Chromakey question

Chuck_DeFiore wrote on 11/28/2004, 11:51 AM
Hi Folks,

Tried my first key yesterday. Following the examples in Spot's Vegas 5 book and Vegas help files, they show putting the keyed track on top with the background track under it. After much playing, nothing but a black screen. Out of desperation tried setting track two as a composite child. Worked great. My question, am I doing something wrong, or was a step left out of those two instructions?

Thanks for the help,

Chuck

Comments

Nat wrote on 11/28/2004, 12:19 PM
Hmm something is wrong.

Here is how to do it :

On the first track you will place your green screen footage. On the lower track (second track) you will place your background. You will now click the FX button of the green screen clip. You now need to add the chorma key effect, with the eyedropper you can sample the green.
You can play with the sliders to adjust the key. This should do the trick.
vicmilt wrote on 11/28/2004, 1:36 PM
an aside... btw... as much as I like the VV5 chroma-key - well, if you're going to do a lot of keying - I LIVE Ultra, by SeriousMagic.

It's by far the easiest and cleanest consistent keys that I've been able to strike - often from "less than perfect" souce material. Definitely try their free demo - they've done something unique.
Chuck_DeFiore wrote on 11/28/2004, 2:00 PM
Hi Nat,

That's exactly what I did. No matter what I tried with the sliders, the green sceen went black, with no underlying track showing until I clicked the child composite on track two. Very strange.

As far as Ultra goes, I use VC Studio, but don't do enough green screen work to justify the price of Ultra.

Thanks for your help. I'll keep playing.

Chuck
nickle wrote on 11/28/2004, 2:09 PM
I went through a similar experience with things not working and then working later regarding chromakeys and alpha channels.

You might to read it.

http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?Forum=4&MessageID=326639
Chuck_DeFiore wrote on 11/29/2004, 2:16 PM
Hi All,

Thank you for the suggestions. I think I found out what happened. I had recorded about 4 minutes worth of key as a test. When I captured the tape to Vegas it split it into 3 clips. I lined the clips up in one track and clicked on the FX track button rather then the event button since I thought the track FX would apply the chromakey effect to all clips. However the only way this would work is to make the second track a child. When using the event FX, the key worked perfectly on the second track without making it a child. I don't understand why the track FX didn't work on all clips. I guess this means I'd need to render the individual clips first into one file or use the event FX individually on each clip.

Just wanted to report what happened in case someone else runs into this.

Thanks again,

Chuck