|
|
|
|
The Videoguys' Insider Vol 2 Issue 6
Videoguy: Great to see you again Tim. Over the past few months you guys have introduced a bunch of new software versions. Graffiti 2.2, Red 2.5 Continuum Complete for Xpress DV and a 6.1 update of Boris FX. What's new from the folks at Boris? |
|
What's new from the folks at Boris?
The same is true of GRAFFITI, of course, which does what no other titlers even attempt. GRAFFITI 2.1 uses native vector text for exceptionally sharp titles. Vector tools also enable animated text on path, which no other titler offers inside any NLE, and the feature we call Type On adds unprecedented one-click animation power to both 2D and 3D titling. Click here for a Quicktime demo And like FX 6.1, GRAFFITI 2.1 supports third-party After Effects plug-ins directly inside a nonlinear editing environment. In fact, we've taken advantage of that “plug-in within a plug-in” architecture to add some new features of our own to FX and GRAFFITI. They're free downloads from www.borisfx.com for registered users (although we also have a few fully-functional sample filters for folks to try out). One of the more popular downloads is our new Light Zoom filter for users of Boris RED, which works great with both video and text.We also have Edge Light for GRAFFITI users, a Heart Generator filter for FX users, and more. Gary: Before we talk more about new filters, I have to ask about Boris RED. GRAFFITI and FX are two of the most popular plug-ins out there. How does Boris RED fit with them? Tim: Boris RED combines the titling from Boris GRAFFITI, with the advanced image processing and transition power in Boris FX into a single application, and adds even more. In fact, RED adds features that no other third-party plug-in has ever added to any NLE, including motion tracking, vector paint, and rotoscoping , which uses our vector animation tools to create powerful custom masks. The image here shows using RED's pen tool to draw a mask precisely around the astronaut's helmet.
Gary: So if a user has RED, it sounds like they don't need GRAFFITI and FX anymore. Tim: That's right. RED combines them, and add more. RED uses the same interface, so if somebody knows how to use FX and GRAFFITI, they already know most of RED's interface as well. Projects created in those plug-ins can be moved into RED as well, so previous work isn't lost. Best of all, we offer a very aggressive upgrade price for customers who already own one of our other plug-in applications. If a user is looking for the ultimate in effects and titling, we strongly encourage them to upgrade to Boris RED . Gary: It's great that RED works as both a standalone application and a plug-in! Users needing those high-end effects features have always had to go outside their NLEs to get them. Tim: That's one of the strongest features that separates RED from other effects applications like After Effects, Commotion and combustion: all of them are very capable, but none of them works directly inside the full range of NLEs that RED does, if they work inside an NLE at all. Most of them don't. Building effects in the NLE makes life dramatically easier for editors. They don't have to worry about importing and exporting footage, field order, image quality degradation, or any of the other logistical hurdles that factor into using external applications. RED has other features that separate it from other effects applications, of course. We have well over 1000 effects and title presets, so users don't have to spend a lot of time learning before they can start using RED. We feature stronger titling capabilities than the others, are the only application to offer native 3D extrusion and animation, integrated texture creation for 2D and 3D elements – textures like wood, granite, marble, and reptilian skin can all be created and animated inside Boris RED. Here's an animation that combines some of these elements with a 3D camera. Click here for a Quicktime demo Another way to think of it is this: by meeting every effects need in a single application, we reduce the number of applications an editor has to learn besides the NLE to one: Boris RED. They have the effects they need, where they need them. No other effects solutions do what we do, and none of them work where we do. Gary: We're finding that a lot of our customers aren't looking as hard at third-party effects add-ons as their NLEs become more capable of advanced effects.
Click here for a Quicktime demo We offer motion tracking with four-point tracking and corner pinning. Even our motion stabilizer has four points, to pull even the most difficult tracks. These allow editors to match combined graphics and effects with video they've already shot. Users have already seen RED's tracking being used everywhere from ESPN to America's Most Wanted. You might imagine creating the effect below with a combination of masks filters and keyframing it all one filter at a time, but it was all just a couple of clicks, all on a single video track, using RED's built-in masking tools for filters, and automatically animated with motion tracking.
The image here started as a simple black outline in Illustrator, in fact. It was only a couple of clicks to add color, animate the stroke and fill, extrude one of the layers, add a reflection map of the background video, and then animate it all in 3D space.
You can't do all that inside any other NLE, or inside any other effects solution, for that matter. No matter how advanced your NLE is, RED will take its titling and effects further than ever. Gary: I see that you've just started shipping an update to Boris RED. What's new in version 2.5?
An option called “Overshoot” adds a dynamic “bounce” to animated text. The example you see here was created with ZERO keyframes! Click here for a Quicktime demo There are many more additions, including dynamic new graphic animation capabilities, as well as some of the new filters I mentioned earlier.
