VSProX2 - 2 newbie questions - Chromakey & Studios

[geordieboi]

Hi all, just a newbie to these parts, hailing from Newcastle upon Tyne in the North East UK, having trialled and then bought Corel Video Studio ProX2 at Christmas.

Have got a couple of questions I'd like to throw at you (nicely!) just to see if anyone is able to help. Thanks in advance if anyone's able to help me.

A brief background - basically I'm looking to use VS to produce weekly/fortnightly "news bulletins" for a sports team website I run. I trialled Adobe Visual Communicator and loved it, but the cost combined with the constant crashes and bugs put me off. I then looked at a few other products including Sony Vegas etc, and finally settled on VS Pro.


(ISSUE 1) CHROMAKEY DIFFICULTIES

Having problems getting the Chromakey feature to work properly. I'm either getting a transparent background (ie the green removed) but with a heavy green "outline" around myself - or the opposite end of the scale is that the green disappears and there's no outline, but my clothes become half transparent as well. I've attached a pic to demonstrate what I mean on the black suit jacket.



I fully appreciate that the greenscreen background in this example is not properly lit - I've actually got a friend (a professional photographer) to help me with the lighting and he's working on that as we speak. He's been here today and we've spent a few hours messing around with proper lighting kits (his) but the Chromakey feature in VS just doesn't seem up to scratch with the various different settings/kits we've tried.

Is there a way to soften the green outline around the subject in VS, or has anyone got any videos of this kind of effect carried out successfully in VS Pro that I could have a look at ?


(ISSUE 2) CAMERA QUALITY

I'm currently on an extremely limited (ie zero!) budget and am having to make do with what I can get my hands on.

Currently have the use of two cameras :
1. Sony DCR TRV110E (probably about 8-10yrs old)
2. Canon MV600 (probably between 3-5yrs old)

They're not the best quality obviously - just wondering if anyone can recommend any decent quality inexpensive cameras for filming this kind of production? Is there anything in particular I should look for in a camera that will make the quality easier to work with for Chromakeying ?

Size of the camera (actual physical size) isn't important - whether it's a tiny handheld thing or an over-shoulder old style effort, I'm happy with anything I can afford.


(ISSUE 3) "LIVE PREVIEW"

Is it possible to use VS as a live 'preview' monitor for the virutal sets? For instance, in the above pic, I have the JPG "studio" on the main track and then the overlay video of me on Overlay #1. Is it possible to link up the programme to the camera and get a sort of 'real time' view of what I am looking like against the studio background - enabling me to mess around with the chromakey settings in VS and the lighting in the 'studio' at the same time to get the best effect?



Many thanks in advance for any help - apologies for the length - and nice to meet ya' all

[geordieboi]

Sorry, I should have probably also added that while I've always had a keen interest in television/broadcasting production (can spend hours watching YouTube clips of news openers to see the graphic effects etc!!) I am a complete novice at video editing and production.

In other words, please excuse me if I appear to be missing something obvious in what I'm doing !!

[Clevo]

1) The green outline is because you are standing too close to the cloth behind you and the green light is reflecting on your back. Stand further away and set up the lighting to bounce any reflection away. Give the cloth a bit of an ironing too If you are going to use it often it might be worth mounting the cloth on a simple lightweight frame and staple the cloth tightly and evenly

2) You might have to try either a different "darker" suit (yours might have a bit of green hue in the weave like in twotone suits) or try a different chroma colour (glow green is common as it is the least likely to clash with clothing, skintone, eyes etc) but in VS it could be any colour really. It's a matter of experimanting a tad with the chroma levels till you hit the sweet spot

3) NO, VS12 is a consumer level editing software not a live vision mixing software

[geordieboi]

Hi Clevo, and thank you for your replies.

The green outline is because you are standing too close to the cloth behind you and the green light is reflecting on your back. Stand further away and set up the lighting to bounce any reflection away. Give the cloth a bit of an ironing too If you are going to use it often it might be worth mounting the cloth on a simple lightweight frame and staple the cloth tightly and evenly.

Yes, there is an issue with distance from the cloth. Currently, due to major restrictions on space, I'm filming in my garage which means the furthest I can get in front of the screen is about 3ft, with the camera 4ft further ahead. Am looking for somewhere larger to experiment further.

Believe it or not, the screen was steam ironed and was creasless when it went up, unfortunately again due to the lack of space, everything is squashed in and creases have reappeared. Will look further into this. Fixing it to a frame is not really an option at this stage as the whole thing needs to be portable for future projects - ie to fit into a car.

You might have to try either a different "darker" suit (yours might have a bit of green hue in the weave like in twotone suits) or try a different chroma colour (glow green is common as it is the least likely to clash with clothing, skintone, eyes etc) but in VS it could be any colour really. It's a matter of experimanting a tad with the chroma levels till you hit the sweet spot.

Yeah, that was my initial thought. The suit looks absolutely black to the naked eye but I had a niggling wonder if there was a green weave in it somewhere. I tried with a plain white T Shirt and the problem didn't happen.


Thanks again for your help.

[Clevo]

If space is a problem you can shoot chroma outdoors, natural light for the cloth and a reflector to light the person.

The cloth on a frame can be designed to fold if you hinge the frame but obviously not as portable as a folded cloth.

Good luck with the experiments