Indepth Advanced Keying Process for Keylight in After Effects 2024 (Beginner Friendly)

The key to keying is using multiple keys. Chroma or green screen keying in After Effects 2024 is actually a rather easy and straight forward process and if the footage is somewhat decent, meaning it's evenly lit but MOST importantly was shot with a high shutter speed, getting a clean mask to composite your keyed footage into a new background or CGI environment in Blender is just a matter of following a few simple steps.
Start by masking out the unnecessary elements with a garbage mask to remove C-stands and whatnot. Then split the keying into several keys, minimum two, but preferably three or more keys using the Keylight effect. Then trim the mask using a simple choker and clean it using the Key Cleaner effect. This will result in a actually somewhat good key. You can then improve the mask even more by using the amazing Refine Soft Matte or Refine Hard Matte effects which removes the dark edges around the actor. Then remove the green spill using the Advanced Spill Suppressor.
This method works with both well lit footage and more tricky and complex keys and hair. And using the new and improved multi-frame rendering in After Effects 2024, playback and rendering works a lot better. Hope this help! 😊
See how I combined the footage with CG elements in Blender 3.0:
• Real-Time Matchmoving ...
Timestamps:
💡 00:00 Intro to video
💡 00:15 tiedtke.
💡 00:21 Overview
💡 00:55 Garbage Matte
💡 01:31 Remove Green Tint
💡 03:27 Keylight - Light Green / Highlights
💡 05:19 Keylight - Dark Green / Shadows
💡 06:39 Simple Choker / Key Cleaner
💡 08:38 Refine Hard Matte
💡 10:00 Advanced Spill Suppressor
💡 11:00 Adding CG Shadows
💡 12:30 Extra Tips
💡 13:17 Rendering
💡 13:50 Outro
Thanks for watching, if you like the video feel free to like and subscribe for more tutorials on #aftereffects #editing and #3d
Follow my journey to become a Layout, Modeler and Lighting 3D artist working in the industry.
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💻 𝗦𝗼𝗳𝘁𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲:
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I've worked 8+ years as a Director of Photography in Sweden, working on projects ranging from feature films to commercials and music videos. Currently studying at Visual Magic in Skellefteå, Sweden. Years active in the 3D industry is about 1 year. Focusing on 3D modeling, layout and lighting which is my passion.
✉️ For any business inquiries, email me at [e-mail]
👋 For any personal questions DM me at tiedtke

[@tiedtkeio]

Hope this is helpful for someone! Please let me know if you want a tutorial on something else regarding After Effects, Blender, Maya, DaVinci or Premiere. 😊🙏

[@SphepheloZikhaliGhettoFF]

Can you please do blender tutorial for beginners 😃

[@vishisht8688]

First of all... I am very amazed as I was searching for these tips for months and now i got them... all thanks to you. If it is no trouble then would you show how to camera track in either After Effects or Blender and use it for VFX. I am kinda stuck with a scene where i am not getting a good result, and would really appreciate help in cleaning the process. Tbh the process that you showed was so helpful.

[@tiedtkeio]

@@SphepheloZikhaliGhettoFF Sure! :)

[@tiedtkeio]

@@vishisht8688 Thank you, really glad to hear that! Absolutely, coming up! 😄

[@madhupai9683]

Amazing! Can you do or point me to the tutorial where you placed the background behind her and how you matched perspective, lights and color?

[@kazi3d]

Dude this up until now must be the best tutorial for green screen I have come across. U da 👨. Keep the Tuts coming and thnx for this. Best regards.

[@tiedtkeio]

Wow that makes me so happy to hear!! ❤️ Thanks for watching! 🙏🙏

[@robertcrozier28]

That was excellent, one of the best tutorials I've seen on keying with lots of great info that I hadn't heard before.

[@tiedtkeio]

Fantastic, makes me happy to hear Robert! 🙂🙏🙏

[@BuckyBuckyjr]

insane value man

[@tenettttt]

Inspirerande och lättöverskådligt. Kudos.

