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If you haven?t checked out the specs for the latest version of combustion from Autodesk, you are missing out on a brand new keyer. The Diamond Keyer has been inherited from Autodesks?s award winning flame visual effects system. The new algorithms interpret the footage so well, and yields more satisfying results that you?ll thinking keying in combustion 4 is a breeze.
Step 1: Create a New Workspace in combustion 4 and load the footage to be keyed and any background elements. You can download the footage for this exercise from the Autodesk website (ftp://ftp.discreet.com/pub2/web/products/combustion/tutorials/combustion_v2_1_lesson06.zip).
Step 2: One of the new features in combustion 4 is the ability to dock the Workspace Panel along the side of screen. This makes jumping back and forth between the Workspace and Tool panel a snap.
Highlight the Truck layer in the Workspace Panel, and apply the Diamond Keyer operator by Right+Clicking and navigating the pop up window.
After applying the operator you will see the control window to the right of the Workspace panel update to show the Diamond Keyer controls.
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If you have a very solid backdrop, or one that has slight variations in color you may find you only need to click on one button to achieve a great key with the Diamond Keyer. As you examine the Diamond Keyer controls interface, you will see that there are two different ways you can pull a key; with the Preset controls or by using the Tolerance eye dropper.
Using the Preset Controls, click on one of the RGB or CMY buttons to remove that color. You can also click on the Shadows, Midtones or Highlights button if you have a luminance range you need to key.
In this exercise, clicking on the G (green) button will remove most of the green in the shot. I like using the presets as a way of establishing an initial key that allows you to make additional refinements.
The other option is to use the Tolerance eye dropper and selecting the color to be keyed from Composite window.
After selecting the key color, you will notice that there are two diamond shapes that appear in the Color Wrapper. The yellow diamond represents the softness level of the color you selected with the eye dropper. The smaller red diamond represents the tolerance level.
If you have any green left over, you can use the Tolerance Add eye dropper to select any of the remaining bits. A few clicks and you will have a key nearly as good as using the preset.
For even more control of the Tolerance range, zoom in to the Color Wrapper and drag the control handles on the red (tolerance) diamond. You can also drag the Tolerance and Softness handles found in the Luminance Range Selector.
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