Bricks in Motion
We are a friendly filmmaking community devoted to the art of stop-motion animation using LEGO® and similar construction toys. Here, you can share your work, join our community of other brickfilmers, and participate in periodic animation contests!
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Hey so I just figured out a little tip!! In order to chroma key with legos, you have to use the color of blue. The green screen is mainly meant to not look distinctive to the color of human skin. But not the color of yellow. Most regular Lego mini figures are yellow, and yellow is a very close color to green. So if your green screening doesn't turn out so great its because of the green maybe. This may not work for all editing softwares but it does for me.
Wow, that makes sense humabujawhatever21. I'll try that
Correction, pink is a not-so-great color for CHROMA KEYING, not greenscreening. Greenscreening (or bluescreening, if you like), only can key out three basic elements, green, blue, and red. You could classify pink under red, but it's not too close to red, and if you use red, it sometimes, well, how should I put this, makes the other colors more voilently clash together, even when it's done keying out.
Yeah I don't think pink is a good choice. Besides, how many programs do you see that lets you use pink for chroma keying?
I used blue in all my films... so, it's not that new 
There are a few programs that are free hyunhyun21, I think the best one is Cinegobs Color Keyer.
Vegas gives 6 options:
Green Screen
Blue Screen
Red Screen
True Green Screen
True Blue Screen
True Red Screen
But all can be edited for whatever color you need. I happen to have a Green Screen.
Well, there's one problem with the color blue: most minifigure clothes, hats, details etc. have that color on them, so it would do worse. I think that green would be better.
P.S. Hey, Thunder-Blade, how do you do a different backround when you use Wax? I can't seem to find out how to do any color other than black.
I cannot believe we're discussing whether blue or green is better for keying. Guys, it all depends on the situation, what colors your minifig has, etc. Neither is intrinsically better.
- Leo
Leo, I'm afraid the Church of Green must formally request that you retract your statements. All men and women know in their hearts that green is the ONLY color to be used for chromakeying. Those who follow in the path of the blue will bring malice and judgment upon themselves.
- Aaron
Since lego minifigs are yellow, which is contained in the color green, blue is actually a better choice.
However, if your minifigure is wearing blue, green is obviously the better option. Seriously, though, jsut go with whatever works. I've done an orange screen before.
- Leo
Maybe you should try masking a bit... It has a pretty cool finished effect. 
The best colour background for chroma keying depends on the colour of your foreground objects.
Try to pick a colour that doesn't occur in the foreground.
The best colour is then either
purest Red ie RGB(255,0,0) Redscreening
purest Green ie RGB(0,255,0) Greenscreening
purest Blue ie RGB (0,0,255) Bluescreening
As luck would have it Lego basic red green and blue bricks seem to be close to these colours. Just try to get some card thats similar, but preferably with a matt finish to avoid reflections. Set it back from your objects (even out of focus) so it cannot reflect light back to your foreground objects and light it evenly without shadows.
I find debugmode wax very easy to use, its free and gives good chroma keying.
Last edited by martinprice2004 (December 3, 2009 (02:58pm))
I agree to Leonardo812, it depends on the colour of the setting! So why do not take some test pictures befor taking the whole shot? If I am not sure, I do it.
I think it is not the most importend that you use Red (255,0,0) Green(0,255,0) or Blue (0,0,255) it is more importand, that the colour of the screen in an 3D colour space hast the largest distance to averange colour of the set. The easiest way to match that is to take a pic with a black screen and have a look on the histogram of all 3 channels .. combining the holes in each histogram is the best colour. Now there is only one question .. do I have these sort of screen?
I nearly always try .. one of these 4 colours would work .. Yes even yellow does good work .. sometimes
I think it is not the most importend that you use Red (255,0,0) Green(0,255,0) or Blue (0,0,255) it is more importand, that the colour of the screen in an 3D colour space hast the largest distance to averange colour of the set.
Unfortunately this statement contradicts itself. In the colour space cube X= Red Y= Green Z= Blue. The colour as you have said will be one that is the furthest away from the foreground colours. This will occur at one of the corners of the cube ie Red (255,0,0) Green(0,255,0) or Blue (0,0,255). Chosing a background colour that lies further toward the centre of the colour space cube can only result in a smaller colour difference.
In theory one of the other corners could be better (pure cyan pure yellow etc. ) but this is unlikely. Pure yellow background RGB(255,255,0) would mean that all of your foreground colours would need to be shades of blue. (ie the opposite corner of the colour cube).
If you could combine the histograms into a 3D space image you would see that the foreground object colours would appear as a "cloud" in the centre of the colour space cube. Often it is stretched along the diagonal from (0,0,0) to (255,255,255). This is because of shading of the forground colours from dark to light across the objects. You can imagine that once again the best colour for a background a point furthest away from this cloud and is at the cube exreme corners ie Red (255,0,0) Green(0,255,0) or Blue (0,0,255)
@martinprince:
you are absolutely right .. the distance should be maximated. But I think Lego Bricks are so colourful, that it's possible that the corners in your tube are the setcolours.
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