so im doing a shoot in about a weeks time involving dogs on a green screen, ive booked out a studio with ample amount of room that is prelit, and im using 3 kino divas to light the subjects. my question is im toying with the idea but cant grap how to do it. To have the human wear a chrome green suit and move the dogs arms around and then key the human out. however if we do that and the human holds the dogs arm, that part of the dog disappears. the other thought i had was to using fishing line tied around the dogs arms to move them, but this is the cheaper ugly solution. how would i go about doing this?
chroma key question
- Thread starter shael
- Start date
Wesley Byram
Well-known member
We went through something similar when shooting a puppet in front of a green screen. First piece of advice, don't bother with the fishing line. Been there, done that. It might hurt the dog, too.
We got the best results from using wooden rods painted green to move the puppet's arms, but that still wasn't perfect, and even then there were several points at which one of the green rods occluded some of the puppet or one of the actors. The way I solved this problem wasn't fun, but it worked. I exported the problem frames as a .png sequence, opened them in the Gimp (free Photoshop-like program), and used the clone tool to painstakingly paint back in the bits that were blocked out by the green rods. It's time consuming, but it got the job done.
Perhaps you could use felt straps colored to look like the dog's fur wrapped around the legs with a small stud that the person in the greensuit holds? That's just a thought. How practical would it be to try to train the dog to perform the required actions solo?
We got the best results from using wooden rods painted green to move the puppet's arms, but that still wasn't perfect, and even then there were several points at which one of the green rods occluded some of the puppet or one of the actors. The way I solved this problem wasn't fun, but it worked. I exported the problem frames as a .png sequence, opened them in the Gimp (free Photoshop-like program), and used the clone tool to painstakingly paint back in the bits that were blocked out by the green rods. It's time consuming, but it got the job done.
Perhaps you could use felt straps colored to look like the dog's fur wrapped around the legs with a small stud that the person in the greensuit holds? That's just a thought. How practical would it be to try to train the dog to perform the required actions solo?
Michael Carter
Veteran
The problem with frame-by-frame cloning is the cloned area can bubble, swim, vibrate, etc.
I'd try thin wooden dowels (green) with thin "collars" or fabric loops. If you could add fake fur that's a good match, it's easy. If not, add a couple tracking marks to the dog's limbs (those clone out easy on fur - just a white sticky dot would do). Use other pieces of the limb and track 'em in.
I'd try thin wooden dowels (green) with thin "collars" or fabric loops. If you could add fake fur that's a good match, it's easy. If not, add a couple tracking marks to the dog's limbs (those clone out easy on fur - just a white sticky dot would do). Use other pieces of the limb and track 'em in.
Wesley Byram
Well-known member
That's true, and that's what happened when I tried it. Fortunately, nobody ever noticed the artifacts, but YMMV.
This seems like the way to go.
Michael Carter
Veteran
When I need to make those bits and pieces, sometimes I take a layer that's been properly keyed and export it to photoshop and manipulate it further - maybe widen it via cloning, stuff like that, and crop it and save as a PNG. Works quite well.