Great new feature in 2026.1

[allklier]

There’s a much awaited feature in 2026.1 which for some reason didn’t seem to have made the announcement (or I missed it).

Starting in 2026.1 you can now use BFX to generate alpha channels for the Image effect in the timeline. So if you’re tired of the Diamond Keyer, and rather would use the 3D Keyer, you can.

Here’s an example:

Standard stock clip…

Add a BFX in front of Image in the TL-FX…

Key (or do other things that create an alpha channel) to your heart’s content…

You can now use that alpha channel in a selective in Image with 2 steps…

Step 1: Select the surface and disable the ‘Active’ button under blending. This is the new feature (and button) in 2026.1. Previously the surface automatically applied a blending mode, thus comping the matte, instead of just using it as a selective.

Step 2: In the selective, go into the ‘Controls’ section, the input matte will already be set to Media 0. But you have to change the mode to ‘Alpha’, and if applicable invert it. That now applies the alpha channel passed in from BFX to this selective.

Result - basic color move based on the 3D Key in BFX

Many thanks to @FrancisBouillon for the conversations at NAB about this, and following up promptly and giving us this much desired enhancement so quickly. Dreams do come true.

[johnag]

Hi, another interesting way of adding a matte to the image node on the timeline is with an TL/OFX. I just used it on a job where I used MOCHA’s new ML matte tool and passed the matte over to image on the timeline. You don’t even need to use a bfx for it. Use the green or grey OFX.

Also, @flaxmut gave me the idea of a feature request to have the matte selective in image observe the RGB channels from the matte input. If this could work then you could have 3 mattes going into a combine node feeding the matte out of the bfx and then be able to select R G or B in image as the matte source. @fredwarren @FrancisBouillon would this be possible?

[allklier]

Yes, the ability to use Mocha masks this way in the timeline will be a nice timesaver, no need to save them out as files and copy them into Image.