Been seeing this more lately and wondering how it’s done, or at least what the process is called or what software can be used for it? The way the footage of the ‘running guy’ is cut out and pasted on other videos. I imagine it’s a frame by frame process and I’ve never seen it never look too tidy so it must be difficult, just want to learn more about it. Any info appreciated, cheers!
Any number of composting tools could do it, as well as high end realtime DVEs.
1 Like
Thanks, do you know what the process is called? I really want to learn a bit about it and also what software is capable of doing it, but I’m a bit lost.
As @wiatrob mentioned, the process is called compositing. There are a number of ways to accomplish this with LZX equipment, including the Marble Index which is designed specifically for compositing. Aside from LZX gear, I believe a lot of the common standalone video mixers also have compositing, though I don’t have much experience with that myself. On the software side, many video editing programs have compositing.
How are you looking to accomplish compositing? You mention software, but you’re posting on the LZX forum, so are you looking to do this in software or hardware? Are you looking to do it live or not live? These answers can help people guide you to some specific options, since there are A LOT of options.
1 Like
Thanks @joem for adding the clarifications, I realized I hadn’t explicitly answered the question when I saw your reply. It would take a mighty setup of LZX gear to accomplish the effect above, and the results wouldn’t look nearly as good, but compositing is a function that LZX keyers like Doorway and Color Chords perform.
2 Likes
you could maybe make a flock of running guys via memory palace
and live animate the position via onboard controls
I would imagine you would want a couple pictures one single runner, one with a couple, and last with a flock of them
these images would all need to bee green screened
you would need a polar fringe
send memory palace output through polar fringe into a visual cortex
get your key from the polar fringe and put it into the composite input of the visual cortex
then take your b-roll for whatever you want to be in the background into the encoder of the visual cortex and patch that to channel A and patch the through output from polar fringe into channel B
that would be for just the runner pass you would have to record that then for each additional piece green screen in whatever alien related pictures you wanted to and use the same process as before however you would use the previously recorded video as your source into the visual cortex the next time through
easy peasy
only about 2500$ hardware setup
1200 mempal
800 visual cortex
450 polar fringe
make sure to get your sync connection run correctly between mem pal and VC and to terminate at the end of the chain
hopefully you already have a recording setup as this is a whole other venture that has been written about here and in lots of other places over and over
or you could use something like OBS and do it for free
you are looking for digital compositing
2 Likes
Thanks everyone for the information, I figured I’d ask on this forum because you guys usually know what’s up with anything video, much appreciated!
@Joem, I have all the modules mentioned here except Polar Fringe, but in this instance I am interested in using software and not in a live sense.
I am familiar with Sony Vegas, and given that key word ‘compositing’ I have just looked up a bunch of tutorials and only found layering text videos. I take it Vegas can’t do what I’m wanting to do here unless I’m missing something. I googled some more and Vegas can do chroma keying processes, but that would be the second part of this process, the first of which I don’t understand.
As far as I can tell, the running guy in the video I posted would need to be cut out in every frame similar to making an image on transparency but in a video format, I imagine green screen comes into the process somewhere. With that information can you offer any more suggestions? Thanks!! 
1 Like
It sounds like a ton of fun having something like the ‘running guy’ on transparency in Memory Palace, I just lack the Polar Fringe though, might have to consider adding it to my rig.
Not familiar with OBS do you think it could help me with what I’m wanting to do here (using software)?
the same thing I described you doing with hardware
green screening
sizing and repositioning
just look up OBS if you aren’t sure what it is but it sounds like if you have sony vegas if so then that would be what you would probably use…
I would recommend this book as every single technique you need to do this is covered
these topics have been covered in so many other places just use google
I literally looked up “how to green screen in vegas software” and this was the first link that came up…
https://www.reddit.com/r/computergraphics/
https://www.reddit.com/r/VideoEditing/
https://www.reddit.com/r/vfx/
https://www.reddit.com/r/editors/
i would imagine each one of those places would be much more fruitful for this kind of question
I bet a couple of them already have large mega posts put together covering this very topic
but if you are asking me
as far as I understand it you have to print out each frame of the green guy and cut him out
then you have to save all those cutting room floor scraps for later in the process*
after he is cut out you need like 10 more so off to cutting out more guys
at this point you should have thousands of paper doll cut out guys
just make sure to keep them in order as this can be a time consuming process if not
once you have all the frames cut and printed then you have to do something not so difficult
take the glass off of your computer screen
next you will need this paper doll software for interfacing with the computer
https://github.com/kyamagu/paperdoll (download here)
the tricky part is interfacing the paper dolls with your LCD screen directly
your computer must use an LCD screen as its basic means of displaying video for this to work
now in your vegas software you need to pull up a basic matte and make it green
this is why it is called green screening
you put the paper dolls up in font of LCD displaying the matte green screen
not too close
you will hear a click
again that is why it is called chroma keying because it will sound like someone unlocking a door
that means the matte has taken the key!
