Chroma keyer - need help

burgmanguy wrote on 10/26/2008, 1:18 PM
Using VMS 9.0b and a title created in Photoshop with a sold color background.

I am having trouble understanding the specific sequence of key strokes to turn the solid color transparent. AND NEED YOUR "HELP"

Sometimes it works and others, not and I don't understand what I do different. The "help" menu seems to assume that the reader knows a lot more than I do about the product.

Comments

GerryLeacock wrote on 10/26/2008, 5:32 PM
Put your video with the solid color on an upper video line with a second video clip below it. Pick Chroma Keyer from the Video FX tab. Click on Blue Screen, and then drag it to your video clip in the upper time line. Then use the eyedropper to pick up the solid color that you want to be transparent. Playing the video in the timeline now, you'll see that you can see the lower video through the transparent part of the upper video. This is extremely over simplified, but gives you a place to start.
burgmanguy wrote on 10/27/2008, 9:45 AM
Yeah! Many thanks. The step I was not using was dragging "Blue Screen" to the video clip.

Using VMS Studio 9.0a, I would make a small modification to your instruction, first sentance i.e., replace "an upper" with "the #2" and "line" with "overlay".

Thanks again. I wish Sony was a good with instructions on VMS as you.
MacVista wrote on 10/27/2008, 2:44 PM
I don't mean to interrupt but...:-)

Whilst using the chroma key tool to key graphics will work fine, you will often find there is a trace of the coloured background around the edge of your graphic, or you will have to set the key very hard and clip the edge of the graphic.

Instead if you are making the graphics in Photoshop simply create them on a transparent background and then save them out as a photoshop file (.psd) or another format that supports an Alpha channel (png works fine)

The Alpha channel tells Vegas where the Graphic should be transparent. It means you can also have semi-transparent areas like shadows or very soft edges and there will be no colour spill around the Graphic.

Hope this helps someone :-)