Thanks for the reply Bob. I set the key and selected mask only. The subject was clearly defined and solid white with a black background. I actually grabbed some stills of the color shift, etc, but I don't see a way to display them.

I should mention that I did use the same clip in a Newtek Tricaster virtual set and it keyed out the green and left the subject's coloring untouched, just as it should. I would like to use Vegas's key, however, so I can use the pan/crop to position my subject more freely, whereas the virtual set offers four "views", but they aren't adjustable.

I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the fact that it would key properly in the Tricaster but not in Vegas.

I did, in fact, forget to white balance in my haste to get started. But the previous white balance was under flourescents, and I used a flourescent kit for this project as well. The colors in the viewfinder and the resulting clip are spot on to the scene, which is probably why I neglected to perform the WB in the first place. Not that there's a good excuse for such a thing :-)

I actually grabbed some stills of the color shift, etc, but I don't see a way to display them.

New Markup for Forum Posts, specifically the Links, Images, and Videos section.

I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the fact that it would key properly in the Tricaster but not in Vegas.

The keyer in the Tricaster is much better than the one in Vegas.

I would like to use Vegas's key, however, so I can use the pan/crop to position my subject more freely, whereas the virtual set offers four "views", but they aren't adjustable.

I haven't played with it too much yet but, as I recall, you can use the positioning tools in the Tricaster to move any source around to your heart's content.

Mike

Thanks Mike. I've attempted to add a couple of pics . . . hope it works. I used a video segment recorded from the Tricaster virtual set as the background for the key. You can clearly see the difference in the colors.

I've had nothing but good luck with green screen keys in Vegas up to now. Hopefully these images will make sense to someone.

Are you using the eyedropper to select the green or are you simply selecting the green preset? It looks like a color balance issue and your background is not green.

What seems to be happening is Vegas is keying out the green in the stripes of the shirt, and anything else that has a green color channel where the green luminance value is near that of the luminance of the green screen, such as the cyan stripes in the shirt. When Vegas reduces the green value in the stripes you get the blue shirt instead of the cyan shirt.

So it's not just the composite RGB color that is keyed out, it's the individual channels of the other colors that are keyed out.

I wasn't expecting to see that happen. But I checked backed to Sony Vegas Movie Studio 8 Platinum and the same thing happens.

The NewBlueFX Chroma Keyer (VE 2) works as I expected.

If you were to keep using the Sony Chroma Keyer, you'll need two tracks. The first track would have your image/video event with the Sony Chroma Keyer FX with the Mask option selected. Move the sliders until the mask is as it should be so that the green screen is black and the rest is white.

After setting the mask up, change the track composite mode to Multiply (Mask).

The same source green screen image/video goes below on adjacent track 2. Click the "Make Compositing Child" icon in the track header.

Your background would go on track 3.

I hope that makes sense.

I can repo your problem and the only conclusion I can reach is it is a bug.

The green screen is roughly 15deg off pure green according to the vectorscope. I used CC to get that back to pure green which helped the look of the subject as well.
Applying the CK FX after the CC and starting with the Pure Green preset I could get a solid mask. Then I saw your problem. I appled a mask to reveal just the shirt abd it is changing around 30deg according to the scopes. I was keying over black so that should not happen. I changed the lower track to solid red and that made no change to what the shirt read. I think I can safely say, you are right, this is not background bleed.

For some reason I cannot fathom the CK FX is changing the colour of your subject and the only conclusion I can reach is this is abnormal behavior for such an FX and one that I have not seen in previous versions of Vegas. Unless someone else can come up with an explaination of why this is happening I think you need to report this as a bug, sorry.

Just for completeness I should also mention I tried removing the colour correction and using the eyedropper to get a clean mask and retested and got the same result.

Bob.

Hey Steve,

I did both. And I was actually very successful in removing the unwanted green background. The problem is that the "wanted" portions of my image shifted colors.

Thanks Robert,

While I haven't performed the technique you are describing, I think I understand the concept. It seems that you are using the mask to specifically define the key area as opposed to relying on the removal of green.

I don't have the technical understanding as a lot of you do, but I did sense that the green color info was being affected across the entire image. But the CK should be creating transparency where it detects the green, just as it did for the background. It's like a rogue color balance filter is coming along right after CK removes the background and is removing that same green color from the scene.

And again, the crazy thing is that I've done quite a bit of green screen work with Vegas, with positive results. I even had a guy show up in a darker green shirt for an interview once. And while it was tricky to keep all the subject and remove the background, I was able to do so . . . and the shirt remained dark green.

If I linked this video correctly, you can scrub through and see several subjects that were shot in front of a little green screen in a conference room. All done with Vegas on my edit machine. The roughest key was the green shirt at the 7:30 mark. But the shirt stayed true to color . . . clipping it was the hard part.

http://bcove.me/3b34t5ck

I really appreciate your thoughts and the time you guys are taking to think about this on my behalf. I'm confident it will be figured out . . . just not sure how to go about it :-)

I'm confident it will be figured out . . . just not sure how to go about it :-)

Get the guy to wear a different shirt, preferably a solid colour one as I'm sure the stripes are a part of the problem.
Like you, I've done a lot of CK in Vegas over the years and have never seen a problem like this.
I tried it on Pro 8, 9 and 10 and had the same problem you and everyone else did.
Why Vegas chokes on it when other keyers work ok is beyond me.

