"Wally" wrote in message
news
Making an even-toned background isn't too hard (the cadmium-based paint I
mentioned is extremely opaque - no streakiness, and brushes out as even as
you like). The difficult bit would seem to be getting it evenly lit.

There's another issue in that you can't use paint that's too reflective -
either that or you need to place the talent far enough from the screen that
their hair (paricularly) does not get discoloured by the reflected light
from the backdrop.

I'll send you the link for Nick Jushchyshyn's MSP blue screen tutorials.


For my next project, I'm planning to "hand paint"
(rotoscope) my mattes or buy something to use outside MSP, such as
Chrominator.

What is this rotoscoping I keep seeing mentioned?

Rotoscoping is what you would use the video paint module in MSP for. It
allows you to use paint-type tools directly onto video frames. If you wave a
metal bar around, and then rotoscope it with a pale blue glow effect, it
becomes a lightsabre.

You can use the same technique to paint over your talent on a frame by frame
basis. Remove the underlying video and hey presto - you have a matte that
you can use to composite them out or put something else behind them. I'll be
using this effect because the star of SiT2005 is five years old, and it will
be difficult enough getting him to "act" in front of real scenery, never
mind a bluescreen. I'll include a link for our test footage of this
technique, too.