Question about using Vegas with After Effects

[Paul Cascio]

I want to do some chromakey work. Can I , and should I, convert to Cineform format using NEO, then do the keying in AE and finish editing in Vegas? Or, should I just use an M2t capture, or is there another alternative that I haven't thought of?

Thanks

[Sean Seah]

Vegas can key natively

[Ian Stark]

As Sean says, Vegas has chromakey functionality already, BUT . . . there are other more sophisticated chromakey solutions available that make keying either much easier, much better or a combination of the two.

Specifically, those that I have experience with:

After Effects, as you suggested - with its native chromakey plugin (or Keylight which ships with the Pro version) or with a third party plugin (Ultimatte, zMatte, Primatte, dvMatte etc).

Ultra (formerly Serious Magic, now only available bundled with CS3 Production Suite). As a standalone Serious Magic tool this was my choice and I must say I was bowled over by how easy it was to create a very clean matte from rubbish footage. When given clean footage the results are outstanding. Add the 'virtual sets' with inbuilt camera moves, such as tracking in from the back of a virtual studio, and you have a great all round solution. I'm not so happy these days, since the Adobe acquisition - and looking at the forums it seems I'm not alone (although how often do people write praising posts compared with complaining ones?). Support seems to be lacking, as does any development of the products or the release of additional virtual sets. My guess would be that the technology is to be subsumed into a future version of After Effects - which would be perfectly acceptable if I hadn't already made the investment in what I still think is a great product. Rant over.

I'm sure there are many other alternatives.

My thoughts on what to consider when deciding:

Will there be fine items like hair or smoke, or transparent material such as glass or water in the shot? Do you have a less than perfect greenscreen shot? Is there much colour spill from the background onto the subject? Are you a control freak?

If you answer 'yes' to any of these, you might want to consider looking outside Vegas.

Having said all that, Vegas's native keying is quite workable given clean greenscreen footage. I guess a lot depends on what it is you want to shoot.

[Paul Cascio]

I may give Vegas' Chromakey FX a try, but from everything I've read here, it's one of Vegas' few weaknesses. Has 8.0 improved in this area?

Also, won't a long FX cahin slow render and lower visual quality?

I have Ultra and love it, but it doesn't do HD. So, that leaves me searching for another option.

[Ian Stark]

Ah, of course. Sorry, forgot about non HD in Ultra.

I am not so sure that Vegas's chromakeying is a weakness so much as it's not really industrial strength. Given ideal circumstances I think it's a very capable tool. But of course we don't always have ideal circumstances, eh?!

I don't believe there is any change to the plugin in v8 (although someone wiser than me may be able to comment on whether it functions better in a 32 bit colour space - I'm looking at you, Glenn!).

Yes, adding chromakey into your fx chain will add to the rendering load and I am assuming when you say "lower visual quality" you're referring to preview quality, not output (just checking, sorry!). I guess you have to compare the additional Vegas render time with the effort required to export/import into another app.

My workflow when working with AE or Ultra is to do a VERY rough assembly of likely clip candidates in Vegas, trim them as appropriate, save the veg with copies of the media, then open up those clips in the external app, treat them as required and update them back in Vegas. Doesn't always work that way, but 9 out of 10 times it works for me.

[Paul Cascio]

Ian, thanks for your response. I read most of what you write and have learned quite a bit.

I was referring to output quality. Is it affected?

Are you using NEO? Can those clips be used in Utlra or AE?

[Ian Stark]

My pleasure (to be honest, I just read what others write here and elsewhere and regurgitate it! Very few original thoughts in this old head!).

Not a NEO user, sorry, so can't really advise.

One thing I will be trying to get working is using .aff files or EDL's to move between Vegas and AE. I have had practically no success in this so far but if I could get it to work . . . .

[Ian Stark]

Sorry, re output quality - I can't see any reason why the chromakeyer would degrade an image any more or less in Vegas than it would in another app.

Again, I guess it comes down to what you're keying and how clean your blue or green screen is.

Others might be able to answer from a more scientific standpoint.

[Harold Brown]

I have done a lot of work in Vegas using Chroma Key. The color on Mini DV bleeds from left to right so you have to work on the right side of the subject to get a good key (colors from the subject bleed into the green screen). The left side is typically ok because the green is bleeding into the subject. Selecting a good background really helps to hide the key line. This really doesn't have anything to do with Vegas. Deartifact from Zenote can help.
You have to be careful not to cause the subject to start to become transparent. Always adjust using the white mask.

You might also need to do a secondary color correction to improve the key if it is bad video.

[Seth Bloombaum]

I recently did a comparison with HDV material in Vegas and Ultra 2HD.

I think it is easier and certainly quicker to get a good key in Ultra - the interface is dedicated to keying, and you have a complete chain of excellent controls. Also, the backgrounds...

I can pull as good a key in Vegas, but it's a bit more work. In particular, one might use the secondary color corrector as Harold suggests above to correct the screen.

More important to me, there is no spill suppression, but you can build your own with the secondary color corrector and maybe chromablur. Spill suppression is so basic to chromakey work, I'm surprised Sony hasn't improved this.

In recent estimating on a large green-screen project, I based it on Ultra keys and finish in Vegas, purely for speed.

[Harold Brown]

Chromakey example done in Vegas.
Requires DivX
http://www.stage6.com/user/bhagavide...4---Ellis-Aces

[Stuart Campbell]

Ian did you have any luck in the end getting your footage / edl's into After Effects? if so what did you do?

Am considering After Effects for compositing and CC to work in 32bit instead of Vegas but not yet sure if the two will talk to each other without having a row!

Ta

[Ian Stark]

Hi Stuart, sorry haven't had any time to experiment with this. Just started pre-production on the biggest project of my career so 'fun' is on the back burner!