There are applications that can do "blue screen" if the background is still. In essence, they memorize the background pattern and then subtract it from the moving video and let you replace the background with anything. To work properly, you need to shoot the background with nothing in the foreground. Can't remember the name of the application offhand, however.

If the background is still, and you have at least once section where no one is in the background, you may be able to pull this off in Vegas using one the more unusual compositing modes (difference, or difference squared). If you composite the "empty background" with the "person in front of the background", you should be able to get a moving mask of the person (unless parts of them happen to closely match the background color), and use that to "extract" the person out of the original video. Chances are it won't look that great though.

Try playing around with the parent/child relationships between tracks and with the different compositing modes.

If the background is moving though, then you're probably left with the tedious task of exporting each frame, and using photoshop or something.

...and the best way to export frames is to frameserve clip to Virtualdub and render the video as an image sequence.

The best bet for any kind of rotoscoping is using a software which can handle keyframed spline masks, you will find that there are a few of these on the market, but the price range can be quite a dent in the pocket. I think Mainconcept had some sort of a software Mainvision I think which at one time was free but not cost something.. it has the spline tools to do that kind of rottoscoping.. I dont think Vegas is equiped to that extent for compositing yet.. maybe in the next version. There could be a cheaper software somewhere out there.. I know only three that offer spline based rotoscoping, AfterEffects, Commotion, and MainVision..

Cheers,

D

Rotoscopy... you can try Animation Shop, which comes with PainShopPro from Jasc. Its got a frame by frame animation app and you can install it without installing the whole PSPro/AnimSh package.
And Satish is currently working on something regarding rotoscopy that should -again- bring the whole game to a new level... ;)

Commotion Pro can do this easily, so can Ulead's VideoPaint that comes with Media Studio Pro. Both are fast. However, how varied is the background? It might be more doable in Vegas than you think.
If you'd like, send me a still at dse(at)sundancemediagroup.com

http://cinepaint.sourceforge.net/ ?

Ok, But Frame by Frame will not cut it. I need to "Isolate" the main subject/s from the background and import the "extracted" images on to a BLUE background for the purposes of Chromakeying (IN) a new background video clip?


Does this explain it more clearly?

Thanks!

Jov

There are apps that are more dedicated to this sort of thing, but nothing that's really in the quick and easy catagory - gonna take some time and work most likely. The prob. with this sort of thing is that you may not have a good way to differentiate between the subject and the background, depending on your video. And the hard part is pulling the subjects, so you get a video of just your desired subject on a transparent or solid color background that can be composited over your desired scenes.

You might want to take SPOT up on the generous offer to have a look see. Otherwise, might want to try using masks to block off the area around your subject(s), reducing the area that you have to key out/get rid of -> from there *might* be able to do some chroma key, turning background colors to transparent, maybe one at a time.

Other, specialized software can use vector masks to isolate your subject... You might want to try something like freehand in the same way, animating a rough vector mask that follows your subject, turning that into a mask track?

Jovanni,

There are tons of archived posts about this subject here (do a quick search and find some of the earlier ones). I too asked basically the same question and got some great responses.

Upside...yes, it is doable.

Downside....maybe not in VV (directly) - but definately not an "easy" task.

I used the JASC paint program as a test - frameXframe to test the logistics of the process. And, to correct you assumption ... frame by frame will most definately cut it (but it is very tedious).

Of course, that depends on the software that you have available to do this type of work after the fact.

I have seen the process done which basically takes your frames, paints out the current background (fxf) and then you have a video file with just the front image(s) on a colored background that you "painted". Then you reimport the new clip into vegas on one track, lay the "hawaii" video on another and then chroma key out the color of the track you painted.

The "problem" is.....fXf is very tedious and depending on the software you use very time consuming.

JASC is okay for a short clip hither and yon. Other apps, such as Photoshop (I think) allow for a transparent layer type of painting where when you go to the next frame you just have to make minor adjustments. JASC you have to start painting from scratch with each frame.

However, you can get very intricate detailed work done FrameXFrame and then rerender as an AVI to bring back into VV and Chromakey out.

With other HW/SW solutions (and big dollar figures) the process is a little easier...but it basically does the same thing.

Assuming you are not at a level to spend $1000 or more bucks for high end software that specializes in this type of stuff....exporting the clip to multiple frames, importing into Photoshop and painting FxF, rerender to video file and import into VV and chromakey is the route you would be looking at.

Again, very time consuming and tedious...but it works like a charm.

Thanks for the input Kameron but..

If you read my very first Post; you would have noticed that I have already tried the photohop FxF process and found it to be not only tedious but nerve wracking as well.

That's where I need to correct (you) on why I indicated in one of my last post -that Frame by Frame does'nt quite cut it (for me)....I did'nt say it did not work.

I think (but not sure) that this process is also called Roto-Scoping? If it is, then I do have a copy of ULead's Video Studio (ver. 6.5) that is supposed to have this capacity although I have'nt tried it yet. If it does have Rotoscoping...and if Rotoscoping is the RIGHT tool -then I look forward to trying it out.

Jovanni

Even if you have rotospline tools like in AE(where you can animate a spline mask around your subject), it is almost impossible to do this pixel perfect and you will most likely still have to go in and paint out any offending pixels. If you really want an almost automatic tool to do such a job, you will have to shell out big bucks for Mokey or Pixeldust. There is a "learning" version for Mokey, but don't get too excited as anything you process is heavily watermarked, and truly only intended for learning.

I have also heard good things about difference keying, though gave up trying to get this plugin for MovieDV as aist are such a dodgy company to deal with. There is a difference keyer in AE Production bundle , but once again big bucks. Basically you get a still of the background and this is keyed against the video footage...you could try the difference mode in Vegas as someone has suggested, but unlikely to work unless you have a very basic background. A similar idea is to stack a couple of seconday colour correction plugins in Vegas to try and mask out the background, but once again only for a basic backdrop.
Hey I gotta get me some of those new funky portable Photoflex greenscreens to save myself some grief!

Blue screen? Win 98 will fix that !!!
Sorry, couldn't help it , too much coffee this morning! :D

"Blue screen? Win 98 will fix that !!!"

It's all about tailoring your expectations... Like watching broadcast instead of HBO, you get these regular interuptions where you can do useful stuff - personally I like using the time to abuse my BGates voodoo doll, or perhaps plastering over the dents in the wall that coincidentally match my forehead. ;?P