Gary: When you say new filters, you have to be talking about Boris CONTINUUM COMPLETE. How many filters are we talking about?
Here's a look at the filters in a single category, Effects Gary: Boris has been making plug-ins for Avid for a long time, haven't they? Tim: Yes we have. In fact Boris introduced the very first plug-in for Avid. We continue to make more plug-in products for Avid than any other company , and Avid users have responded by making us the most widely distributed Avid plug-ins as well. Because we're so familiar with both the needs of Avid editors and Avid's plug-in architecture, we were able to provide features throughout our filters that make common effects tasks much easier than other products do. One of the most important of these is how easy it is to apply CONTINUUM filters to titles created using the Avid title tool. This is quite a chore in other Avid plug-in. We make it literally a single click.
We also make it very easy to combine layers within a single filter. There's no need to nest or go to the lengths that Avid users might have had to go to before: again, with CONTINUUM COMPLETE AVX, it's a single click. Even a novice Avid user will discover that you can't control a filtered layer separately from the layers beneath it on the Avid timeline. We came up with a clever way around this in CONTINUUM, by adding geometric and drop shadow controls within the filter. For example, you could apply a chroma key to a clip, resize and reposition it as a picture-in-picture effect on top of another layer, and a soft, animating drop shadow , all in one pass on a single layer. It means easier effects creation, and faster rendering.
Gary: It sounds like you've made these filters very easy to use with Xpress DV. Let's talk about some of the specific filters. Tim: I've mentioned a few already, such as Light Zoom and advanced 2D Particles. Those are both part of much larger sets of 2D and 3D lighting effects, including Emboss and Bump Map effects, and particle effects, including the most advanced 3D particle system ever introduced directly inside an NLE. Many of CONTINUUM's filters are useful every day, such as fast, powerful keys, blurs and color filters that go well beyond the features found in similar Avid (or even other plug-in) filters. But we've also included dozens of filters for high-impact image treatment, such as glows, Film Grain and Film Damage, and distortion filters such as Twirl and Displacement Maps. There's plenty of power here for advanced compositors, too, including a wide variety of tasks that Avid users have previously had to leave their Avids to get. The Composite filter adds apply modes to Avid, and even allows them to be animated. Like nearly all Boris filters, Composite contains the very powerful PixelChooser, to selectively apply filters based on a wide variety of options. Think of it as a way to apply a mask or a key within any filter. In fact, the image you see here uses a blend based on the hue of the child in the foreground to reveal the hue of the underlying cityscape.
The list goes on and on, Gary. To say there's something here for every one is a serious understatement.
Gary: I recognize some of the features you've described in CONTINUUM COMPLETE from RED, and even FX and GRAFFITI. But the CONTINUUM filters don't look anything at all like what I'm used to with the other Boris plug-ins. Tim: Avid has a very robust filter architecture for image processing, which we were able to tap into directly. That means, instead of the Boris interface that people are used to, we use Avid's effects interface. Filters live in the effects palette as before, but with CONTINUUM, we're now able to do what we need to directly inside Avid's Effects Editor. Our tools, their interface. So even after a filter has been applied, it looks to the user like they're still using Xpress DV. Combined with presets, we've reduced the learning curve virtually to zero. Gary: I know you guys have made each release faster than the one before. How fast can these filters go?
They're powerful, they're easy, and best of all, they're really, truly fast. Gary: I see what you mean and I am AMAZED!! You have a 300-pixel blur playing back in real time, then you added keyframes and STILL had it play back in real time. I never even saw that kind of performance from ICE (an expensive hardware acceleration card for After Effects), and you were doing it on a not so fast laptop!! Tim: The amazing thing to me is that we go even further. We can not only add keyframes, but a second layer of video, animated apply modes and STILL play back in real time. And my laptop isn't the top of the line -- it's a G4 667. Most fast Pentium 3 or Pentium 4 computers will have no problem playing these in real time, and any G4 800 or up will do fine.
Tim: The way we've achieved real time playback is to render a reduced resolution image at faster than 30 frames per second. You can fully expect those speeds to translate directly when rendering full-rez, full-scale images. You'll find many hardware-assisted NLEs that won't render effects as quickly as we can, using only the processor. Performance will vary with system configurations, of course, and some of our advanced particle systems and 3D rendering options are every bit as wild as they sound. But you've seen the full range of filters, including some of the more intense effects like Film Grain and Light Zoom. What did you think about their speed? Gary: Awesome, and if I buy Continuum today, I can register and then download these new FREE Real-Time FX as they become available!!CONTINUUM is even more amazing then I thought! So how does a product like RED with its custom interface fit in? Tim: That interface still offers enormous flexibility and power. For example, RED can't use Avid's tools to create vector paint, because Avid doesn't have a paintbrush. Even Avid uses different interfaces for editing and titling – and the titling in RED offers many options that others titlers don't. I could go on, but you get the idea: we add an interface to RED to provide tools that are missing from host applications. And of course, by having its own timeline, RED can operate as a standalone effects creation application. A native plug-in will always need the host application, such as Avid, to do its work.
