Advanced Green Screen Keying in After Effects

Advanced chroma key tutorial for After Effects. Extended course: gum.co/mxrrg.
00:00 Intro
01:12 Overview
07:32 Step 1 - Alpha Matte
17:56 Step 2 - Chroma / De-Spill
27:23 Step 3 - Compositing Tips
30:14 Super-Advanced Course Details
32:57 Advanced Chroma Key Course Trailer
More info at: www.advancedch...
Learn the secrets of advanced keying with alpha extraction and color correction / de-spill techniques for After Effects. Don't just use 1 instance of Keylight, an advanced spill suppressor, and call it a day. Get fine tuned control over both your detailed alpha plate (fine hair detail, and semitransparent areas) as well as custom de-spilled chroma plate (recolor green and blue screens to match foreground colors). By separating the process into its components, you get much more fine-tuned control and more professional results. Best of all, this tutorial is FREE!
Created by Leonard Wilkes:
www.lenwilkes....
I'm an independent filmmaker, editor and VFX artist, and while learning some advanced chromakey techniques in Nuke and Fusion for a music video I directed, called "White Lies," I discovered so much that translated to an After Effects workflow that I thought I'd share. I tried to make the tutorial I wish I found at the start of my journey.

[@dbroadwayvfx]

Now this is ACTUALLY advanced. Very cool. So many After Effects say they are Advanced when in fact they are just basic. Very nice tips and tricks here.

[@xavier417]

Wanted to say the same thing. Never seen something this in-depth on youtube for keying

[@DavieMelderfilms]

learned more from this 30 minute video than I did in college. Very informative, Great video! I'll be implementing this technique from here on out.

[@alexkirchner359]

Honestly this is beyond incredible. From a bleary-eyed tired Australian that you'll never ever meet, thankyou for taking the time to make this, your work is appreciated!

[@Mastajwood]

I've messed with keying for a while but you sir just filled ALL the gaps.

[@cudak888]

Followed the AE tutorial and was blown away, but ran up against limitations (with my footage) that made the potential power of Resolve that much more intriguing. Decided to splurge for the course. Three videos in and I already have a better idea of what Resolve can do to make a fantastic key (and some pointers for future shoots), that I have after wasting time weeding through the overhyped KZbin tutorials out there. It's wonderful not to have to slodge through all the instant gratification stuff for people content with a half-baked result, only to find out most of those other tutorials have nothing to share past an enthusiast-level key. Len, you knocked this out of the park, if not out of the Milky Way. Also, I went looking for the music video before going for the tutorial and was blown away when I realized it was a projection mapped miniature I'd been looking at all this time. I can make it out in spots now, but you had me fooled for a LOT longer than I thought.

[@Creeper531]

dude no way, i found this completely by accident, this is what i have been looking for! thanks so much for sharing i love you

[@jeffrinharris]

Amazing Tutorial, as many of you have said, this tutorial is so damn informative for those who have already used these tools before, not for the first timers.

[@JayNikam]

mAN YOU ARE SO UNDERRATED. Am so glad I found this video.

[@williamw]

This is incredible. Been trying to do chroma keying in AE for a decade and this method makes so much more sense.

[@mkheisenberg]

thank you very much for putting this demonstration together, not only will it be my personal go-to video on green screen keying, but I will recommending this to others as the default green screen technical procedure going forward. very much appreciated

[@diegotorrejon6196]

No way he only has 2 videos 🥲, excellent tutorial

[@kazi3d]

Bro u just saved me a heck of a lot of time green screening. Best tut I've come across in ages. 👏

[@antoniopepe]

No Mannnn this "ALPHA ADD" blending mode is a game changer... i never used in 20 years... ahahahhaha thanks !

[@DrBrunoDzogovic]

This really explains why high-end movies take eternity to complete. Someone in production goes literally frame by frame to set things up correctly.

[@johntnguyen1976]

These are boss tips, for real. The only "advanced" keying tutorial that earns that label! Are you planning any other filmmaking/production topics, Sir Leonard?! 😉

[@advancedindievfx]

I am planning on doing more. What topics would you like to see covered? I was going to do one on Camera Projection inside Blender (how I made the 3D hallway from photos).

[@albertoespindoladacunha1698]

This is the best free software Ive seen. Respect.

