[Matt Dodds]

[Steve] “Try this one on for size. This uses the clips you uploaded (the original footage I’ve squished the head out of to get an incorrect but clean background plate so the lighting is right) and the last raw footage clip.
I think it boils less than the one you showed us and certainly doesn’t suffer from the edge blockys. It does crush her hair a bit more but another edge hair layer compensates and brings some of the wisps back in. This layer actually looks better on top but it does change the color of her hair a bit. If you can live with that difference in color (if you didn’t see the original you wouldn’t realize) it brings more wisps back in when placed above the footage.
I’ve added some noise to the BG to match the noisy green screen footage.
Let me know of you need it saved back before AE 2018.

If its not good enough it may give you some ideas that you could tweak yourself.”

I would need it at the CS6 format please. I am not able to use it at 2018.

Since this is for a professional video bio, I need to make sure I get enough hair in there.

Thank you so much for your help. I am assuming it comes back to lighting then. Since I do not get enough light at Shutter Speed 1/30, F-stop 3.5, and ISO 400 (that low, since I get a lot of grainy noise if it is any higher), what would you suggest for an less expensive light setup? I was thinking LED lights, but that might not work out for a green screen.

[Matt Dodds]

“This is a green screen image with H264 compression (and pretty mightily compressed at that) and you can see everything is sharper but more than that, the visible blocks that make up the H264 compression are away from the hairline, out in the green area where subtle shades have to be decided on. All blocks change every keyframe but with the obvious ones out in the green you won’t see the key dance every 15 frames or so at the hairline.”

What codec would be better to use? In school, we were taught H.264 due to it having a higher HD quality, but it’s not helping me here. Also, it looks like your green screen is lighter. Is there a specific hue that a green screen should be normally, or does it really matter?

“In your footage there is no where near the clarity of detail and there are all these little smudges where the codec (or the camera) has tried to invent what it’s seen or average a bunch of data into a few blocks. The more noisy a shot is (by noise I mean lots of different textures and colors and details – in other words the wrinkles in the fabric) the higher the Mb/s it needs to make sure all of those details come out sharp and at 3.5 mb/s sec its just not enough, given the content of this shot. Any codec is going to start to sacrifice things (usually color first) in order to keep details it finds important. One of my clients loves h264 because at a low through put rate all her wrinkles disappear.”

Would better lighting make a difference or is it all just a codec thing? Is there a green screen/blue screen that is better to use? I am wondering if there is a fabric that does better with wrinkling, since I am not able to iron it out at site! I have been trying to use the Selective Color effect to help lighten the greens up, to get rid of the wrinkles as well, but it hasn’t been working!

“If you zoom in on your footage to this level and step through it frame by frame (no key or effects) you can see the edge of the hairline boiling and little areas of distortion going on where chunks of hair literally move over 16 pixels for a few frames and then move back or sections get averaged to keep the bandwidth. This may be function of the camera or the codec, I’m not sure, but this is also going on at the edge of the hair so you are keying a moving target. It’s almost has a shower glass effect.”

Is there a way to alleviate this problem, if any?

[Matt Dodds]

This makes a lot of sense. I am not able to record in RAW, since there is no option for that in my 60D. I did research it and it looks like most all of Canon DSLRs, without Magic Lantern, uses H.264 or something similar to that.

[Matt Dodds]

There is no fan at all. It is just her with one light on her and 2 lights lighting up the green screen, since my 60D doesn’t pick up much light, I wanted to have the green screen have the most light possible, to make the chroma keying easier, which it hasn’t! I have been trying to use some of the blur feature, but to no avail.

“Or you can pull two keys one for the dark greens and one for light. Or pull two keys one for the body of the person (clamp the heck out of it) and then do a roto matte (very loose) around her head, make a thick fuzzy line out of that mask and then use that as a mask. (basically a halo of the edge of her hair). Combine that with a thin green key that lets some of the screen show through. Then you can have a much less dense matte and you can screen that element in over top of the main chunky matte of her. Because its blonde hair it screens well and lets you keep all those split ends even though the matte isn’t great/solid.”

That would work, but it is mainly her hair that is doing it. I also did it with mine (did a test recording) and it was also doing the dancing edge pixel around my head and clothes. I am just confused at what I am doing wrong!

[Matt Dodds]

I do believe the codec I am running is H.264. And for compression, I am not doing anything myself. I am uploading it from the SD card to a folder, then to After Effects, so AE might be doing the compression, if any at all, but I am not manually!

Yes, here is the beginning bit of it. I added the clapboard part to it, since it doesn’t key out the clapboard correctly as well!

12279_shortgreenscreen.mp4.zip

Thanks!

[Matt Dodds]

I am using the Keylight 1.2 keyer. I have been using the Screen Shrink and putting it at -2 and the Softness at 2. Neither of these were of any help!

I did put 2 lights on the background to light it up, but I only have fluorescent light bulbs, but I plan to get some LED lights.

I do use a lavalier mic, with a zoom recorder. The lav was in her scarf! I did noise cancel the sound, so that shouldn’t be an issue!

[Matt Dodds]

So, that is the reason why I am getting dancing pixels. That does make a lot of sense then. I will try to get a blue screen and get more distance from the screen, than I was before. I think that this footage isn’t usable then?!

[Matt Dodds]

This is an image of my green screen set up. When I meant not a great green screen, I meant cheap and wrinkly, not small. It came with my lighting set up I bought.

I am currently not able to record outside, since it is still cold and will be snowing soon! Inside is my only option so far!

Thanks!