This document is created to provide clarity to all contributors submitting 2D footage based assets (e.g. filmed, real-world assets acquired via camera) for review by ActionVFX. The goal is to ensure all contributors are following the standards we hold for our own products, thus eliminating many rounds of review or rejection of a collection.

Important:

This section covers the typical keying practices we take when creating a product.

Few things ruin the illusion that an asset seamlessly belongs to a shot than having an outline around the edges. This is sometimes called a “green screen halo”. Your goal should be to minimize the appearance of a halo around your asset as much as possible.

Tips to avoid haloing:

Having jittery/wobbly/flickering edges in your alpha is another common issue of low-quality keys. Sometimes getting completely rid of it is impossible, but you should aim to reduce the effect as much as possible.

Tips to avoid jittery edges:

In this example, the alpha contains many holes that flicker constantly, instead of being stable.

Sometimes in an effort to completely remove the background of a clip, it can go too far and erase some important details. One sign of a great key is having the background be 100% transparent while still retaining the smaller details that are very thin or semi-transparent.

This can be crucial to elements that include a lot of thin smoke or small particles. Keying out too much detail can make the element look spotty.

Tips for retaining the small details:

When something is fully transparent the alpha channel is black, and when it’s fully opaque the alpha channel is white. Translucent (semi-transparent) areas, however, are usually various shades of gray. The more you can keep translucent areas translucent, the more natural the element will look when comped in the user’s shot.

Tips to keep translucency:

When keying fire, it’s important to understand that translucency is important to keep in mind. You don’t want your fire to be too opaque or too translucent. Keep the hottest, thickest part of the flame opaque, and the dissipating, less hot parts of the fire semi-transparent.

An example of a great RGB key of a fire.

However, the alpha channel is too opaque, causing it to look like this when comped over a background:

With the alpha channel being too opaque, you get nasty black edges around the flames. The dissipating flames at the top should be semi-transparent as well.

A correct example of a keyed alpha channel for fire elements. The hottest parts of the fire are opaque, and the less hot, dissipating areas are translucent.

This section covers the typical framing practices we take when creating a product. Good framing for 2D VFX assets is characterized by a clear, balanced composition that emphasizes the main elements while being centered vertically and horizontally in the frame. The assets should utilize as much as the frame as possible. For example, nobody wants to purchase a clip of an explosion that only fills less than half of the frame.

Tips for framing:

Good Framing

The asset is not breaking frame but is filling the frame.

Bad Framing

The asset is getting cut off due to breaking frame at the bottom of the frame. The asset should be centered horizontally and vertically.

Good Framing

The asset is centered vertically and horizontally in the frame

Bad Framing

While the top this explosion will eventually rise up and fill the frame it is not centered left to right. It should be moved to the right so it is centered horizontally.

This section covers the typical exposure practices we take when creating a product. Typical exposure practices involve adjusting the brightness and contrast to achieve a balanced look that neither washes out details (overexposure) nor hides them in shadows (underexposure).

Tips for properly exposing:

Pro Tip:

If you have trouble keeping the whites of Muzzle Flashes or certain Fires from clipping no matter how much you lower the exposure, that means that element is so bright that it would still be overexposed when shot in daylight. In that case, just shoot at a balanced daylight exposure and move on instead of decreasing exposure so much that the asset is ruined.

Example of an underexposed asset.

This section covers the typical exposure practices we take when creating a product. Typical denoising practices involve using software tools to remove or reduce noise while preserving important details and textures.

Tips for denoising:

This example below shows a clip that was denoised too much and is losing detail. You can really see the difference in the edges of the dissipating flames.

Before Being Denoised

After Denoising

The fine details in the flames are gone and look blurred.

Keep file sizes as low as possible while still delivering a high-quality product. File size is a very important aspect and should be top of mind when delivering assets for the Marketplace. If your files are too large, look into ways to reduce file size such as shortening the clip or removing uncommon render passes.

Refer to this chart to adhere to our file size guidelines.

Video assets should be delivered to ActionVFX in the following formats:

4K Resolution: 16-bit OpenEXR (final high-quality render)

2K Resolution: ProRes LT (for quick previewing purposes of samples and drafts) or 16-bit OpenEXR (final high-quality render if applicable)

OpenEXR Render Settings

2K ProRes LT Preview Render Settings

These renders will be used solely for preview purposes by our internal team. It will help us preview and review your assets faster than if we only had access to the final EXR files.