Green Screen

[MichaelSerks24]

So I'm making a music video for a friend's EP and we rented out a green screen and did some shots with our actor. We added green veins along his body with paint from a makeup artist in advance but now I'm struggling to figure out how I can change the color of the veins on the body after I keyed him out using key light. I was just wondering how would I go about compositing the veins from black and changing the colors to say purple and have it blend nicely and look authentic. I also wanted them to grow gradually throughout the scene. We also added more veins per each scene to make it seem like more were growing. Here are some screen shots to help get a better understanding of what I'm talking about. Any advice/ suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Mo Moolla]

Hi Michael

Let me get this correct. You painted green veins on the actor and then keyed the actor out?

1. How did you key the actor out?

2. What were you hoping to achieve by painting green lines on the actor? This is the part that's somewhat confusing to me. Why draw green lines on the actor?

You are venturing into the territory of practical special effects here. Perhaps you have confused tracking dots (like those used in Mocaps) with drawing lines/veins?

The workflow, to me seems upside down.

On shots I've worked on and in which I only used AE (small to medium budget) I would key out the background. Then draw out the veins in Illustrator or even in AE as a separate layer. Motion track his/her arm or whichever part the veins were to be used on. The veins would then be parented to the null from the motion track (which was almost always done in Mocha Pro) and then comped in. A simple effect like a write-on would be used to create the illusion of "growing veins".

Going a step further I would duplicate the veins layer before using write-on or a mask and would bring in a flat texture or create one on a solid layer to use as a texture matte for the 2nd veins layers. I would then bevel the edges slightly and add a few more slight adjustments to give the veins depth. I might do 3-4 layers of these as depth passes depending on the complexity and budget.This would be precomped together with the original veins layer. Might or might not use a 3D track dependent on axis movement of camera. If theres no perspective or shear I will go with a straight Motion Track in Mocha.

Color correction, curves, levels, hue/sat, some gaussian blur or camera blur and we are almost at the point of getting to the desired effect.

I have watered down the workflow to make it as simple as possible as I don't want to go into too much detail.

This is an example of 2 of the shots. The 2nd entailed 3D modeling and rotoscoping but the veins, particles, glow and most of the blood and Vfx were done in AE

The shots below required detailed modeling to replace the actress but veins and Particles and blood in AE

Trust this helps a little

Mo

[MichaelSerks24]

Thanks mo. Sorry for the late response. To answer your question, I used Keylight 1.2 to key out the actor. I also edited the clips from a sequence from premiere and trim composed them into AE for a faster workflow because I have about 35 different clips that needed to be keyed out. 2.) I can see why you are confused by the drawing of the veins. I did confused them with tracking dots. I thought the veins would be easier to track if already drawn in but now I realize it wasn't necessary. Please let me know if I have this correct. So, basically what you're saying is I need to track the arm/body (basically where ever I want the veins to go) in mocha and use that tracking data and parent it to a null? Could I also track the veins separately in Mocha and then align that layer to the surface. Copy that corner pin data to a solid layer? Since there is so many veins it would be quite time consuming to go in with the bezier spline tool and mask out each individual vein right? So when I comp it in do you mean creating a new solid layer with the veins and then precomping it then duplicating it and changing the the track matte to alpha matte?

[MichaelSerks24]

Could I possibly see a screenshot of thee workflow of the precomped veins layer so I can just have a visual if you still have it or not. It would be greatly appreciated. In the meantime I'll try to figure it out on my own too.

[Rick Gerard]

If you had a green screen for the background then you should have painted the lines on your actor blue, or red, or purple. Because they are the same color as the background you’ve opened up a can of worms that is very hard to fix without a lot of hand masking.

[MichaelSerks24]

I had a feeling that was the case. Since there really is no time frame this needs to be done I guess I'm going to have to do a bunch of hand masking. Is there a way, where the actor is completely covered in veins, I can mask it out or precompose it and maybe add adjustment layers to change all the veins from the background color without doing a bunch of hand masking?

[MichaelSerks24]

For instance maybe of this shot?

[Rick Gerard]

You are over thinking the problem. Read up on hold out mattes.

1. Put your original footage trimmed to the in and out points you will use in the final edit plus about 20 frames on each end (handles) so you are not processing footage you will never use
2. Draw a simple mask around the outside of the torso of your actor that includes all of the green lines that have been drawn on the actor
3. Animate the mask using as few keyframes as you can as the camera or the actor moves
4. Set the mask to OFF
5. Add Keylight to the footage and fine tune the settings to pull the cleanest key you can
6. Find Inside Mask in the Keylight settings about 3/4 of the way down the ECP and set it to use Mask 1
7. Generate the best key you can around the outside of your actor leaving the green veins on the body.
8. Duplicate the footage layer twice
9. Add a solid and put that below the top copy of the keyed footage
10. Select the solid and the top copy of the footage and pre-compose - name the pre-comp Veins
11. Use whatever combination of color correction and keying software you can find to key out just the veins in the pre-comp
12. Add a colored solid or animated gradient below the Veins layer to give you the effect you want
13. Drag the second copy of the keyed footage above the Veins layer and use that as an alpha track matte to get rid of the temp background on the veins layer
14. Add the new background to the bottom of the layer stack

There you go. I downloaded your screenshot and took a careful look at the footage. There is a lot of green spill and the green lines are not a very consistent color. I would be very surprised if you can pull a decent key from the veins unless the original footage is a lot higher quality than the screenshot. I'm even a little pessimistic about pulling a good key of the background because of the spill and the shadows. You need a lot better control over your lighting if you are going to easily pull a good matte from greenscreen footage.

