Improve chroma key effect in Sony Vegas

Question

I'm performing some tests with the chroma key, I already noticed that blue screen will not perform well for me (the subject is often in black, which doesn't match well with blue), so I got a green screen.

I managed to light it quite correctly with some cheap work lights and managed to have a pretty good result with a few minutes playing with the Sony Vegas 11 chroma key effect.

My problem is that it is not absolutely perfect because of the lighting and I find that the chroma key effect is lacking some options. I'd love to have the kind of options I can get with the Secundary color corrector effect (with this one, I was able to replace my first blue screen with a flashy green ! But the same imperfections are still there).

I read somewhere that one should not select one color but a range, but I couldn't find how to do that in Vegas.

My question is : what can I do to improve the quality of the chroma keyer match, in term of effects or settings, in Sony Vegas (not considering the lighting, I'm already working on getting better lights, but I guess there will always be some imperfections that I want to be able to deal with). Is there any other plugins (free or reasonably priced) that have more options for the keyer ?

Answer 1

Let's first review the basics of green screen:

1) screen about 5 or more feet behind subject so it is out of focus from subject.

2) flat screen, no wrinkles.

3) flat lighting, no shadows, no hot spots.

4) subject can not wear green or wear shiny things or see through things.

Review Vegas Chroma Key: Once you engage the chroma key effect, use the eye dropper and take a sample of the green screen to set the baseline color, engage the mask and tweak the level until you get a flat black on the screen area and white everywhere else then turn the mask off. If this can not be done then something in the basics above was not done correctly.

Another idea to assist. Make sure when you shoot your subject that you have properly set the white balance on the camera so that you have the correct color baseline.

Here are some tutorials to assist:

https://vimeo.com/34365256

Answer 2

Everything that Filzilla said is great and on point. BUT the standard chromakey plugin that comes with Vegas is lacking. There really is no way to get around it. I have been doing greenscreen videos for yourmusicmuse.com for 3 years and I have found the NewBlue ChromaKey Pro plugin is perfect. It has the following features:

Garbage mask to mask out bad areas Spill corrector - this is huge. It gets rid of the green edges. Chroma smoothing for 4:2:0 consumer cameras. The edges of your subjects will be smoothed out. Shrink and Blur which can help blend the subject into the background better.

I am not sure how much this plugin is but I think it is part of a package that is less than $100. It is the best option I believe after trying everything and not being happy with my keys in the standard plugin.