Chromakey battle results

One issue I have with all of this, to be honest, is that we're talking as if there is one set-in-stone gold standard for pulling a key. Different subjects, on different backgrounds, for different purposes and looks, will all demand a key be handled differently. A single talking head, IMHO, is not the full story.

That said, I'm pulling the key for this clip super easy, and not sure what the issue is, honestly. Unless you really over think things unnecessarily.

But battle, on, it is very interesting to see how everyone pulls a key differently. Very interesting! And thanks to everyone who is posting here. I'm learning a few things from y'all.

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How does this stuff key in Lightworks?

BenB wrote: One issue I have with all of this, to be honest, is that we're talking as if there is one set-in-stone gold standard for pulling a key. Different subjects, on different backgrounds, for different purposes and looks, will all demand a key be handled differently. A single talking head, IMHO, is not the full story.

That said, I'm pulling the key for this clip super easy, and not sure what the issue is, honestly. Unless you really over think things unnecessarily.

But battle, on, it is very interesting to see how everyone pulls a key differently. Very interesting! And thanks to everyone who is posting here. I'm learning a few things from y'all.

Lets see your result! Just saying...

I'm intrigued to see that even the (obviously) most novice keyers here are (mostly) able to pull a better matte from the footage than Mr. Davis, who claims to know exactly what he's doing. Even the DEFAULT SETTINGS didn't look as crap as what he has in his video here in FCP X.

Davis's credibility = 0 and his "test" clearly bogus and apparently only meant to meet an agenda? The only thing I can take from this.

AndieMoepse, you ROCK, dude! Sorry I'm late to this party, but your suggestions and recommendations are absolutely wonderful. I shall follow them. Thank you for your insight and willingness to share. It's really great to know people read my blog and perhaps you can share how you achieved your status. I would love to be like you.

On a brighter note, thanks all for sharing your FCPX keyer settings - insightful.

Although I love the Adobe Premiere Keyer, I've cancelled my Creative Cloud account as it does not fit my business model (AndieMoepse doesn't know that 100% of my editing revenue comes from FCPX). I still think there's something up with the FCPX keyer as I can get better results from third party solutions. That's fine, but I was so disappointed by DVgarage/Alex Lindsay discontinuing development of DVmatte Pro because they thought themselves outclassed by the internal FCPX keyer.

Dudes, no - there's a ways to go. Even though Steve Martin got angry because I claimed FCPX to be 'Prosumer' - thjs is the the point:

I work very hard when shooting to get a good chromakey in somebody's office.

Alex and I shot a whole lot of variations of that head-and-shoulders shot to see if we were rewarded by shooting 'better' chromakey. According to the internal FCPX keyer, we weren't. The FCPX keyser seemed tuned to getting a 'workable' result from anything.

Which REALLY winds me up (insert string of expletives as appropriate).

I am being pro. I am lighting my chromakey to the best I can in difficult circumstances, but if I turn one of the chromakey lamps off, giving a 2 stop difference in the background, I expect the keyer to barf, posset, chuck, churn or poo all over my results. In FCPX, they... don't. WTF?

But when I light the chromakey so there's nary a 1/3 stop of variance, I expect the keyer to cut something beautiful. In fact, the FCPX keyer doesn't really budge too far from the crap-key.

That really, really bugs me.

That's why I tried my Nemeisis Editor. Imagine my vitriol when I found it did BETTER. How did this happen?

So - I'm going to chuck this back at you: I am an editor, I make 99% of my money from FCPX, I find that that bloody Premiere Pro thing is doing better when we FCPX folks have been resting our laurels on the built-in keyer.

FCPX does not reward the dilligent chromakey shooter with better results. Premiere does. Ewww. I hate that. I hate that more than AndieMoepse hates me.

So... AndieMoepse, dear chap, please do share your results and forumlas. Please do read a few more blog posts, get with our agenda. I think you take me for an Adobe Troll, and I fear that you are most gravely mistaken.

No problem. Love to help.

And never mind that I wrote "Even the DEFAULT SETTINGS didn't look as crap as what he has in his video" (you know what the settings for "default" are, right?) and that various others posted better results WITH settings. Go figger.

And don't flatter yourself (again). I truly have better things to do than to "hate" on some (apparently rather frustrated) blogger. I just call it as I see it. Sorry if that doesn't fit your expectations.

