Is there a way to chromakey an image on an object?

[JamesCurtis]

Just as the title says.

I want to know if there is a way [by plugin or other method] to chroma key out the blue background of an AVI animation or frames that have been applied to a flat plane object in LW.

I know this can be done in editing software, but I need in LW it to aid in composition of scenes from a client.

I'd appreciate any help.

Thanks.

[durexlw]

Key out the footage you import. This will give you the result you're looking for. LW will never do a better job than any compositor out there. Sure you can use a broom to open a lock, it's just easyer if you use a key...

maybe i'm missing the clue here, if so, provide more information and i'll get back to you.

Cheers,
A.

[Silkrooster]

Is the flat plane necessary, It can be done with the background, but I am not sure about an object.
Silk

[JamesCurtis]

I need the keying more for positioning purpose than anything else. I know you can key a foreground image, but I need the key on a flat plane object so I can position my scene elements properly. Also, this would help my client when it comes to re-sizing the footage to fit into my scenes.

[durexlw]

I still don't quite understand what exactly the purpose is, however, there's only a few things that can be done:
You have compositing options in LW, to key out something from a footage and the only way to do so (without massive twists and turns) is: you need an alpha. I'm guessing here it's this alpha you wanna project on a plane in your scene.
Weither you need the keyed out footage, the alpha or whatever concerning a key or matte, no matter where you wanna project it on, you'll need to key out this alpha in a compositing application. The only compositing you can do in Lightwave, needs an alpha. There is no way to extract or key an alpha from a footage in Lightwave.

Good luck man!
A.

[Silkrooster]

Maybe the question should are you planing on puting video footage on the foreground objects?
Silk

[JamesCurtis]

Yes I need it on foreground objects. But I need to drop out [key out] the blue colors [values] from video that was shot by a client It's ideally to aid me in creating scenes that the video can be matched to, but also to possibly re-frame the shots as well as necessary.

[Silkrooster]

The only thing I can think of at the moment is adding a mask in your composite program and saving the result as either a sequence or a mov file both can have an alpha channel. Then you should beable to work with it in Lightwave.
At this point that is only a suggestion as I never really had that type of problem before. Hopefully someone with more experience on compositing can help.
If you don't have a composite program, a photo editor like Corel Photo-Paint can load avi files, then you can apply either a mask or alpha channel, the reason I seperated them, is because corel does. tga files use masks and psd files uses alpha, go figure.
Good luck
Silk

[Lottmedia]

If I'm understanding this correctly, it sounds as if you shold be able to use a clip map to "cookie-cutter" the abject, but you still need something to work off of. You're going to need a mat or some type of image (or sequence) to work off of which you'd probably get from something like AE or Combustion anyway, and if you're going to do that then I can think of many btter ways of doing it just in the compositor.
There's a reason that there are seperate compositor programs and why most of them cost as much as LW itself. It seems like you're set on doing it in LW and I think NewTek's developers recognize that studios are going to do that type of work in another application and spend their development time working on something new that is not possable through some other software.
I'm not trying to rag on anyone for not having a full studio at their disposal, but LW can't be all things. What you really need is a compositor. Sorry about that.
If you really need the footage keyed and can't do it, I'm sure someone here (myself included) would be happy to take the footage, key it and give you an alpha to work with so that yoy can clip the image in LW
Hope this isn't too discouraging, hope this helps.


J-Rod