on just a footage layer (MTS file) I’ll test to see if this happens on any other project.

Ok, just tested it on a black square in a new project. Drew a mask with the mask tool (set to rotobezier) and set the mask to none. Duplicated the solid, set mask 1 to add, mask 2 to subtract. Same thing, this happens.

So this isn’t limited to just my project
Is this normal? Is AE6 mask tool not pixel perfect?

When I zoom in they appear to be sets of semitransparent grey 1-2px pixels, like feathering is active. But feathering is at 0.

I’m also finding that the layer qualities are really doing weird things here

add layer is set to Draft, and the subtract layer to Best: the lines go away.
If both are set to Best, this line is here, thin
If both are set to draft, there’s no lines, but a little dot.
If the add layer is set Best and the subtract layer to Draft: the lines are back, thicker

I would like to just use the Add Layer:Draft and the Subtract:Best, but I’m pretty sure those are just preview purpose anyway…

I’d really like to know why this is happening, cause sometimes expanding the mask to cover this up is bad. Please help

[Jeff Rouric]

Hey Matthew, thanks. -7 on the subtract layer seems to work. But why was that needed? Does masking not make a pixel perfect cut on it’s own?

[Jeff Rouric]

What SHOULD I be doing, Tero? Convert everything to ProRes? That would be an extra step that could take days. It took 3 days on my client’s good computer to convert the full res MTS files from 1920×1080 MTS to 640×360 smaller proxies. And I don’t know if that would export faster once they ARE ProRes. I’m just going with what he gave me

[Jeff Rouric]

Hahah, messing around with Blender is a hobby of mine recently, so that last part you said scares me. I don’t have near enough money to set up any farms though, and though he’s so rich he can hang a mac monitor on his wall as a picture, he doesn’t want to put that kind of money into this project. Ideally he would like each one to take only an hour at most (he a producer) and to get the entire thing done in a day. Ha. No.

I experimented with image sequences (PNG) and I have to thank you, this is going to be a lifesaver. It seems like it’s still going to take the same amount of time to export as PNGs as it will to go straight to H.264, AND the file size (of the folder) is going to be so much bigger, BUT this way, if the render breaks (and if it’s gotta sit there for 2 weeks, I’m sure it will) we have a certain point of frames to start from, and don’t have to redo it all. Also if I’m not mistaken, we can break the export into smaller chunks with the work area right? Then just put all the frames back together at the end, which seems to take only seconds – minutes to do.

[Jeff Rouric]

Well for more details, the final thing is to be played on loop on a disembodied mac monitor acting as a hanging wall portrait, as one movie. And all I know about his computer is it has 16 GB of ram…

I’ve been editing with smaller proxies, to get the motions lined up and a rough greenscreen down. That phase is over and the final phase of working on the full res MTS files is here. I changed the greenscreen settings around because keying a highly compressed small proxy != keying full res data. I bring a batch onto my computer, work on them as their own file, then delete the media from my computer, then bring a new batch. Once the final part of lining them up and fading them into each other is here, I’m just going to bring in the project files as compositions, without the source footage linked to it, and line them up as the project file, then hand the project file over to him, have him relink them and export.

I’ll try the image sequence thing, see how that affects the time. Once they’re images, how do you make them into a movie? Won’t it have to render them all back into a movie anyway?

Thank god this has no sound.

[Jeff Rouric]

Hey thanks Matt and Joe,

Joe, I don’t know what the color profile of these clips are, I do know they’re MTS straight from the camera (I don’t know the camera) though, if that tells you anything.

Matt, thanks for those methods. I’ve never heard of most of them and I’ll try em out.

I’m finding a lot of help from the refine matte filter, which seems to quickly smooth out the edge pixels that are giving trouble…they’re still moving a bit, but a lot less noticeable. Rotobrushing is going to take way too long to process…he wants me to spend only about an hour on each one, and it’s taking near an hour to even propogate an area (because the range is 2 minutes….

Now, the option 3, Difference Matte, to use that, I would need an instance of the greenscreen without the person, right? And I’m currently doing something like method #5 now, along with selective color to boost the green.

*sigh* When I took this job, I was hoping it was good GS footage.

[Jeff Rouric]

Thanks Joe, I’ve seen the RotoBrush tutorials before, I just figured it’d take longer (processing-wise) than just greenscreening it. In the future though, how should my client shoot greenscreen next time? I know about the “well-lit” no shadows, as little variance of green as possible, light set up, but what about distance? Should the subject be closer or further away from the screen?

I mean…there’s people in this project that are WEARING green. That is going to be a nightmare.

And are there are pre-cautions to take when shooting greenscreen in slo-mo? It looks to me like the light is flickering, maybe the shutter, which is making this harder than it should be in real-time. Any basis to that?

[Jeff Rouric]

It didn’t work. MPEG2 seems to be the closest solution. Even though it renders out almost the same time as a MTS.

Maybe I’ll just stick with MTS.

Any other suggestions?

Sorry for blunt, tired.