[@harrydavidson2426]

Giving you a like for that Alpha Add tip alone - great vid!

[@juliad857]

Just beginning my AE learning journey, and using some other tutorials I attempted that initial "beginner's method" you showed at the beginning, complete with just shrinking down to try and remove the green halo. Was wondering how in the world they made it look so flawless in movies, and figured I'd always be dealing with that halo because I just didn't have enough room to take away that green reflection (or something). Then I started watching this, and had a glorious lightbulb moment when you began explaining how it was done. Thank, you, my friend -- I can't wait to apply what I've learned here.

[@justketh4298]

solid walkthrough, i tried this with composite brush tho. did wonders. finally can do a complex hair key in one session!. also for green spill removal by lumetri tried to select the neutral skin tone first so that i dont mess with it and lifted green to the parallel positon mark which is considered neutral for lumetri range.

[@gryyt]

TNice tutorials was a fantastic beginner's guide, straight to the point, very clear. As a long-ti teacher I can tell you are quite apt at teacNice tutorialng!

[@paulnicholas7393]

Hold down the apple key and double click the pan behind tool icon to centre your anchor point to the shape layer you created

[@klavsvadonis]

These techniques are brilliant! Hollywood level!

[@vincentdormani60]

Holy underrated. This is some insanely useful stuff. Love it!

[@polski6812]

ground in just 17 minutes, amazing.

[@paulnicholas7393]

To save time you could animate one shape layer then parent the rest to that, or Mocha AE could quickly create a track of the head and body that you could use to animate all of your masks and shapes.

[@UnDo75]

I would say that the whole method of matching the foreground color of your character by tracking shape of the same color under the edge can be as easy as one click solution if you use a plugin from revision effect called re:fill alpha. It basiclly extend the color of your keyed character(or whatever you key) then you use your track matte and voila! You could have use a distortion effect of some sort( I use saphirre distort set to fine) to blow you keyed character then use track matte. Anyway impressive job!

[@kalashjaiswal4949]

BEST VIDEO EVER ..PERIOD!!!!!!

[@vk00000007]

You guys will get there soon. Just keep practicing I'll see you guys at the finish line

[@frankadrianart]

Just scimmed through to see if this was what I was looking for.. and it seems like it is! Thank you very much. Now all I have to do is do the actual work hehe.

[@natasha87305]

Omg, you explained it very simply! It's really easy to understand. Thank you so much! I've always wanted to learn these.

[@digitalzonesubratanandi1933]

You've actually got so quality stuff on your channel. Keep that up man!

[@ddggret]

Plz do more tutorial nd videos … I m going fr u course . u r simply just a awesome explainer or narrator with Great knowledge bro .. make more videos ❤️

[@rodolfofrancovideo]

Fantastic demonstration! This is a real advanced tutorial.

[@AFuller2020]

So basically colored correct the green halo and hand mask out the hair? This is a great tut, glad to see someone with oro gear is having issues also. This answered a lot of questions.

[@juanmiguelmartinezbalbuena2553]

Thank you. TNice tutorials is really helpful. Much respect

[@awesomejeremy1]

This tutorial is life changing!

[@ides_media]

That’s freaky awesome 😀👏👏👏🔥🔥🔥thank you so much

[@adambrooks828]

Excellent tutorial!

[@mika.a.haikonen]

Excellent tutorial. Thank you!

[@Jasperi]

an alternative to your hard matte boundary technique is using vector blur on a luma matte!

[@MatixLA]

So good, You are super talented, thanks for sharing your knowledge.

[@hikitub]

Fantastic tutorial, keep up the great videos!

[@gvuprise1465]

more please 😁😁💙💙💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯

[@simchandaraofficail1876]

WOW COOL AND THANKS FOR THIS LIKE YOU FROM CAMBODIA

[@ogdeviant8081]

thank you so much , it worked

[@ShortFootMedia]

This is so good.

[@humza4530]

I recommend everything

[@DominoDigital3D]

super cool!

[@julianbohme1782]

A Cheer’s on the workarounds. Create Creative

[@ProductReviewkk]

Oh god! Im totally lost. Guess this is an advanced keying for advanced people

[@jasdeepsinghnahar8682]

Just try rotoscoping and keylight together

[@lamc0]

Awesome tutorial! Have you tried using the Minimax effect to expand the colours of the talent's edges automatically?