If you re-shoot, don't draw veins on your actor. Do something like this: VIDEO COPILOT |Demon Face

[Mo Moolla]

"If you re-shoot, don't draw veins on your actor."

Rick Gerard​ I couldn't agree more. The problem with drawing on the actor is that should you need to make changes to the veins thickness, shape or even remove a vein etc you are working with practical special effects here and it will need a physical redo.

As a rule of thumb as you know Rick, anything that needs to be added for Vfx should be created and not shot in camera.

This is where 3D modeling comes, it gives greater control.

However not everyone can do this and if you are a pure AE user draw the veins in Ai or AE and then work wth them from there.

Leave the actors body unpainted. A painted line on a person is VERY DIFFICULT to work with as there is movement of the human body that will affect the contours, shape, deformation etc of the veins.

Mo

[Mo Moolla]

Michael as start and even before you begin to get into effects work I would strongly recommend you get to understand compositing and working with keying. This green screen is going to a nightmare to work with, even if you mask as those paint drops are near the subject. Learn the basics of 3 point lighting to give the key a decent chance. This would be the first port of call. Once you have achieved this we can look at the veins and what workflow would best suit you. Rick Gerard​ has given you one and I so have I. 2 different workflows but with the same results.

Let me know how it develops

Here are some examples or what to do and what not to

INCORRECT

CORRECT

Mo

[MichaelSerks24]

Thanks for the help guys. I will keep you updated. The shot is a higher quality than the screen shot. I shot it on my Canon EOS 80 at 1920 X 1080 / 30 fps. Maybe I do need to get a better grasp on the concept of compositing but as as for the pictures of the studio and the incorrect way and correct way, we did shoot on a green screen just like the picture above. Here are some more scene in my sequence to give you guys a better understanding. I want to be able to have the actor holding a ball of energy which is shown below. I just have a quick question on thee first image. If I want to make it look like he's floating in the air do I need to mask out the ball and the stool on a separate layer with key-light?

[MichaelSerks24]

Also, this is what I did before I saw our comment. I trimmed the original footage down after I precomposed it. I then went into the precomp and used the original footage and motioned tracked his entire torso in mocha. I then copied the tracking data from mocha and copied it to a solid layer at the first frame (because I tracked it backwards) . and named it TD(Tracking Data). I then created another solid layer above both and used thee pen tool and literally went in from the first frame and masked the entire veins(took a few hours) and copied that corner pin data to the mask. I also used fractal noise so that made the veins grayish. It sticks for thee most part but there are a few parts where it jumps off. But I'm going to try the workflow you guys suggested and let you know.

[Mo Moolla]

Let us know how the final result looks Michael

Mo

[MichaelSerks24]

So, here a few screen shots of different scenes where I used the veins and this is what I have so far. I basically tracked all of the shots in mocha. I then aligned the selected surfaces and copied the mocha warp corner pin tracking data and pasted the data on a new solid layer called Veins. Continuing, I then spent a few hours hand masking every frame with a pen tool / on the Veins layer and used a fractal noise. Likewise, I precomposed the veins layer and copied / pasted the original footage layer and set it to guide layer and named that comp Veins Pre-comp. In addition, I precomposed it again, with the tracking data and the Veins Pre-comp layer and added another copy of the original footage below both, setting it to guide layer and pick whipped the Veins Pre-comp layer to the tracking data below and added a Simple choker to the Veins Pre-comp and named that comp Veins PRECOMP. Moreover, I went back to the original comp to then add a Glass effect to that original footage and set the Bump map to Veins PRECOMP and the property to Alpha. By the same token, I then added effects in this order. A Fill effect (set the color to purple the theme/ main color of the veins and energy of this project), Fast Box Blur ( Blur Radius = 25), and a Curves adjustment (cranked up the RGB level). Lastly,  I then duplicated that Veins PRECOMP but on the one below, I deleted the curves and set the Fast Box Blur radius to 1 and set both PRECOMPS to 75% opacity and the transfer mode to Classic Color Burn.

I have not made any more adjustments yet but I have like 20 different scenes I needed to mask out and repeat this same process for. I was just wondering if you guys had anymore tips to make it look more authentic? I mean it looks good on the body but the veins on the face look more black and red. Maybe I just need to play around with the settings and re-tweak parameters but how can I get a more purple color into the veins? Any suggestions to improve the look and have the veins look more realistic would be greatly appreciated! Thanks. Hope you can follow through with what I just posted. I'm not in thee mood to be writing in correct grammar and punctuation. Looking Forward to hearing back!