[@tiedtkeio]

Underbart kul att höra! Tack för intresset! 😊🙏

[@magnusnilsson8427]

Grymt Michael!

[@minjo.studio]

Great Tutorial - thank you!

[@marecdigital4891]

Big thanks sir!

[@ornelavaldez8814]

BEST VIDEO ON THE INTERNET EVER, my chroma keys have never been so good and sooo easy, thanks a lot

[@tiedtkeio]

Wow, thank you for your so nice comments, I'm really glad I could help!! ❤

[@coyote23b]

Thank you very much for the tutorial. I am keying a similar full body shot with both light and darks in the green screen. This worked fantastic and the key looks amazing. Much appreciated!

[@OffWorldFilms_UK]

The best tutorial for keying in After Effects, very well thought-out and implemented, well done.

[@BillZebubproductions]

Thanks. I had not used separate adjustment layers for the various keylight and choker effects. I will try this on my next project.

[@moonsdonut5188]

WOW you made this so easy and relaxing looking at this video is a joy to watch

[@tiedtkeio]

Thank you so much for watching, I'm really glad you like it! 🤗

[@AFuller2020]

That was the best tutorial on keying I have ever scene, thank you!

[@tiedtkeio]

Wow that makes me really glad to hear!! Thank you Alvin! :)

[@BenDeHart]

This is fantastic, thank you for this tutorial

[@tiedtkeio]

Thank you for watching! 🤗

[@General111100]

The best explanation in youtube academy! thank you!

[@tiedtkeio]

Wow thank you John! That means so much to hear! ❤️️

[@hamoodyvisuals]

Thank you thank you !!

[@tiedtkeio]

Thanks for watching! 🤗

[@NLENinjaEffects]

I've never thought of using multiple adjustment layers to key out green screen clips. Definitely gonna try this out

[@tiedtkeio]

Nice! 🤩🙏

[@vince6625]

The best and most relaxing keying tutorial I have found on YT. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! You saved my a**!

[@tiedtkeio]

Haha wow this makes me so happy to read. I'm glad I could help Vince! Have an amazing day! 🙏

[@boogerjones664]

I really enjoyed the calming vibe of your tutorials

[@tiedtkeio]

I'm happy to hear that! It's always hard to know if people enjoy the content I do or not, but I try to think how I prefer tutorials when learning myself and do that. 🙂🙏

[@noirpsnoir2236]

Thank you for this amazing tutorial. It's not beginner friendly but super beginner friendly!!

[@tiedtkeio]

Thanks for watching! Glad you liked it! 😊

[@danysalloum5086]

Thank u, u r great man

[@tiedtkeio]

Thanks Dany! Glad you liked it. 🤓

[@yagoras]

Great tutorial, very useful!

[@tiedtkeio]

Thank you Yagoras, glad I could help! 😊

[@TejaArboleda]

Very good tutorial, thank you.

[@tiedtkeio]

Thank you Teja!! Glad you liked it! 😊

[@jesustornero]

Great stuff. Thank you. 😊👍

[@tiedtkeio]

Happy to help! Thanks for watching! 🙂

[@ahmedyadam7240]

Perfect work my friend Thanks

[@tiedtkeio]

Glad I could help! Thanks for watching!!

[@patricialina3905]

I want to be a calm editor like you haahahah, What peace this tutorial brought me !It doesn't even look like you work with audiovisual to be so peaceful hahaha I loved this tutorial!

[@tiedtkeio]

Haha thank you Patricia!! 🙂❤️️

[@MarkAnderson-ip9iw]

Great info easy to follow...

[@tiedtkeio]

Thank you Mark!! Happy to hear that! 😃

[@smartsegment4685]

Great job I hope part 3 will be the blender works to achive this :)

[@Mr.Confused-mc]

Wow nice tutorial bro

[@tiedtkeio]

I'm happy you liked it! Thanks for watching! ☺️🙏

[@camilocamargo9099]

Thank you for share i dont know why you dont have more than 300.000 likes , great tutorial

[@HansvanPutten]

Thank you!! Multiple keys makes so much sense, it should solve my problem of bit of green in the jacket I'm trying to mask. I'm confident it will....

