keyying in After effect and editing in vegas!

[Wajahat Abbasi]

i am thinking i should be keying few of my footage on after effect .. but i am editing in vegas ... how should i take my footage from vegas to after effect? what format? and then back to vegas? any suggestions?

[Mike Kujbida]

Someone please correct if I'm wrong but I believe the usual answer is uncompressed AVI.

[Gareth Watkins]

Hi there
Yes you want to save out an uncompressed file to import to AE. If you don't have it get the "Keylight" plugin for After effects it is better for keying than the standard one.

Once you are done render out an uncompressed AVI to reimport and finish your edit...

You don't say what format you're shooting but I've found even HDV keys better than DV for a standard definition output... check out this tutorial: VIDEO COPILOT | After Effects Tutorials & Post Production Tools


cheers
Gareth

[Ian Stark]

I didn't quite understand the reason why you want to take the footage FROM Vegas into AE. Presumably your green screen footage is your original source media and you wouldn't need to be doing any work on it before you key. As such you'd just import it into AE in it's original format. That said, the rest of this answer relates to getting it OUT of AE and back into Vegas.

I mostly still use Ultra for keying but I have experimented with both Vegas' and AE's keying facilities. In fact, in my last job that required keying I stayed exclusively within Vegas and it worked fine. That was with footage shot (nervously!) against a projector screen with a green PowerPoint slide! I would argue that it's worth trying your keying in Vegas first and see what the results are - with care you can achieve very good results if your source footage is good.

In my (moderate) experience I found AE's standard keyer to be about as effective as the Vegas keyer, assuming decent clean footage to begin with. The Keylight keyer is, as Gareth says, in a different league altogether. It comes bundled with CS4 and (as I recall) earlier Pro versions of AE from 6 onwards.

And I will add my support to the uncompressed AVI suggestions. Assuming you want to do your keying in AE and your compositing in Vegas, you will need to select Video for Windows as your format and then select RGB + Alpha in the Channels list, No Compression in the Format Options... list and Millions of Colors in the Depth list. These settings are what you need to export the alpha channel (transparency). If you are compositing in After Effects and exporting the completed clip then there's no need to select RGB + Alpha (in fact, there's probably no need to go uncompressed, either - that would just ramp up your file size unnecessarily. I guess that's going to depend on your final format though).

[Gareth Watkins]

Hi Ian

The main reason I didn't use to personally just import the downloaded clips straight into AE was because I like to have my basic edit with the green backdrop already done before I go to keying...this way it saved huge render times out of AE when in previous version before gettingn the Suite version.

Anyway that was the past.. now with CS4 I can edit bring into AE and then import the non rendered file back into PPro to continue my edit...

My comments to Wajahat were therefore intended to avoid him rendering sequences he'll not use... as he is in Vegas and not CS4.

cheers
Gareth

[Ian Stark]

Hi Gareth,

Yes, of course, that makes complete sense. Actually, my comment was really aimed at Wajahat, but what you say is totally correct.

I do a very similar thing, in fact, with Ultra (and it would work the same with AE). I don't edit first, as such, but early on in the project I use Vegas to create subclips of all the shots I probably want to use. That includes shots to be exported for keying. Sometimes I'll save more than one take, in the event that the key doesn't work so well or I am undecided about which shot to use. Then I File/Save As/Copy Media which automatically saves the new trimmed clips in the original format, which I then bring into Ultra (or AE) for further work. In other words, there's no rendering out of Vegas as such - the original format doesn't change and the subclips are available in Explorer ready for use elsewhere.

That was where I was coming from!

To be honest, as I mentioned before, I am trying to stay in Vegas as much as possible these days (for 'time=money' reasons). If you take the time to get great footage for keying up front, it's perfectly usable in most situations (IMO). I tend to go to AE these days only if I want to do complicated virtual camera stuff, as the 3d facilities in Vegas are basic.

The single thing I envy Premier users for is the integration with the rest of the CS4 suite.

Cheers,

Ian . . .

[Wajahat Abbasi]

Originally Posted by Ian Stark

Hi Gareth,

Yes, of course, that makes complete sense. Actually, my comment was really aimed at Wajahat, but what you say is totally correct.

