Adobe Ultra Virtual Sets
 

I've been messing around with Ultra's virtual sets and they seem very good, except I haven't gotten to the point where I'd be able to produce anything from Ultra yet.

My question is, is Ultra (specifically the virtual sets) of a high enough quality to use for a regular cable-TV show or product-oriented DVDs? In the skilled hands of a pro Ultra user, can they look "real" enough to be mass-broadcasted?

Perhaps it's a "in your opinion" type of question.... Is it worth going through the learning process, or is it a waste of time if the end result required is top-notch?

Personally, I think they scream "infomercial."

That's what I was afraid of too. Hmm....

Do any of you guys use them for "professional" shoots?

Anyone use Adobe Ultra for professional work? Or is it kids' play?

To me, they just don't seem detailed enough to look realistic. However, if you reduce brightness and saturation and also defocus, the look is much better.

If you light well and take special pains to do it right you can get phenominal results with Ultra. And as far as looking cheap? I have seen two different sets from Ultra in use on ESPN. And it l did not look like an infomercial at all. It looked REAL. I only knew it was a set because I had just used the very same one that week!

In fact (IMO) infomercials and many commercials I see would look BETTER if they were done in ULTRA, heh heh! I have seen some crappy keys for locals and I am in a big city (Atlanta).

Yes, I am sure there are better apps out there. And there are limits to Ultra. For example you must lock your camera down with it. And you really need to light well. They "Tell" you how easy it is to get a good key, and it is. But "Good" only looks good. If you want excellent results you really have to work at it and learn your stuff, which only comes from experience. Or your results will look like a "good key" and for me that is not enough. I don't want people to say "oh that looks almost real!" What I want is people to not realize it is a key at all. And that takes practice.

I have since moved to Shake4 and hope to do some really smokin' work. As soon as I crack that 5,000 page manual . . . . . . . . .

Jim

Jim,

When you refer to lighting, do you just mean "lighting for a good key" or something else? Can you give me some tips and maybe show some stills?
Thanks

my 0.02c worth is that you've hit the nail on the head. At least for HD work, I've found them to be unusable - aside from the garish design & coloring (ESPN would be a good venue for some of these), the detail is nowhere near fine enough without tweeking for high rez work. You can always create your own high def sets too using png files and using the alpha channels to bring in background moving graphics. The Ultra keyer itself I've found to be limited but not at all bad, but since I'm Mac based, the workflow has been an issue. The more you get into it (however reluctantly), the more you realize that pro's will often use several different keyer's on a single blue/green screen scene, and the stars sometimes need to be aligned correctly to be able to key using softtware like Ultra.

so the question is, how do you create your own virtual sets for Ultra ?

Being in the Washington DC area, I took advantage of the BET Studios that sit in NW Washington DC.

I witnessed the filming and explanation of post production of the daily 30 second news updates broadcast across all the BET channels.

Basically, all of their sets are created in photoshop/illustrator and look pretty good if I say so myself. But of course, as mentioned, these kind of sets are limited to news room kind of footage. When you say "professional" shoots, what do you mean? What are your needs/what are you trying to create and accomplish?

Can we still Buy Virtual Sets?
 

Hello All :-)

Can we still purchase Virtual Sets?

I can't find anything on Adobe's site.

OMG there getting too big for their customers, feels like Microsoft :-(

Thanks All !!