I’ve got a dilemna in the best approach to shooting a shot. It’s sim trav for the interior of a horse drawn carriage. I’ve done sim trav a multitude of times but am yet to come across this particular issue. They want to add shear drapes over the window. The drapes also hang down below the window which will add to the complexity, unless we roto everything outside of the window frame.
I’m thinking we remove the drapes on the hero take so the key works, then add the drapes back in when comping the shot. Only thing is, the camera won’t be fixed inside the carriage, it will be panning.moving and the sheers will need to move as they will be bouncing the carriage as it moves. Have thought about shooting a 360 plate for the interiors with everything outside blacked out just for the curtain pass but not sure the resolution will be sufficient. Or do we just shoot the greenscreen with the sheers and deal with the spill and hope it will be sufficient enough for an additive key for the edges?
I almost think the best approach would be recreating the seats, shooting the cast in studio on greenscreen then adding the whole of the interior in comp. Time and budget would not allow for this however.
Not totally in my wheelhouse. But I’ve done a lot of CG element integrations lately to good success.
I assume your concern is the quality of the key with the shear drapes?
How about you shoot the action without the drapes for the best quality keying.
Then do one of two things:
Shoot the shears separate on back projection of the bg pate (with sync) and comp them in. Creates its own set of problems.
Render CG shears which are backlit in your CG app with the bg plate set to an emissive material. Some of the same problems, but you can bring in the alpha from the key into the CG app to hold out window shadows, etc. and make it easier. Also, you can camera track the carriage movement to simulate movement in the CG app, which in the first option is a lot harder.
CG shears have the benefit that they can be adjusted to taste after the fact.
In both cases you just have to deal with placing the shears behind talent where the shears are not in front of windows and you won’t have any alpha channel.
An approach that needs to be batted around a bit more. So more like a half-cooked idea.
Personally I would shoot with the shear drapes in the practical shot with a very intense green screen. I have never had a problem with spill suppression, there is always a way. I would likely start with master keyer and see what happens before going down the additive complications. If the key just doesn’t work I would use the best matte I could get of the window, perhaps add edge detect to get something easier to track. I would do a 4 point surface track to create a proper roto. I would then suppress the window sheers and play with transfer modes to add it back. But that’s just me.
I think I’m understanding this correctly. I’d just key with the shear on there and use an additive key to amplify the texture. There’s tricksy ways to get the color of the shear exactly what you want based on a reference over grey or whatever (use photoshop color blend mode in log space with a sample of the reference true color of the curtains) so you’re not just swinging around hews in the MasterKeyer. The shear curtains should be occlusive of the bg so they should be a mixture of grey and white in terms of key density. I’ve dealt with shear curtains on windows before for window comps and just done it this way. Also done a lot of dirty mud caked and grimy window comps for some zombie tv shows. And I’ve just keyed and then used the above approach to color fidelity for either the grime or semitransparent curtains and it’s been totally cool.
Yep, I think I probably am thinking it will be more complicated than it actually is. I have had to deal with shear curtains on the edge of a window but never covering the whole window on a greenscreen shoot. I think I’ll go for gold then curse myself after wards if needbe.
Shit if you get the shears dense/bright enough, ya don’t even have to key it. Just multiply the damn bg over the top and Robert if your brother’s mother.
