The new AI-powered Roto Brush 2.0 for After Effects is now in the public beta and it’s amazing

Adobe After Effects hasn’t seen a big update in a little while, and it seemed to have been skipped over during last month’s big update – although, even if it had, the new app icons would’ve still probably stolen the show. But a little teaser was posted about an upcoming feature – the AI-powered Roro Brush 2.0.

The new tool is now available in the latest public beta of After Effects, and Jordy and the team at Cinecom took it for a spin. If their video is anything to go by, it looks pretty incredible and may potentially negate the need to ever use a green screen again for a lot of shots.

The Cinecom team made a little dance video, and when you watch it, it’s difficult to spot exactly how it’s done until you see it all broken down. But instead of just shooting a test and showing it off as a showcase, they turn it into a tutorial so that we can all see what to expect when it finally comes to the retail version (although anybody with a CC account should be able to get the beta through the Creative Cloud app).

Was the whole thing shot in front of a green screen? No, it was all shot at the locations seen in each of the clips the video contains. But they’ve been cut out so well, that it’s virtually impossible to spot the joins – especially after a little assistance from the Puppet Warp tool.

What’s particularly impressive, though, is that they were able to blend motion graphics elements in that seemingly go both behind and in front of the subject, separate from the environment itself, which took a lot more clean up work with the old Roto Brush!

It offers all kinds of implications for filmmakers to composite foreground and background elements into a scene. Want to make it look like your subject’s dashing across a busy road packed full of cars? No problem. Want to have them slow-motion walk away from a huge explosion with a full light wrap that looks like it was actually shot that way? Well, now you can do that at the location, using the actual lighting that’s on the rest of the scene. No more having to try to match the lighting on your subject in front of a green screen!

Have you had a play with it yet?