Green Screens

patcrow

Hey STO Foundry authors.


Has anyone used green screens yet? I would love to learn how to use them for backgrounds and such.

thegreendragoon1

I'm not entirely sure what you're asking. The green screens are detail objects you can place. The you can use it to key out the background in some higher end video/photo editing software.

drogyn1701

So keep in mind that there's no way you can use this in game. It is strictly for replacing with other images or video footage outside the game.

So I did a little 27-second test when they first came out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2qkIgTC2q8

Here's the process in a nutshell:

I stuck a big green screen wall outside the window on the Utopia Planitia map and put an animated NPC there so people could see it was moving footage. I positioned myself and used FRAPS to record the angle I wanted. Then I demorecorded a run through of Surface Tension, specifically the space fight around ESD. I got some video of that demo from a far away angle.

Then I went into my video editor. I use Sony Vegas but there are many different kinds out there. Vegas has a video effect you can add called "Chromakey" which lets you set which color to replace, plus the sensitivity (how far on either side of that exact color it will replace).

Also used the same process to spice up a little video showing off a map build, replacing the background behind my two DJs with a screen capture of the visualizer on my Windows Media Player.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kw5kD96jDF0

As you can see in several angles, you have to watch if you're joining vertical and horizontal green screens cause they form a dark line where they meet that my Chromakey settings didn't see and replace.

soroji

Man those maps you make...I've got a loooong way to go.

drogyn1701

well I've been doing this for nearly four years. But everyone has to start somewhere.

If you want to know more, a lot of the principles I use in map building are laid out in an episode of the Roundtable we did a few weeks ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0-lGJWsBns

soroji

Oh yeah, I was there watching it live. I'll have to watch that one again though. I've only put out one foundry mission as a test run, but the reviews I have received from it are promising I think. Nothing below a 3, mostly 4's and 5's though.

I'm still relatively new. but with the new assets coming, the green screens and I can only hope for an improvement on demo record, I will be able to do a lot of different stuff.

paxfederatica

drogyn1701 wrote: »

So keep in mind that there's no way you can use this in game.

Considering all the other stuff in the Foundry that have taken on alternate uses, I wouldn't be so sure about that...

tacofangs

Drogyn means there's no way to chromakey out the greenscreens and replace them with some other image/video, in game.
I have no doubt someone will come up with some insane. . . er. . . creative use for them.

soroji

Foundry mission "The Green Room" go!

markhawkman

tacofangs wrote: »

Drogyn means there's no way to chromakey out the greenscreens and replace them with some other image/video, in game.
I have no doubt someone will come up with some insane. . . er. . . creative use for them.

I'm thinking mood lighting. use it as a wall panel and put some consoles in front of it so it is only visible in a few spots. Toss in a smoke cloud and it'd look like there was a green light behind the holes in the wall.

I've pondered the results of building a map from these and.... well, that'd be so disorienting that peeps would need to use the /loc command to find their way around.

leviathan99

markhawkman wrote: »

I'm thinking mood lighting. use it as a wall panel and put some consoles in front of it so it is only visible in a few spots. Toss in a smoke cloud and it'd look like there was a green light behind the holes in the wall.

I've pondered the results of building a map from these and.... well, that'd be so disorienting that peeps would need to use the /loc command to find their way around.

I had considered both using them to build a weather man's station in a news studio as part of a present day earth city.

I also considered strategically placing them in place of starship windows and the like for a mission where the player is told that Star Trek is a television show and that they are an actor on it.

As in, a director shouts "cut" in the middle of a scene and suddenly the room becomes a cutaway with a camera crew and things like the windows go from stars outside to green screens.

starfish1701

I'm obviously not keeping a close enough eye on the forums or patch notes to have seen this addition to The Foundry.

Rest assured, I will be using green screens in my videos at some point if they've now been added.

Many many thanks.

jarenriccar

can we get space green screens? it'd be good for ship pics

Or maybe a space map thats just a big green nothing

tacofangs

Are the objects not usable in space?

There should be two Green Screen Backdrops, one for Ground and one for Space? (There were some hiccups with those, so let me know if they aren't present)

drogyn1701

There is a different details list for Ground than there is in Space. There are a couple objects in both, like some of the nebulas, but they are mostly unique objects from each other.

starfish1701

I only saw the ground versions but couldn't find any space ones, unless they were under a different name.

The ones I saw available for ground maps were absolutely fantastic!