We feel so strongly about this combination that we've created the Boris Motion Graphics Pack, which combines RED and CONTINUUM COMPLETE AVX at a deeply discounted price. Avid users who are looking for the widest possible range of effects power at the best price don't need to look any further.
We encourage them to look as widely as they want to, though, because we're certain that they won't find anything even approaching either this power or this value.
Gary: So let's talk about price. Electronic Mailbox is offering CONTINUUM COMPLETE AVX for Xpess DV at $100 off -- only $499! We're also offering $100 off the Boris Motion Graphics Pack for Xpress DV – only $1199.
For even more savings, customers can get the Avid Xpress DV PowerPack and the Boris Motion Graphics Pack for Xpress DV for only $2299. That's savings of nearly $600! |
|
The Electronic Mailbox 800 323-2325 Instant Product Locator
Click here to learn more about the Real Deal advantage of The Electronic Mailbox |
|---|
What's New |
Home videoguys.com |
The DTV Handbook On Line |
The DVD Cookbook On Line |
Secure Order Form |
Monthly Specials|
Product Index |
Article Index |
VIP Specials |
Videoguys' Insider |
About Us |
Tech Support |
FTP Drivers |
Free Software |
Catalog request Form |
Jump Page |
Click on the icons above to find the gear that's best for your needs.
For sales inquires please email our Sales Team:
sales@videoguys.com
For customer service please email our Customer Service Team:
custserv@videoguys.com
If you find any problems on this site please send email to:
videoguy@videoguys.com
At the same time, GRAFFITI and FX continue to redefine what editors can do with their NLEs. People know Boris FX 6.1 for its industry-leading keying and advanced image processing, its endlessly customizable transitions, and its support for using third-party After Effects filters inside any NLE that can use Boris FX. Quite simply, no other plug-in or other effects add-on comes close to doing what Boris FX does.
Tim: We agree – non-linear editing software is more powerful than ever. What we do at Boris is work directly with NLE manufacturers to keep adding features that they don't. These include vector paint, which isn't available inside any NLE except with RED. One application of this is to combine it with our advanced 3D particle system to create write-on paint effects.
Editors frequently have to incorporate client logos into their projects, and these logos are typically created in Adobe Illustrator. While Premiere remains the only NLE to directly import those files, not even Premiere can animate the stroke and fill of imported objects, animate them in 3D space, and even extrude them on a layer-by-layer basis. 
Tim: One of RED's strongest features has always been titling, and the titling in RED 2.5 is stronger than ever. Draft Typing allows faster entry of styled text than any titler on the market. Three new gradient styles offer elegant options for titles and other elements that use gradients, such as title backdrops.
Nearly 100! This package was originally created for users of Adobe After Effects, but we very quickly saw that we could rewrite the filters for users of Apple Final Cut Pro and Avid systems as well. Boris CONTINUUM COMPLETE AVX has just started shipping in versions to match every Avid system, including Avid Xpress DV. 
Here's an example that combines Light Zoom with advanced 2D Particles, applied to an Avid title.
Last but not least, we know that the primary task of Avid editors is to EDIT. So we've added hundreds of presets to CONTINUUM's filters, many of which are optimized for titles. Nobody allows Avid editors to more quickly and easily create a wider range of looks with their Avid systems. 
Advanced 3D DVE filters in CONTINUUM allow Avid users to add multiple lights and cameras to every layer, and to have full control over those layers in 3D space, including intersecting planes, spheres and more. A fullsuite of time-based effects allow smoothly ramping speed changes and temporal blur, among others.
Tim: Is real time fast enough for you? We've taken advantage of
everything that Avid has provided in Xpress DV's real time
performance to create the first-ever third-party plug-ins to play
back in real time. CONTINUUM includes a solid set of 18 very useful
filters from the total package of over 100 filters: blurs including
Mosaic, some of Boris's famous keying filters, and the most powerful
compositing tools ever offered in a native Avid interface, to name a
few.
Gary: Every Xpress DV user is going to have render something eventually.
What's the performance of these filters for final output?
The two product lines offer a very different approach – CONTINUUM for filters in a native interface, and RED for advanced custom and standalone effects creation. I think you can see how the two products are also very complementary. Different users and different situations call for different tools.