green screen

dancinglil03 wrote on 4/7/2015, 2:19 PM

So I really want to use green screen. I have watched a few videos on it, and were pretty helpful. I have movie studio hd platinum 11 and I was wondering if I could do green screen on there. If I can, can someone just give me a little background on it?

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 4/7/2015, 4:16 PM

Partially it depends on whether your version of Vegas has the Chroma Keyer effect. If you don't have this then you can't do green screen, so check under your effects to see if it's listed.

The idea is that you can pick one color, or very narrow range of shades of that color, and mask it out as if it was invisible. There is an eyedropper tool in the Chroma Keyer that lets you select that color, and some sliders to adjust how wide a range it will use. Shoot your model in front of the green screen, making sure the lighting is very even so that the variation in color and brightness of the green is as minimal as possible. Put this clip on the top video track and apply Chroma Keyer to mask out the green background. Put whatever video/image you want to appear behind the model on the next lower track. If done properly the green will disappear and you'll see the background around the model.

You should also make sure your model isn't wearing anything similar in color to the green screen, or that will disappear too.

dancinglil03 wrote on 4/7/2015, 4:45 PM

OK Thanks

mike_in_ky wrote on 4/7/2015, 7:30 PM

If you do have the ChromaKey plugin on your system, take a look at the following links for help in using it with a green screen. It works really well on my system.

Good luck!

Tim L wrote on 4/7/2015, 8:06 PM

I watched the three videos mike_in_ky posted but I'm surprised that the first two just blew off using the eyedropper to get a sample of [I]your[/I] actual green screen color, and how they just say "play around with the sliders until it looks right". The third video did demonstrate these items, but was kind of sloppy about it. (On the whole, though, YouTube videos are a great way to learn how to use Vegas...)

The actual procedure for using the eyedropper and the sliders is quite easy, and is described in this post from several years ago:

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=12&MessageID=745339

In particular, un-ticking the Chroma Keyer effect while getting the green screen sample with the eyedropper is pretty important to get a good sample. Also, clicking and dragging a small rectangle for the sample is probably better than just clicking a single point.

dancinglil03 wrote on 4/12/2015, 4:21 PM

OK thank you both.

saultopaul777 wrote on 5/4/2015, 12:37 AM

Just finished watching them and seen one of them. Do I need a special light bulb to add lighting? saultopaul777G

mike_in_ky wrote on 5/4/2015, 6:29 AM

Proper lighting is important, but not mandatory. However, if you light it up carefully, you can minimize shadows which will make the chroma key better. I use two 60-watt floodlights in portable fixtures along with overhead room lighting and they do a creditable job of lighting my 6'W x 9'H green screen.