I do a very similar thing, in fact, with Ultra (and it would work the same with AE). I don't edit first, as such, but early on in the project I use Vegas to create subclips of all the shots I probably want to use. That includes shots to be exported for keying. Sometimes I'll save more than one take, in the event that the key doesn't work so well or I am undecided about which shot to use. Then I File/Save As/Copy Media which automatically saves the new trimmed clips in the original format, which I then bring into Ultra (or AE) for further work. In other words, there's no rendering out of Vegas as such - the original format doesn't change and the subclips are available in Explorer ready for use elsewhere.

That was where I was coming from!

To be honest, as I mentioned before, I am trying to stay in Vegas as much as possible these days (for 'time=money' reasons). If you take the time to get great footage for keying up front, it's perfectly usable in most situations (IMO). I tend to go to AE these days only if I want to do complicated virtual camera stuff, as the 3d facilities in Vegas are basic.

The single thing I envy Premier users for is the integration with the rest of the CS4 suite.

Cheers,

Ian . . .

ohh this is good .... i didnt wanted to render in vegas and again render in AE.. i am not too good at AE ..but i know have Keylight 1.2 ! ..so i can use that !!! .. how do i render BEST video out of AE after keyying .... so i can then use it in vegas ? i want to have my background put in vegas.. so i need a video out of AE with should have only my subject no backgrond

[Ian Stark]

Originally Posted by Wajahat Abbasi

how do i render BEST video out of AE after keyying .... so i can then use it in vegas ? i want to have my background put in vegas.. so i need a video out of AE with should have only my subject no backgrond

It's in the last paragraph of my original post in this thread. If your greenscreen footage is good, though, you might be able to get a good key in Vegas as well. I would be inclined to try that first.

Best of luck.

[Wajahat Abbasi]

Originally Posted by Ian Stark

It's in the last paragraph of my original post in this thread. If your greenscreen footage is good, though, you might be able to get a good key in Vegas as well. I would be inclined to try that first.

Best of luck.

hi

the thing is i had a very limited space and lighting and i am guessing my footage is not that great ! .. thats why i am doin this AE step.. personally i dont want to involve AE as i dont know much about it ... so i render my footage in AE and then do i need to do some settings in Vegas too ?

[Ian Stark]

Originally Posted by Wajahat Abbasi

hi

the thing is i had a very limited space and lighting and i am guessing my footage is not that great !

I know that feeling!

Seriously, if the footage is really not good then you will have difficulty getting a good key whatever application you use.

But, to answer your question, as long as you have exported the alpha channel, which gives you the transparent background, all you need to do is then drop your chosen background on the track below your keyed clips. (I say 'all you need to do' because I am assuming you are simply trying to drop a simple static background behind someone. If you're trying something more complicated, like match moving, then we're in a whole different situation!)

[Wajahat Abbasi]

Originally Posted by Ian Stark

I know that feeling!

Seriously, if the footage is really not good then you will have difficulty getting a good key whatever application you use.

But, to answer your question, as long as you have exported the alpha channel, which gives you the transparent background, all you need to do is then drop your chosen background on the track below your keyed clips. (I say 'all you need to do' because I am assuming you are simply trying to drop a simple static background behind someone. If you're trying something more complicated, like match moving, then we're in a whole different situation!)

no i just need a simple background ! ... some thing static ... the only problem is ..when i am opening my AE rendered file in vegas .. i am getting a black back ground ... instead of transperent! ? what i am doing wrong here? i follwed execttly what u explained

[Ian Stark]

Ah yes, I forgot that you have to tell Vegas about the alpha channel. You do that by right clicking on the clip(s), then select Properties (at the bottom of the list). Click on the Media tab. In the Alpha Channel dropdown list select Premultiplied and make sure that the colour is black (which I think is the default).

This is off the top of my head so if I've got anything wrong can someone shout please?

[Wajahat Abbasi]

Originally Posted by Ian Stark

Ah yes, I forgot that you have to tell Vegas about the alpha channel. You do that by right clicking on the clip(s), then select Properties (at the bottom of the list). Click on the Media tab. In the Alpha Channel dropdown list select Premultiplied and make sure that the colour is black (which I think is the default).

This is off the top of my head so if I've got anything wrong can someone shout please?

uts very strange .. i did all this in vegas .. and i am still getting a black background ...

[Ian Stark]

Have you put the replacement background image on the track below the keyed clip?

[Wajahat Abbasi]

Originally Posted by Ian Stark

Have you put the replacement background image on the track below the keyed clip?

ohh i think i got it ....

i was not doing current setting while rendering it on AE .... thaks for all your help ..can u suggest some place i can look for good graphics for background? some like MTV style like the have when their Vjs are standing