[@prsnthkrishna]

I bought soft soft today!

[@ihustlemuzikfilms]

Also idk if you do 3d scenes but that would be nice to learn as well

[@_bbie]

Wow, thanks for the tutorial. Neat. Would be great if you can provide the footages though.

[@advancedindievfx]

Footage is provided in my paid course ;)

[@PineCellar]

Your Fusion Tutorial (Advanced Chroma Key Course) is outstanding and turned me into a complete Fusion newbie into feeling relatively confident working in the platform. I had some seriously bad greenscreen and I was prepared to work in After Effects for hours to get it moderately okay. It looks amazingly good now. That being said, I have a pretty powerful PC and I'm finding that the chroma keyed footage with all its nodes is causing Fusion to crash and makes it impossible to do further editing. Do you recommend rendering all clips before making my final composition in Fusion, so Fusion doesn't have to keep re-rendering all the nodes with the raw footage when I try to preview it?

[@advancedindievfx]

Yes, pre-rendering can be helpful at any point in the process that really slows your system. I typically do my de-noise pass and export that before starting the keying process. I believe Fusion has a "render cache" node that in theory lets you pre-render anything upstream of that node so you don't have to render every element all the time, but I don't remember it working flawlessly for me when I tried it (but worth a look to see if it's improved at all). This should be just like pre-rendering, but if it doesn't work as advertised, you can take whichever step in the chain slows you down the most and export it as its own tiff sequence and re-import (maybe pre-rendering hard and soft mattes is a good place to start so you don't have to process the delta keyer for every frame. Thanks for the question!

[@kalashjaiswal4949]

@@advancedindievfx THIS IS VERY HELPFULL thanks for everything ...u are GOD

[@johnlynzeeplaza7651]

OMG, thank you!!!! 3 3

[@liftsalty]

Nice video! Have you tried composite brush? I'm getting fantastic results using it in After Effects. I've got a big green screen project coming up and I'm trying to stay within AE and not take this through DaVinci resolve, but we'll see how it goes!

[@essencecartoon]

There is a way faster way to do this 😅 but this was fun to watch!

[@bordonarocarmelo]

It's the KZbin that put ads bruh

[@slobodanlazic7722]

Thanks for tNice tutorials amazin tutorial! Such a helpful one

[@kspbangunkaryautama1090]

Ily ❤️​

[@tommasomonteleone4849]

Kino Cartoon thanks

[@jimeluk6697]

make on premiere pro too thank you

[@Einat710]

where did the layer "Hard Matte Boundry" go to on 17:35?

[@advancedindievfx]

Apologies. I recorded myself doing the whole process 2x through and combined both takes in the edit. I may have re-named or forgotten to do it in one of the passes.

[@frankgenner782]

I want to know how they do it in real time like the weather man on the news

[@diegochak7560]

Great video!! congratulations. I have a question for you. How to deal with a clothes that has green parts. Thank you!

[@advancedindievfx]

You can do a 2nd alpha pass just for the green section after your main key. If edges are too close/green FG color too close to the screen, you may have to resort to a little roto. You’ll also want to use that hue vs hue in your color pass to bring the clothing back to its original shade (especially in the green and blue rages).

[@diegochak7560]

@@advancedindievfx thank you!!

[@ihustlemuzikfilms]

Should u do this for every green screen video

[@sarahmaesuantequindoza5885]

Woow woow

[@DJWeekly]

This is awesome! I did try this on blonde hair step for step and got some dancing noise on the transparent edges of the blonde hair though. How do you fix that? BTW The alpha add trick is sweet, huge help!

[@advancedindievfx]

Blonde on green is had because the yellow of the hair is so close to green. That said, play with the balance slider and possibly add a step in the alpha pass: combine 2 keys for the “soft matte” one that gets most of the way there and a separate one (you can tune differently) for the fluttering areas. Rinse and repeat.

[@DeadSpaceCadet]

Incredible tutorial! Was wondering what edge blur plug-in that is? Been on the hunt for a good one

[@advancedindievfx]

I thought it was a standalone effect from Red Giant, but I’ve since needed to reinstall, and now I can only find it inside Red Giant’s Supercomp, not by itself. The one in there is nice, but it’s a lot of power if that’s all you’re using it for.