[@tiedtkeio]

Great! Hope it worked out for you! 😊

[@FlowingCamera]

Thank-you so much ! I echo what Robert Crozier said, one of the best tutorials I've seen. I happen to work at a studio that records TV and radio. I take care of studio 4 which is greenscreen, a big space with curved cyc wall. Even though it's more optimal for recording, there's some keys that are a real pain to key. One I was working on this morning actually ... arrrg, the hair ! Am going to re-visit that problem child using what you showed us and let you know how it worked. Again thanks !!!

[@TheResse561]

You sir, are a god sent. Thank you very much for your help. This video was very informative.

[@tiedtkeio]

Thank you Resse! I'm happy to help! 😍👌

[@TheResse561]

@@tiedtkeio I was using “ultra key” in premier, and if I didn’t light the green screen nearly perfect, I was getting some nasty pulls. I was intimidated by Keylight. However, the first time I used your techniques, the pulls were remarkable. You’re my hero.

[@gydeax]

I thought it was wonderful.

[@Robertmillsjr]

Best after effects keying tutorial I've seen. :) Nice work. I'm using Runway ML on a chroma key shot and it couldn't key it to my standards.

[@tiedtkeio]

Happy to hear that Robert! Thanks for watching! 🙂🙏

[@PunjabiHeera]

I wish we could see the font on your screen clearly, it is way too blurry, but other than that, awesome tutorial. THANK YOU SO MUCH SIR! LOVE IT!

[@RTnoone1196]

Please make a tutorial on how to do compositing by nodes and rendering in the same video😅

[@tiedtkeio]

Sure, will do! 😊

[@petersolomon5227]

tiedtke, a very useful tutorial, thank you. And how refreshing to view a KZbin tutorial that is devoid of tub thumping, "look at me" antics of young channel operators in search of a "brand".

[@tiedtkeio]

Thank you Peter! Glad you liked it! 🙏🙏

[@aaronglass890]

Excellent tutorial man, keeping it simple without all the fluff. When learning, we don't want to know every hot key, every formula, etc., we just want to see how someone DOES what we're looking to do. This is spot on.

[@tiedtkeio]

Thank you Aaron, it makes me really glad to hear that it's appreciated! Stay awesome! 🙏

[@diegochak7560]

The best chromakey tutorial!! thank you very much and congratulations. I wanted to ask you a question, how do you work when the subject has clothes with green details?

[@tiedtkeio]

Thank you for watching! The great thing about using multiple adjustment layers is that even if there is green on the outfit/actor, you can select one of the layers that's causing issues for example the Keylight layer and then draw a mask around the area. You'll have to keyframe the mask to match any movement. When masking/keyframeing is done, simply copy this mask to any other layer that's causing issues. :)

[@diegochak7560]

@@tiedtkeio Great! thanks again

[@erkankutluozen]

A highly successful tutorial video! I work within the industry, and I believe it's a very successful video.. 🤜🤛 booommm

[@GraphEnotik-md8ec]

please, tell how do u make fake shadows! it will be very helpful and cool. thanks for the video

[@SirLithen]

Overall probably the best AE keying tutorial I've seen. Kinda wish you would have gone into a bit more detail regarding some stuff, like what counts as a dark or light background in regards to the Spill Suppressor? You went with Ultra, but I would have guessed that a lit green screen is a light background.

[@tiedtkeio]

Wow thank you Felix! 🙂🙏 Yes, that's true. I'm new to educating through tutorials so there's lots of improvement for me there. ☺️ Regarding the Spill I meant dark/light for the end result. For my shot with the car, the background behind her is very bright so therefore I used Ultra for my final render. 🙌🏾

[@SirLithen]

@@tiedtkeio Ah okay, that makes sense. I did pull off a pretty sweet key on some difficult footage with your technique, something I haven't been able to do before, so I'm the one who should be thanking you :)

[@methodefilms6323]

thx fore your tutor pls can make tutorial about HDRI MAKER and greenscreen footage

[@tiedtkeio]

Thank you for watching!! I will! 😊

[@phillipgaitan4132]

Hi, I have a question for you. FIRST, thanks for this tutorial. Super helpful! I am wondering how you would block the key on the actress if she had a green logo on her shirt. I am trying to do a project with cans but they have both blue and green in their designs. How could I block the key from affecting the interior of the can? Thanks!

