# VFX and compositing

Period: 2023 – now · Era: 2023 · The Cambrian Explosion

Mattes, clean plates, relighting and edits made inside the shot.

AI entered the VFX pipeline before it could make a shot: Runway's Green Screen pulled mattes in a browser, and Wonder Studio (July 2023) swapped a filmed actor for a CG character. Generative tools then erased and replaced objects, and since 2025 edit models change footage from a prompt (Runway Aleph, Luma Modify) while relighting tools turn a live plate into something you can light after the shoot.

## How it worked

1. **Pull the matte without a green screen** when you can, or key cleanly when you shot one (CorridorKey).
2. **Separate the plates:** erase the character for a clean background, animate character and environment separately, and layer them.
3. **Edit the shot from a prompt:** swap objects, change the weather, relight or reframe with Aleph or Luma Modify, and let Aleph 2.0 carry one change across the sequence.
4. **Relight after the shoot:** Beeble SwitchLight turns footage into normals, albedo and roughness so an actor can be lit like a CG asset.
5. **Finish in your compositor;** the generated layers are plates, not the final frame.

## Why it mattered

This is where AI meets crews that already exist. It saves the shots a production already has rather than replacing them, which is why studios adopted it first.

## Tools of the era

- Runway Green Screen: https://runwayml.com
- Wonder Studio (2023): https://wonderdynamics.com
- Pika 2.2 (Pikadditions, Pikaswaps, Pikaframes) (2025): https://pika.art
- Runway Aleph (2025): https://runway.com/research/introducing-runway-aleph
- Luma Modify Video (2025): https://lumalabs.ai/news/introducing-modify-video
- Beeble SwitchLight (2025): https://beeble.ai
- CorridorKey (2026): https://github.com/nikopueringer/CorridorKey
- Runway Aleph 2.0 + Edit Studio (2026): https://runway.com

## Example videos and posts

- Clean plate, green screen and layered animation in Runway · Timmy: https://x.com/IXITimmyIXI/status/1781365664009142506
- Nine practical ways to use Runway Aleph · Curious Refuge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAWMu058Lj8
- Relighting actors after filming, and skipping the comp · Corridor Crew: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z36LDna4nZg
- Inside AI hybrid filmmaking: Beeble and BYKAI · Beeble: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hxwyXo1jmY
- How to enhance live action footage with AI · Runway: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JZPCejrPx4

## Sources

- Wonder Studio is now available: https://www.cgchannel.com/2023/07/wonder-studio-is-now-available/

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Source: https://aifilmhistory.org/workflows/craft-vfx