So, I have a Greenscreen shot of my kids…while much of the kids are in front of the greenscreen, there is some of my daughter’s hair over one of the sound blankets. To handle this, I need to make 2 passes for the matte.

First, I can use a simple keyer, like Color Range, to key the green…that’s the easy part. The next part is to use the luma information in the hair. The Blanket is black and my daughter’s hair is light. If I make a copy of the channel with the most contrast, I can coax the hair to pure white and the blanket to pure black with the dodge and burn tools.

Once this is complete, can combine the two keys by screening them together and there you go! A key over a mixed background.

RELATED WEBSITE LINKS
http://www.pixelcorps.tv

PRODUCTS SHOWN
Adobe Photoshop
$599

Once animation and models are complete, lighting, rendering, and other effects can be started. A consistent lighting look is important on Battlestar Galactica, so we have a process of lighting approval. Single frame renders of the “key” light are done using final models and sent to VFX Supervisor Gary Hutzel for approval.

Meanwhile, other rendering layers are broken down and completed; sent to the render farm to be rendered into sequences of frames.
This is also the time when any effects work is developed. Explosions, smoke, bullets, missile trails, interactive lighting, etc are all worked on and submitted to the render farm.

Once enough layers have been completed for any given shot, the compositors can begin work on them. Taking all of the 3D elements, they begin to merge them together while adding their own 2D effects (glows, small camera shakes, warps, heat haze, “jumps”, grain, etc).
There may be some back and forth at this stage between compositor and 3D artist as the final look of the shot might mean changes to some 3D elements, or additional 3D elements.

The compositing process is where the look of the shot is determined. Meetings at this stage with the VFX Supervisor will ensure the shots are to his satisfaction before being sent to production for approval from the Executive Producers.

RELATED WEBSITE LINKS
www.atmosphere-vfx.com
www.newtek.com/lightwave/ – Lightwave 3D
www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/family.html - Photoshop
www.eyeonline.com - Fusion

PRODUCTS SHOWN
Lightwave 8.5 / 9.0 - $795
Photoshop 7.0 / CS2 - $649
Fusion 4.0 / 5.0 - $4995