Above is veteran actor Stacey Gillespie. The top image illustrates the split view in Primatte Keyer 4. By the way, Stacey is composited in front of an ancient wall located in Jaffa, Israel. I LOVE Greenscreen!
Advanced Features
Primatte Keyer 4 has a number of advanced features. Besides timeline animation of key parameters in After Effects, there are some other sophisticated effects. One of these, Lightwrap, simulates light from a back layer spilling onto an object in the foreground.
Above is Writer/Director/Actor Cherokee Hall (of JustusLeagueFilms) helping demonstrate the Primatte Keyer 4 Lightwrap feature. Take a look in the top image at Cherokee’s elbow. The bright light of the explosion appears to “wrap around” his arm – selling the illusion.
Rendering Speed
I didn’t perform any rigorous tests, but Primatte seemed to render as fast or faster than other professional keying software I’ve used. I noticed that as I used more sophisticated features of Primatte Keyer 4, that it did not seem to slow down the render noticeably. This is a major issue with other keying software, which has great features, but rendering slows to a crawl when they are used.
Bold Moves
Red Giant Software added significant improvements over Primatte 3. However, amazingly, they boldly moved into multi-program support with Primatte Keyer 4. The same single package installed the software in After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Motion and would have installed in Avid (if I had it).
The interfaces in FCP and Motion are different from the interface in After Effects, limited by the format and structure of the base program. The same features are provided, for the most part, but items are organized differently. To their credit, all my test renders operated flawlessly and with the same quality as in After Effects.
In Final Cut Pro, the filter panel doesn’t display all of the settings when the panel is docked. You have to pull the filter panel off, expand it, and adjust the column widths to access all the settings. That’s apparently a limitation of the FCP interface. It’s a little annoying to have to float the panel every time you apply a key to a new layer. But it’ a small price to pay for the convenience of being able to pull a fast key in Final Cut without having to “round trip” to After Effects.
