what do those mean? Sounds like tools to clean up sloppiness as opposed to a pro tool. :D

Suppression and and choking? Sounds a bit represive to me.

Those functions are available in tools that are specifically desgned for CK. The FX version in Vegas is an elementary tool although very effective. Go to
http://amediaprof.com/content/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=16&Itemid=50 for some tips on getting it to work the best. There is also a way to suppress spill using the secondary color corrector, but I haven't posted that yet.

Happy, those ARE the kinds of tools you find in pro chroma-key tools.
For example, check out the Primatte page on Wikipedia.
Also, because I've used it in an earlier version, I know that Eyeon has these tools in their Fusion line of software.
Once you use them, you'll wonder why all chroma-key software doesn't have them - other than the insane price ($5,000 for Fusion, Primatte around the same), of course :-)

Mike

truth be told, most NLE keyers suck to a certain degree. If you're bent on creating good keys, there are a number of either plug-ins or stand-alone apps that can pull decent keys - I've pulled some really nice keys in Vegas but it takes some know how and a bit of patience to tweak the right way. Starts off with a good clean shot to begin with.

On the PC side, there are tons who swear by Ultra. I prefer Keylight in After Effects but both handle spill and choking really well.

On the Mac side, Shake ($500) allows you to build your own keyer. Pretty cool - DVGarage also makes plug-ins for FCP and Motion that are fantastic.

I've never used it but their demos are great - CompositeLabPro from fxhome.com - these guys have always had a pretty competitive keyer from their early days.

Our very own Keith Kolbo has a great tutorial (which I believe he pointed you to) making the very best of the Vegas keyer.

And then again there are higher priced tools like Primatte.

As much as we'd like one program to do it all (and we're pretty close with Vegas), sometimes you gotta put more tools in the toolbelt.

-cheno

Keylight, originally from The Foundary does all of it, now free with AE Pro. Shadow extraction is another useful trick.
Suggestions that having spill issues is the result of bad lighting techniques are simply daft and the more I learn the more I realise that a lot of what I've read and taken on board about CK'ing is actually pretty bad advice, probably based on a common missconception.

The vital thing about getting a good looking composite is makeing the subject look like they belong i.e. the lighting of the subject must match the background plate. Efforts to reduce spill using lighting will sure give you a better key but damage the final result. There's two conflicting imperatives here and no simple solution. Even more challenging, it's not uncommon to use green props, you can't always have the talent work in an empty space, they need cues to act against or even sit on. Pretty much impossible to avoid spill.

The underlying misconception is that CK is some truly magic trick, if you only had that super FX like the big boys have all would be well and why the heck doesn't Vegas have this. Well thing is, just because you see a production shot of something shot green screen and the final result looks perfect and 'why the heck can't Vegas Pro do this' then all I can say is this. Do you know for a fact that the poor sods in post just clicked a few buttons and they got some magic alpha channel?

Thing is more likely than not they didn't, they probably would have had their task made easier if there wasn't any green or blue background or props in the shot in the first place. They've probably still had to roto the shot anyway because the green/blue was all over the place and now on top of that they've got to correct the spill, if they can.

Bottom line from what I can gather is in many scenarios you'd be better off not using CK at all, luma keying avoids the spill problem but can be just as difficult to get a correct key from. Rear projection is another alternative but very expensive. In the end it comes down to planning and testing and a realisation that much of what we see in major productions may have involved many manhours of painstaking work in post.

Bob.

All very true.

I have to say that on almost every low budget industrial I've lit a key for, no one has had the slightest idea what was going to be keyed behind. Sometimes people seem to use a key as a way to postpone coming up with an idea.

And thank god for garbage mattes.

Rob Mack

They're in After Effects. Still a bit of a different beast from Vegas.

Rob Mack

so what are they? What do they do?

any affordable standalone ck's?

leslie

The color difference keyer I'm working on is pretty affordable ($ 0.00). It's got spill suppression, shrink matte and more.

http://www.cinegobs.com/index.php?page=CineGobs%20Keyer

Bo

but it doesn't do video, does it?

EDIT: new one supports video but won't open my DV AVI files. Says I don't have the codec.

It does. The latest version reads AVI files and AVISynth files.

i must of edited my post when you replied. it says it won't open my dv avi files, i don't have a codec.

My keyer doesn't have any built-in DV codecs like f.inst. VirtualDub, so you probably need to install a VFW DV codec. I didn't have one myself, so I'm using an open source dv codec: http://www.videohelp.com/tools/Cedocida_DV_Codec

Btw. my keyer also works fine with f.inst. HuffYUV, Lagarith and I also used intermediate avi-files from Vegas without problems.

Bo

Bo, I trust you're aware that Vegas 8 requires .net 3.0 framework.
I'm asking because your web site mentions .net 2.0 only.
Do you plan to make any changes to reflect this new Vegas requirement?

Mike

it's a standalone plugin, that's why it need 2.0. I'm still voting on a vegas plugin version (I'm going to shoot some greenscreen footage at work tomorrow & see how it works).

Now I'm working with some pretty good green screen footage shot on Varicam - however Bo, this is a FANTASTIC little program and oh so clean - I'm ready to go out to shoot some crappy green screen just to test it some more -

very nice job - I'm sure many, many here can benefit from this. Thanks for your hard work.

-cheno

@TheHappyFriar:
I'm not sure that it's even possible to make a .net based plugin for Vegas(other than scripting of course).

@Cheno:
I'm very happy to hear that you like it. :-)

Bo

ProType is .net 3 based. At least that's what it says when it crash's. :D But scripts read DLL's & the SDK read's DLL's so it might work.

On the Spill Suppression and Matte Choke questions, Spill Suppression is supposed to deal with areas where a color from the backdrop is showing on the forground subject.

This page shows a picture that could be a keying nightmare: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primatte_chromakey_technology. You can easily imagine the supject's blond hair, white blouse, and the transparent umbrella picking up all sorts of colors from the backdrop.

Matte choke tweakes the edges of your matte to grow, shrink, smooth, sharpen, blur the edge of the matte.

Generally, having tools specifically tailored for this just makes the job easier.

Rob Mack

Rob,

I've forgotten about that image in Wikipedia - great image to throw on the timeline to test some keying chops - it's fairly low rez so it's not the perfect image to use but definately worth playing with .

Worst I've ever experienced from a lighting standpoint were guitars being played. Glossy surfaces reflect screen very clearly and of course the player wants to move.

Rob