Primatte V5 for Smoke

Photron USA, a distributor of IMAGICA Technologies Corp. has announced the introduction of new pricing on Primatte V5 in Smoke for Mac, Autodesk’s post-production system (editing, color correction, VFX and compositing).

Primatte is a plugin used to create chromas in postproduction processes. As many of you already know, the background, which is usually green or blue, is extracted and a matte with transparency is created, allowing the user to place the foreground (objects or people in the foreground) on a different background. This process is known as “chromakeying”.

Now this plugin, which was previously priced at $2,499, has been reduced to $300 at Autodesk Smoke. Moreover, this price will be applied on a version 5, whose new features are as follows:

– Adjust Lighting: this feature eliminates the problem arising from light differences in the background. In order to obtain a favorable result in background extraction, it is necessary that the background is of a solid and uniform color. However, due to multiple complications in shooting or due to scenery, these qualities are not always optimal.
This feature helps to eliminate the problem by analyzing the background and using the data obtained to create a “virtual background”, which generates a much cleaner result.

– Foreground Detection (or Histogram Analysis): sometimes the area occupied by our background is much smaller than that of the foreground (also called FG Object), so it can be a little more complicated to extract the green or blue. This function uses a histogram analysis technique to distinguish between the parts of the image that are of a flat color and recognize it as the desired background color, thus separating background and objects in a much more intelligent way than in previous versions.

– Hybrid Mode: this function will be very useful in the case that some of our characters or objects in the scene have a color very similar to that of the background. When the chroma key is extracted, these areas also become “transparent” and are contaminated by the new background. To solve this problem, the hybrid mode automatically performs this operation from within Primatte, performing a second “key” to make these areas opaque and then returning them to the original composition.

Primatte V5 is now available for Smoke on their website. If you want to get a demo license, you can request it at sgross@photron.com.

Here is a video with explanations and examples of the new functions.