MattDavis wrote:
Dudes, no - there's a ways to go. Even though Steve Martin got angry because I claimed FCPX to be 'Prosumer' - thjs is the the point:...

So - I'm going to chuck this back at you: I am an editor, I make 99% of my money from FCPX, ...

Then why call it prosumer?

Prosumer

Whatever your opinion of FCP X's chromakey abilities, we're all way ahead of whatever they use on the TV show 'Tattoo Nightmares'. :lol:

FCPGuy wrote: So - I'm going to chuck this back at you: I am an editor, I make 99% of my money from FCPX, ...
Then why call it prosumer?

To stand above the crowd and establish oneself as the only true and demanding/discerning/sophisticated "super-pro" amongst us frugal, undemanding commoners? (generally the idea behind anyone still throwing that worn and tired meme around) In which case I have to wonder why one would choose to make a key *worse* than it is by default. Hmmm... oh yeah, the whole point is that it's worse than the truly PRO NLEs. How else could you claim that if it in fact isn't? Silly me. :lol:

Glad you asked me that!

1) I expect better results with a better-shot chromakey. As part of the Alex shoot, I tried turning lamps on and off, creating 1 and 2 stop variances in the background. By and large, the FCPX keyer produced pretty much the same result. I got better results from other keyers using nicely shot rushes. Therefore rewarding the extra time and effort required, rather than just 'getting a result'.

2) Off topic, but part of my issues with my main edit tool, FCPX doesn't like to display the actual 'Time of Day' timecode that I use an awful lot in locating key parts of a recording that can be hours long. I want to create BITC and then quickly identify client selects based on that. Just a Timecode Reader plug-in that honours the actual ToD timecode.

3) Again off-topic, but as you asked, the ability to media manage a project without including ALL of the clips in their ENTIRITY - lets say I have finished a 5 minute summary of a 3 day conference using 4 sessions per day in multicam from 4 iso recordings. In FCP7, one can select 2-5 second 'ears' round each used portion of a clip, and so a 5 minute media managed project is fairly easy and cheap to archive off. Not so in FCPX, this requires time and resources to make the customary 3 copies for an archive - I'm basically keeping a whole copy, giving the client a whole copy, and somebody (usually me) has to back up a copy of that archive.

4) The new library model has calmed me down from my usual beer-fuelled rants about having to micromanage the Event/Project model using disk images, and there's plenty more.

But here's the bottom line. I use what the broadcast industry call 'Prosumer' cameras (EX1, C100, but more applicable to the old days of Z1). I use a 'Prosumer' edit system in that it's becoming a teaching platform as it's quick to get into, easy to understand and approachable by a wide range of people beyond the Pro Editing community. I am absolutely fine with that. FCPX allows me to cut twice as quick as I did in FCP7 (and yes, PPro) and I'm not about to go back to Avid. Ever.

However, I do reserve the right to be annoyed that Timecode reading is deemed unnecessary, that full-on media management isn't there yet, that whilst the keyer is very good, it could also make us lazy - I hadn't bothered to check other platforms for keying 'Because FCX keyer is So Good' and got a rude shock when I did.

TL:DR = "Because."

Matt, well done on bothering to reply to that muppet's daft waffle.
I wouldn't be so accommodating.

You no doubt already have thought of this, but I'll put it out there publicly for the sake of this forum.

For my BITC files I get X to create proxy files and then drop them into FCP6/7 and use the old TC reader in there. It's quite quick, or course I do this on a spare machine as you can't have both running at the same time on a single machine.

You can skim the clip TC in FCPX so it kind of works. I record in TOD too and that's normally OK for me.
Of course there was a decent TC BITC plugin way back in FCPX but it broke after an update and was never fixed - I believe it couldn't be fixed.

I shoot a lot of timelapse and while that's OK on my EX1, with my FS100 the timecode gets thrown out of skew, for some reason only known to them.

It's a shame that all the screen space either side of the timecode window can't be used to add additional user defined interfaces like an additional TC window. Or maybe a small horizontal volume only sound mixer where the number of faders changes depending on how many 'tracks' exist at the playhead point. Personally I can live without a mixer but a quick, simple audio adjustment, even of the top four items would be useful, as that's where the majority of my fine mixing is done. All this with the inspector closed of course.

Duncan Craig wrote: I wouldn't be so accommodating.

:lol: :lol: ... my, aren't you droll.

Nice effort restoring the motion blur and hair, but the hard edges are noticeably soft.

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