I have been using BorisFX plugins and stand-alone apps for more years than I remember. I was introduced to them by an Aussie, Phillip Hodgetts, back in the late naughties at some trade show or another in Sydney. Phillip wen to on to work for the company in the US and develop a fantastic interactive Help system, but I admit I haven’t heard much from him for a while.
I was especially enamoured by Boris Red and then Boris Blue; at the time I was coming to grips with Adobe After Effects and found the Boris UI a little easier to understand.
And of course, Boris Continuum remains a staple item in just about every video editor’s toolkit no matter their choice of NLE, working as it does on Adobe products, Vegas, AVID Media Composer, Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve, Nuke and of course FCPX 10+.
Later came Sapphire, Boris’ organic looks plugin allied with the industry standard Mocha Planar Tracking system, again fast becoming a must for any editor worth his salt.
Now there is news that Boris has acquired Silhouette, and in the process, the developer Digital Film Tools, adding advanced rotoscoping workflows, non-destructive paint and compositing tools, and stunning photography effects to Boris’ not already formidable arsenal of digital effects weaponry.
Top artists at the world’s most famous VFX studios — Weta Digital, Framestore, Technicolor, Deluxe, and many more — use Silhouette to help create epic visual effects on the biggest blockbusters including Avatar, The Hobbit, Wonder Woman, Avengers: End Game, and Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw.
To quote from the Borisfx website “Silhouette’s renowned advanced rotoscoping workflows and non-destructive paint tools have evolved into a full-fledged GPU-accelerated node-based compositing application featuring hundreds of features as well as integrated Mocha planar tracking.”
And for the film buffs among us, Silhouette features over 100 filters and thousands of presets including colour grading presets inspired by Academy Award-winning films like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Apocalypse Now, Blade Runner, Back to the Future, and Gone with the Wind.
You can download a trial at https://www.silhouettefx.com/silhouette/index.php.
Here is a quick look at what you’ll get:
Film, Video & Virtual reality 