I had missed the previous 'Green Screen Induction' a few weeks ago, but all the assets where uploaded and given to every student so we could all work on this seminar together. This lesson was a little lengthy for me as I thought I personally knew a few better ways which I will probably show in a later post, that isn't to say this seminar was great it showed how to solve a problem with a bare minimum of tools! There are quite a few screen but that's because it is quite an in depth tutorial.
We then went on to add a built in Keying effect called "Keylight 1.2". A great not to mention free plugin from adobe. The eyedropper tool allowed us to click the most average looking green colour on our image so it could go to work on making that part invisible.
Now this wasn't perfect there where still a few shadows and what not. Though to combat these properly we need to seem them more easily, so now we change the KeyLight 1.2 view mode to Screen Matte and this will show us what is and what isn't being affected. White being not touched and black being changed.
We then went into the "Screen Matte" options to refine our blacks and whites, using the black and white clipping tools. After this we could refine even further by showing our "Final Result" view again and using the soften edges tool coupled with the shrink and grow. It is tricky but it takes a few tweaks.
When we were happy with we then wanted to move on to the next stage, so start be precomposing our work so far (so we don't mess with part and to keep it tidy).
In our new composition we placed our backplate footage underneath our green screen pre-composition. Adjust the position of the green screen footage to where we want it in the shot. As you can see after moving it, it doesn't seem quite in place so we started working on making it sit correctly in the shot.
Using a set of effects namely, curves, tint and exposure I was able to make our subjects sit in a little easier. Their colouring was a little better and their exposure closely matched the shot. To make this a little more effective though we wanted to add light spill on to them aswell, giving it an even more natural look.
Light Spill Process
Firstly we duplicated our "KeyedFootage" twice and hid all of the layers. Then selecting the top layer we added the "Invert" effect. On the "Invert" effect we changed the channel to Alpha so we see the backplate in the outline of our subjects.
We then "Toggle Switched" so we could see the track matte drop down options and set our second KeyedFootage to "Alpha Matte". Then making the layer visible again it would transfer through from the top layer.
We then added a "Fast Blur" effect to out top layer to so we could soften the outline a little, making sure it wasn't too prominent. Then we took our top two layers and once again pre-composed (as spillAlpha) these as we don't want to mess with them, they are a separate module to our whole piece.
Now we duplicate out backplate layer put it above our original green screen footage and set it's Track Matte to "Alpha Matte spillAlpha", so the information would again translate through letting the edges merge with our green footage. Now all we had to do was alter the "opacity" and set to where we though appropriate and most natural. Again this was good but out actors had nothing grounding them aka no shadows, so we set out to fix this.
Shadows Process
Firstly we went ahead and duplicated our original KeyedFootage and added an exposure effect, darkening it till it was completely black. After this we placed it behind the original. Of course the next logical step was to flip it and add a fast blur effect as to make it look more natural. This coupled with a change of opacity and it looked great, they key was to try look for other shadows in the shot e.g. the post on the left side had a great shadow to use for reference. After this we pre-composed our all of our layers so we could go ahead and grade it for a better look.
Grading Process
This was a quick section for example, but nether the less helpful. Now I had access to the "Red Giant - Mojo" plugin so I went ahead and used that for ease because I already knew the colour style I wanted. Adjusting a few of the option I quickly got that high contrast, grey looking with a tint of green I was looking for. Finally I added an eclipse mask effect, inverted it, feathered the edges for a nice blur and then altered the opacity till it had a natural look.
First we imported all of our footage, including the backplate below. The most important part was to make sure we interpolated it to 25fps.
After that, we took our footage and created a new composition with the green screen footage and used the mask tool to cut out all of the junk, all we need is our subjects to use the green screen effect in this case. We had to make sure the "Toggle Background" Layer was enabled so there was an alpha. Luckily my mask was sound and I didn't need to add any keyframes so my mask would stay around my subjects at all times.
We then went on to add a built in Keying effect called "Keylight 1.2". A great not to mention free plugin from adobe. The eyedropper tool allowed us to click the most average looking green colour on our image so it could go to work on making that part invisible.
Now this wasn't perfect there where still a few shadows and what not. Though to combat these properly we need to seem them more easily, so now we change the KeyLight 1.2 view mode to Screen Matte and this will show us what is and what isn't being affected. White being not touched and black being changed.
We then went into the "Screen Matte" options to refine our blacks and whites, using the black and white clipping tools. After this we could refine even further by showing our "Final Result" view again and using the soften edges tool coupled with the shrink and grow. It is tricky but it takes a few tweaks.
When we were happy with we then wanted to move on to the next stage, so start be precomposing our work so far (so we don't mess with part and to keep it tidy).
In our new composition we placed our backplate footage underneath our green screen pre-composition. Adjust the position of the green screen footage to where we want it in the shot. As you can see after moving it, it doesn't seem quite in place so we started working on making it sit correctly in the shot.
Using a set of effects namely, curves, tint and exposure I was able to make our subjects sit in a little easier. Their colouring was a little better and their exposure closely matched the shot. To make this a little more effective though we wanted to add light spill on to them aswell, giving it an even more natural look.
Light Spill Process
Firstly we duplicated our "KeyedFootage" twice and hid all of the layers. Then selecting the top layer we added the "Invert" effect. On the "Invert" effect we changed the channel to Alpha so we see the backplate in the outline of our subjects.
We then "Toggle Switched" so we could see the track matte drop down options and set our second KeyedFootage to "Alpha Matte". Then making the layer visible again it would transfer through from the top layer.
We then added a "Fast Blur" effect to out top layer to so we could soften the outline a little, making sure it wasn't too prominent. Then we took our top two layers and once again pre-composed (as spillAlpha) these as we don't want to mess with them, they are a separate module to our whole piece.
Now we duplicate out backplate layer put it above our original green screen footage and set it's Track Matte to "Alpha Matte spillAlpha", so the information would again translate through letting the edges merge with our green footage. Now all we had to do was alter the "opacity" and set to where we though appropriate and most natural. Again this was good but out actors had nothing grounding them aka no shadows, so we set out to fix this.
Shadows Process
Firstly we went ahead and duplicated our original KeyedFootage and added an exposure effect, darkening it till it was completely black. After this we placed it behind the original. Of course the next logical step was to flip it and add a fast blur effect as to make it look more natural. This coupled with a change of opacity and it looked great, they key was to try look for other shadows in the shot e.g. the post on the left side had a great shadow to use for reference. After this we pre-composed our all of our layers so we could go ahead and grade it for a better look.
Grading Process
This was a quick section for example, but nether the less helpful. Now I had access to the "Red Giant - Mojo" plugin so I went ahead and used that for ease because I already knew the colour style I wanted. Adjusting a few of the option I quickly got that high contrast, grey looking with a tint of green I was looking for. Finally I added an eclipse mask effect, inverted it, feathered the edges for a nice blur and then altered the opacity till it had a natural look.
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