Mike

Thanks for the reply Mike,

It doesn't show on that particular screen shot, but his solid pants turn the same goofy purple. Heck . . . even the green backdrop, along with everything else, turned purple when the CK fx was selected in the filter chain. Even though, as I said in the initial post, it keyed out the green of the screen even though it looked purple as it was doing it.

I just did another test and yes, even the face changes color.
Just to be sure I again checked the mask using the waveform monitor and the face is solid 255.

If I can find the time tomorrow I'll try this in V9.

Bob.

Thanks Bob. It must be something with the video clip, and not my system, because you are getting the same issue . . . that's the part that's hard to figure.

It was shot on a PMW-EX1R. I exported it as an .mxf for use in Vegas. From that, I rendered an .mpg file, which is the one that I used successfully in the Tricaster virtual set. I even tried using that very .mpg in Vegas . . . same goofy result.

What is it that would remain with the clip, through the process of grabbing a still, posting the pic, and being imported into your system . . . that would cause the issue? (this is rhetorical, I don't expect you to answer) :-) And . . . seemingly be unique to Vegas, since I keyed successfully in the Tricaster and Robert, I believe, used another program with success.

All of the frame grabs and .mpg conversions and such came from the original .mxf that I exported from the camera. Maybe if I export from the camera in something other than the .mxf the results might be different? Don't know why it would be different . . . but I don't know much of anything at this point anyhow . . . so I might have to run into work and give it a shot.

This won't be a shocker to the folks in this crowd . . . but I'm facing a tight deadline . . . why does it always work out like that? :-)

I had seen a similar thing a few years ago, so back then probably in Vegas 8 (32 bit, Win XP). I'm just a home hobbyist, and didn't really pursue the issue, but it really seemed that enabling the Chromakey function was changing the coloring of the image.

I was trying to key out the light blue sky of a quick little shot where I was seated in a vehicle and wearing a bright blue shirt. The blues were different enough that I had a very clean mask (solid white where it should be, else solid black where the sky was), but enabling the chromakey would make my bright blue shirt look dark blue -- even though the mask looked very good. (The sky was just a small part of the image, and not even adjacent to me.)

It definitely seemed wrong at the time. I don't think my shirt was going transparent (i.e. looking darker because it was keying over black) because I'm pretty sure I put some wild color or checkerboard image on a track below and it didn't show through.

I played with your green screen image and it worked when I changed both the low and the high threshold to 0.220. I did it first by looking at the mask alone, then unchecked that and this is what it looked like:

Yeah, I went down the same road as you, but the shirt is still blue/purple, not turquoise.

...Jerry

Edit: Just because I was, initially, confused over what the problem was, I think the following image illustrates the issue:

Hey Jerry,

Your image does a great job of showing the color shift. The purple appears the second the Chroma Key fx box is checked. The shift is very noticable in the shirt but when you look at this image of the entire clip before the key is set, it's simply ridiculous :-)

I've noticed a couple of references to the NewBlue chroma keyer, and I have to be honest, I wasn't familiar with it. I found their site and the essentials II pack looks pretty interesting. The rack focus effect caught my attention as well. It states that this package integrates with Vegas. Does it load into the effects chain in the same manner as the currently installed ones? For the dough, I'm thinking I could make a case for it . . . not only to remedy this issue, but to gain some other benefits as well.

I guess I misunderstood you. I thought you wanted to match the results of the green screen to the picture with the blue screen.

Anyway, is this better then? Still with Vegas alone:



Here is what I did:

First I created the green screen as above, but kept the mask checked so all I got was a nice hicon image of the mask. I saved that as 1.veg.

Then I started a new Vegas project with three tracks. The bottom track had a photo I took a few days ago, for the background. The middle track was your green screen image. The top track was 1.veg I created first.

I set the bottom track (my background) as a parent track. I could have probably just kept it at the default, but I first set it to a child track and that was a mistake. So, to undo that mistake I made it into a parent track.

I set the middle track (your green screen foreground) to be the child and the top track (1.veg created in the first step) to be its parent.

I set the compositing mode of the top track to Multiply, and bingo! The shirt has the proper colors. No color shift. And no third party plug-in required.

I've noticed a couple of references to the NewBlue chroma keyer... Does it load into the effects chain in the same manner as the currently installed ones? Indeed, it does:



The real reason, I prefer the NewBlueFX Chroma Keyer is because you can eliminate the halo/fringing exhibited in the Sony Chroma Keyer:


All that said, there are several here that prefer the Boris keyer to the NewBlueFX keyer. However, I understand it is more expensive. NewBlueFX fits my needs.

...Jerry

Thank you guys for the input and the work-arounds to fixing my problem. I will probably never know why it is doing what it is . . . but I've learned some things in the process that will help me down the road. And I am definitely grateful for that.

But it still makes no sense! :-)

You guys have a great evening.

. . . Rod