[@DeadSpaceCadet]

@@advancedindievfx I appreciate the reply! Gotcha, I've been on the hunt for a good edge blur plug-in. I haven't been a fan of the Red Giant suite since they were bought by Maxon and now you have to subscribe to everything. The hunt continues!

[@GeorgeNicola]

What would be a good consumer camera to shoot green screen footage?

[@uthkarshm6390]

Imagine how much money he would have made if he had ads. There’s 6.6 million views.... he’d be rich

[@kamnman5599]

Thanks you! How did you come up with that method with the shaper layers?

[@advancedindievfx]

Just my lazy brain. I wanted to translate how I use the paint brush tool in “color” mode in photoshop to re-color edges into something keyframable in AE and thought well… a shape layer.

[@nomadeducator6684]

is it necessary to save your footage as a tiff sequence to get the same result of removing the green screen?

[@kevinfelix2543]

Question: Im shooting a film that requires my actors to be in deep focus backed by greenscreen background that needs to out of focus. How do i key my background if its going to be out of focus. I read that I could shoot the film with out using deep focus or focus pull and that premier pro can manipulate the depth of field in the shot to unfocus the background after its been keyed. idk, I'm really struggling to solve this problem. thanks

[@karimvfx8806]

so we still need to use other software than after effect to get decent keyer like Davinci resolve etc. so why don't we just use nuke for both keying and compositing? , i appreciate the tutorial but i though i would be able to do all in AE without problems...

[@advancedindievfx]

Back when I originally made this tutorial Nuke didn’t have an affordable license (cheapest was like $1,200 for 3 months, now you can get it for $500/year on an indi license which is on par with creative cloud subscription). If you’ve got Nuke use nuke!

[@SR_PRODUCTIONS]

Can we get a tutorial on you made them move with the background

[@advancedindievfx]

Hi, I'm actually working on my next tutorial now: Camera projection. which is how I got the miniature into the computer so I could have the background move with the camera. I still work full time, so it's taking a bit, but it'll be out this year!

[@kwizzi2343]

guys, i have a 5 min video where i have 3-4 green screen scenes. The others scenes are without green screen. How can i define the beginn and end of the green screen. because when i use keylight, it automatically works for the whole video and destroy my coloures if i change screen matte settings? thanks for any response

[@petersolomon5227]

A "paid plugin"? Advanced Indie VFX, which company make Edge Work, Edge Dissolve, Edge Finder and Blur Edges plugins for After Effects?

[@sergenguessan971]

i have to turn off antyvirus?

[@felipetoro6948]

+REP

[@mavieskizz]

Thanks a lot for the content, but it's very distracting that you constantly move the mouse unnecessarily.

[@rodrigopina2558]

Is there a way to do it on Microsoft Paint??

[@ThriveProduction]

What is that search bar tool you're using?

[@advancedindievfx]

That is “FX Console” it’s free from VideoCopilot.net and it’s amazing!

[@mohamedbensmaine6608]

cant even get past the part on how to make a w file lmao

[@zbigniewmajchrowski6480]

!

[@srrawat26]

lel

[@thorstein2259]

lol

[@ExoFotografia]

Absolutely not... this video is too fast

[@hosseinsharifi6116]

😏😴😴very long

[@Frontigenics]

this is an oxymoron... you shouldn't be using After Effects for anything "Advanced"

[@advancedindievfx]

I agree, now that I’ve played with node based compositors like nuke / fusion it’s hard to go back. But sometimes the post house makes you use their in-house computers, and sometimes AE is all you get to work with. If I had a say, I’d always key with a clean plate node which doesn’t really exist in AE.

[@Frontigenics]

@@advancedindievfx true, that's a good point...

[@tomsquad1979]

Do u have a link to the edge blur plug in? Have been looking for it everywhere but can’t find it.

[@justketh4298]

its part of red giant plugin suit

[@tomsquad1979]

@@justketh4298 not anymore

[@musictrainingonline]

This will hopefully be all completely unnecessary to learn very soon thanks to AI. The video is of course very impressive, but only useful for people that work in that field already. For me, a musician who wants to do music video tutorials using a green screen, it is way too advanced. Great job though!