[@tiedtkeio]

Thank you Philip for watching! Glad you liked it! Well, there are several ways to prevent that. The reason I used only one effect on each adjustment layer instead of all on one is just because of that reason you mentioned. In the instance that the actor has green on the outfit you can easily just select the layer with Keylight and draw a mask around the green logo, then invert the mask in the mask settings and simply track it forward throughout the shot. Then copy the mask (or masks if you need multiple) and paste them on all other layers above that interfere with the logo. 👌

[@contactojaime]

Thanks so much. One question: do you work with the log footage without any rec709 conversion?

[@tiedtkeio]

Hi Jamie, yes I do! However I've learned new things myself since making this video and now I would probably convert the footage to an intermediate color space, such as ACEScg or Davinci Wide Gamut as those are spaces intended for working with things like color, keying and matte extraction. 😊

[@contactojaime]

@@tiedtkeio Thanks so much for your time!

[@mazwendodajaelandlovu1422]

thank you for the vedio but isnt when she is sitting on th bonet of the car the car shocks should respond

[@stevens3d]

Can you make a tutorial for the tracking, the 3d background etc please ? It Can be realy insteresting. Did you do the background with Unreal or an other program ?

[@tiedtkeio]

I actually already have! It's on my channel. It's made in Blender, which is free. 😊

[@stevens3d]

@@tiedtkeio Yes i see it thanks

[@manmadeartists]

I want to work with greenscreen in a blender environment soon same as you did in your outro. Why did you choose png as render and not a video format for blender? Maybe if I want to keep the audio in my greenscreen footage to match animated objects to the audio? Does that make any sense or does it kill my computer? Do you have any insights on that you could share? Maybe in an extra video? I just saw the quick lazy tutorials of Ian Hubert but as always things maybe appear easier than they are in practice. And maybe there are people around here that have a lot of knowledge and tips about it. I take it all🙌🏻😂 Thanks in advance!

[@tiedtkeio]

Firstly, thanks for watching! I'm glad you're here! 🙏 Secondly, I chose png as render because it's easier to playback in Blender. It might seem weird, but that's the way it is. In a professional workflow you always create the visuals first, then you add audio in an editing software such as Premiere or DaVinci after. I have extra videos coming too, I'm making more! Ian Hubert is my god, but the important thing to remember about his videos is that it's just that simple and easy because he really knows what he's doing and even more importantly "why" he's doing it. If you're new to Blender you can't just come up with that stuff, you need to know how the program works first. 😊

[@manmadeartists]

@@tiedtkeio Thank you so much for the quick reply!😍 thanks for the explanation why you chose pngs, too. And yes you’re right about people like ian and others who know what they’re doing. Without people like you sharing they’re work and wisdom I would be totally lost trying to get into blender.

[@methodefilms6323]

how to set your CGI HDRI Maker 2.0 environment

[@FlowingCamera]

tiedtke, I followed the steps you shared in this video and applied it to one of my greenscreen videos and it still couldn't clean up properly around his hair. Am wondering if I uploaded and 20-30 second excerpt of the raw footage to Dropbox and sent you the link could you test it out ? Maybe I did a misstep.

[@dlebar9962]

awesome tutorial but it turn black and i export to blender it didnt transparent

[@Right_rules]

Норм кеинг

[@marthjel]

Mycket bra grejer!

[@tiedtkeio]

Stort tack Martin! Glad jag kunde hjälpa lite. 🙂

[@ThomasGrey1212]

This didn't work for me. Putting the keylight on an adjustment layer just turns the green screen black rather than transparent...

[@qusayquraishi1607]

Hello thanks you , can I call you