Nuke Compositing Masterclass: Keying - Part 1

Explore the practical art and science behind high-quality vfx compositing and its mechanism. Learn from a veteran compositor with more than seven years of film and TV experience.

Explore the full keying workflow from fundamentals to advanced steps, tackling real production shots with a practical, high-quality VFX pipeline that preserves the original plate and ensures artifact-free composites.

From student perspective, learn the core principles of keying with clear what, how, and why. Apply a strategy-concept based approach to tackle shots in high-quality production across node-based compositing software.

Express special thanks to vfx supervisors, mentors, and colleagues for learning from them and exploring micro aspects of the working pipeline, inspiring this new compositing masterclass.

Explore the course breakdown of the Nuke compositing masterclass: learn image based care and screen based care keying workflows with a node-based workflow and pre-processing operations for pixel-perfect, non-destructive production.

Explore the art and science of keying, mastering alpha, masks, and mattes to replace backgrounds and color-correct specific areas through flow graphs, from single images to sequences.

Use a garbage matte to remove unwanted regions from a key, drawing a rough roto, then fill holes with a mask operation for a clean key.

Master matte compositing operations to remove or combine mattes using tools like mask and the max operation. Learn how to extract clean mattes, fill holes, and achieve a complete key.

Explore the two main keyer types—image-based and screen-based—through luma-based extraction, color correction, and the use of key light and garbage matte for compositing a new background.

Pre-process the plate before keying by denoising the greens, removing markers, and performing tick checks to eliminate film artifacts and produce clean, soft-edged mattes.

Perform a tech check to pre-process a film sequence, fix flickers with a single clone brush stroke, and adjust softness. Inspect frames and sample out-of-frame areas to protect the subject.

Split the sequence into four regions and apply keying, roto, crop, and clone brush work in Nuke to remove flicker artifacts and clean up each region.

Master tech checks in nuke by removing tick checks with a clone brush and single-stroke painting, using crop, reformat, and node graph techniques across multiple regions.

Remove markers from the plate using paint with a clone brush, set lifetime to all frames, then offset marker pixels with roto and transform mask via translate X and Y.

Apply marker removal in Nuke using color-based keying, roto shapes, and suppression techniques to neutralize marker colors and blend across blue backing and other regions.

Perform color-based keying to remove markers across multiple regions, extracting keys from red, blue, and green markers, and refine with roto, alpha masks, and blur for clean mattes.

Remove blue backing markers and refine keying by sampling alpha, adjusting red, green, and blue channels, and blending a clean map with the backdrop for a final marker-free key.

Remove yellow markers overlapping with the character using color-channel contrast and tracked roto. Track motion and apply keying, spill suppression, and noise/grain recreation to preserve detail and original plate.

Explore marker removal across frames in Nuke, using roto, copy-paste tracking, keying, masks, and garbage mat to remove markers while preserving grain and shot details.

Explore denoise in Nuke with the denoise node (d-nice tool) to improve key extraction, comparing it to median filter, and optimize the analysis region for a cleaner alpha.

Master the reduce noise workflow in Nuke for keying, building noise profiles and preserving hair and edge details while comparing with median filter and denoise tools.

Explore luma keying in Nuke by extracting a sky matte from luminance, removing grain, applying noise reduction, and refining a perfect black-and-white matte before color correcting the sky.

Master the Nuke chroma keyer using the HSV tool to extract a canyon matte, remove noise, refine the garbage matte, and color-correct canyon and water for seamless compositing.

Use the chroma keyer HSV tool to isolate water and canyon regions. Refine alpha mattes with roto and color correction, adding a blue tint for a convincing key.

Apply hue keyer to extract a matte from the green tree by sampling hue ranges, adjusting saturation, and color correcting for edges and holdout regions.

Apply saturation care with a saturation keyer to isolate red-saturated building regions, create a sky matt with denoise and roto matt, and refine with color correction.

Learn to use Nuke's chroma keyer for blue/green screen keying, sampling sky color, reducing noise, and color-correcting to achieve soft edges and a clean alpha matte.

Create an expression-based RGV keyer in Nuke to build an alpha matte from red, green, blue. Apply noise reduction, roto, black-point tweaks, and a color look-up for correction.

Explore advanced color lookups and alpha control in Nuke to refine keying with custom keyer, gamma adjustments, black and white point management, and region-specific masking for clean mattes.

