[Rob Hughes]

Hi Michael,

I’m just working on a similar project myself. We shot a person on green screen, interacting with a fictional coffee machine in a fictional kitchen environment. (image attached)

The environment and coffee machine were all created in 3D in maya, rendered out as still background images and imported into AE for compositing.

We didn’t actually have the actor holding things, but they were pressing fictional buttons on the fictional coffee machine.

We made all the props out of MDF and painted them green. (we took a sample of the green screen background down to a diy store and got them to paint match it).

One problem we encountered was that we drew tracking points in pencil onto the objects to represent the buttons. Now when we key, we’re having to roto out these pencil marks as the hand passes over them, simply because they’re not green!

My advice to you would be to use actual green props – so use two pieces of broom handle painted green with some green string or paper in between to simulate your scroll. (or something similar) This can all be keyed out and the hands will look like they’ve got the correct grip to insert your futuristic device.

Also as i think you’re doing, test test test – go through the whole post production process with your footage to try and discover problems…..we did some testing for our shoot, but missed this little problem, which is now causing me hassle!

Cheers,

Rob
(back to the roto!)

[Rob Hughes]

Cheers Luke, I guessed that might be the issue.

Well – you mentioned that no testing had been done with the powerpc version of FCP – i’ve done it for ya! It don’t work!

Has anyone reading this done the UK universal crossgrade offer from Apple? – Upgrade from final cut studio?
When i got the invoice from the apple store it said an estimated delivery time of 4-6 weeks!!! Is this actually the case, or have disks come through quicker than that?

Thanks,

Rob Hughes
VisualICE
http://www.visual-ice.co.uk

[Rob Hughes]

I too am having this same problem.

You say it was the quicktime mpeg2 component?
What was wrong with it?
Was it corrupt or something?
I’ve had a lok, but i can’t seem to find this on my system.

Any ideas anyone? Its taking between 1-2 minutes to startup each time….grr!

System: dual G5 1.8’s. 1.5GB RAM, Latest OS, FCP 5

Cheers.

[Rob Hughes]

Thanks for your response.

Project Properties:
preset: PAL DV
w:720, h:576

Bit depth: 8 bit
Pix aspect ration Pal D1/DV 1.07
Field Order: Lower First

Frame rate 25

Render Settings Tab
Motion Blur – samples 8
Shutter Angle – 360

Output – antialiasing – Normal.

Is that what you needed to know?