now do this for every single cut out doll
don’t forget to export as a picture into a single folder
now take all those images and bring them back into Vegas
*now take all those scraps you had and mush them together in a pile
with elbow grease you will have to shape the scraps into the same size and shape as your computer glass that was covering the LCD
now replace the computer glass with the paper scrap assemblage
you should be able to just barely see through the paper when setting your computer screen to full brightness
now that you have all the images in vegas you would need to get your background video in there as well
so at this point you just have to draw onto the paper assemblage/screen whatever you want to be in the background
this can be even more tedious than the paper guys part however there is a secret
you can use projection mapping https://github.com/mapmapteam/mapmap
in order do project an image directly onto the paper assemblage on the front of your computer and it will transfer this projected image into your project (as long as you are using that pojection mapping software)
so at this point you have drawn frame by frame your guys cut them out and pasted them into the computer screen and made a paper assemblage/screen interface and drawn your background/projected it
so you should have all your pieces
now you just massage your computer as if you were working a big pile of dough or a pike before cleaning and gutting it
this part is necessary
in order to extract your video we are going to have to get down to what it is all about
gold
so please make sure to save anything important in your computer externally before moving to the next
step
at this point you will have to take out all the PCBs from your computer and put them into a big 5 gallon
paint bucket after chopping them up pretty good into smallish pieces
a solution of 250ml muriatic acid followed (after 5 minutes to allow initial reaction) by 100ml of
hydrogen peroxide
stir this every now and then
after about 10 minutes add some more peroxide
if you want to speed up the reaction time you can use a bubbler to get air in your mixture
now you need to get rid of the big pieces of PCB left
strain the mixture you want that liquid gold so make sure not to lose it
you can keep the pieces for further processing
wash out your buck as you pour into the strainer don’t lose anything
now let this all settle and decant the major portion of your solution
take your resulting sludge and put it into your melting dish
hit that with some heat for a while until it gets nice and golden
dip it in some water and presto change-o you have a running man video hand made lovingly by way of computer compositing
4 Likes
Wow. And I’d heard using a computer makes thing easier. It sure doesn’t sound like it does!
6 Likes
color keying in premiere. 5 sec work, maybe 3 clicks with the mouse
some programs are better for specific tasks
2 Likes
Well, if it’s just the running guy you want, wiatrob hooked you up with that green screen vid.
If I were to recreate it- I would grab enough frames to seamlessly loop the runner. Pop all those frames in PS and start selecting the runner in each frame, maybe using magic wand at first, slightly feathering the selection, to get rid of hard edges, and deleting the background. It would take some finess. Once they’re all cut, turn the frames into a timeline, add a green background. Export as sequence.
If the feathering cuts too far into the image you could expand selection a tiny bit before feathering. Or inverse selection, feather, then inverse again.
That would be my approach.
2 Likes
Lol some of that seems a bit extreme 
It sounds about right cutting out each frame then pasting on a green screen in Vegas, definitely not an easy task but if I want it bad enough I will get it done.
Many thanks for your input!!
Thanks but I’m more interested in cutting out something like the running guy above from a standard video then using the chroma keying process after putting the frames on a green background. Premiere does look very good for chroma keying, thanks.
This seems to be the idea, to cut out the images frame by frame, enough to create the animation, then paste each one on a green background then use the chroma keying process.
Thanks for your input!
You guys were able to lead me in the right direction here even though it’s a software process I was after, thank you all!! 
if you make cutouts, I think you can also put them on a transparent background, save as png and import that into premiere. or even just as psd file as they are both Adobe products.
that saves you from green edges that have to be feathered out.
2 Likes