Master the difference keyer to create accurate mattes by matching color and lighting between a plate and its clean plate, then refine alpha via channel-based grading, shuffle, and noise reduction.

Learn the difference keyer workflow to build accurate mattes by swapping inputs, rechanneling rgb channels, and using max operations to blend mattes for compositing.

Master channel difference keyer techniques by analyzing red, green, and blue channels to extract keys, adjust grain with noise, and apply color correction and glow for a dramatic final plate.

Explore colorspace keying in Nuke by converting rgb to hsv, extracting the alpha from the red channel, and refining with mats and color corrections for a clean garbage matte.

Explore colorspace keying with HSV and hue-saturation-lightness, converting the blue channel to alpha and adjusting black, white, and gamma for a clean key. Blend mattes for isolation.

Apply the Lou soft matte Nord workflow to extract alpha from the input sky, refine with alpha channels and rotos, and blend with key mix for clean edges.

Explore lomac and luma formats to create precise soft and core mattes, refine with black/white point, roto, erode, blur, and node-based operations to achieve pixel-perfect keying.

Learn to refine chroma keying and roto workflows in Nuke, creating precise alpha mattes through hue-saturation-value adjustments, rotoscoping, and max operations to merge mattes, with edge softening and alpha normalization.

Refine keying in Nuke by comparing input and background, extracting the matte via channel key and shuffle, softening edges, and filling holes for a clean cap region.

Explore a complete Nuke compositing workflow: copy alpha onto the input plate, merge A over B with a background, and refine edges using erode and blur for smooth integration.

Learn age extension to extend the alpha matte, erode and promote edges, then apply blur with plastic blur, unpretty multiply, and grain for a clean pre multiplied composite.

demonstrates edge preservation in Nuke keying by comparing 1-pixel and multi-pixel blurs, applying inward masks, and copying the original alpha to restore soft edges and eliminate white edge artifacts.

Finalize the composite by matching grain between foreground and background, apply edge grain, and balance greens with a multiply node while playing the sequence to verify the result.

Practice extracting and color correcting a blue airplane strip using mattes, channel splitting, roto, and alpha mattes in Nuke, then match brightness, contrast, and saturation for seamless compositing.

Extract bounce light mats from alpha channels using roto shapes and color-correct them. Blend mats with blur and max operations, apply light wrap with light traps, and reformat to exr.

extract high quality motion blur key from input plates by using soft matte and core matte workflows, apply reduced noise, and composite with a new background while preserving edge detail.

Learn to create soft matte motion blur mattes in Nuke using roto, erode, alpha, and color lookup to refine edges and blend with the original plate.

Learn to create and combine soft matte and core matte in Nuke. Use motion blur, white point adjustments, max operations, and roto to fill holes and blend edges.

Master premultiplied alpha workflows and edge extension for keying in Nuke, building soft and core mattes for screen right character and motion blur areas, then composite with background.

Learn to manage motion blur edges and spill using advanced keying in Nuke, including edge extension, roto shaping, spill suppression, and matte extraction for precise compositing.

Learn to integrate grain with age extension and edge extension in Nuke, using premult, copy, and alpha handling to produce clean edges and a seamless foreground/background composite.

Create a Nuke composite with flytrap effects, soft and core light traps, and a plus merge, then crop and compare the final render to the input plate.

Learn advanced keying in Nuke: extract clean mattes from input plates, apply luminance keys for sky replacement, and split motion blur and normal edges into soft mattes to preserve detail.

Build a soft matte around Nord Stream region using roto to fill holes and control opacity. Combine motion blur, edge care, color lookup, and alpha adjustments for a seamless composite.

Combine soft matte and core matte workflows in Nuke to preserve motion blur while filling opacity. Leverage erode, color lookup, and input pipe to refine edges and alpha.

Explore advanced keying workflows in nuke, combining soft matte and core matte to produce a clean, high-opacity key, fill holes, and refine edges with color adjustments, blur, and max operations.

Master advanced keying in Nuke with luma matte extraction and alpha grading. Refine core and soft mattes using erode, blur, and roto, and fill holes with max merge.

Switch between input and d-nice plates to copy mattes, apply grain and alpha operations, and refine with age extension using clear core, erode, and box-filter to achieve pixel-perfect composites.

Master edge extension and blur workflows to create clean edges and accurate alpha in Nuke. Optimize grain placement for foreground and background while preserving fine details.

Master light wrapping and light traps in a Nuke compositing workflow, aligning foreground and background with alpha, mats, and grain for seamless integration.