Integrate Review — Boris Continuum Complete 2.0

Plug-in effects collection adds filters and 16-bit
processing.

Boris Continuum Complete 2.0, shown here running within Adobe After Effects 5.5, features 32 new filters that include Light Zoom, which adds rays of light to logos and alpha masks as well as video clips.

Boris FX updates its popular filter package with Boris Continuum
Complete version 2.0. Supporting Adobe After Effects 5.5, Apple Final
Cut Pro 3, Discreet Combustion 2.1, and the company's own Boris Red,
the package is a collection of plug-in special effect filters (110
actually) that work inside of a compositing program. (There is also a
Continuum Complete AVX for Avid systems.) Continuum does not function
as a standalone application, as Boris Red does.

Two user-friendly options help set the Continuum collection apart
from other filter packages. First is the one-line help. Clicking the
help button on any filter brings you directly to a PDF page that goes
over the features of that effect. Very handy, and the PDF format makes
it easy to print.

Second, the package ships with presets for many of the effects. Most
companies drop the ball in this area. Often they are so excited to get
the software out the door, there's no time set aside for whipping up
presets. But presets are welcome, even for the customizing
professional. They can be used when you need to create something
quickly, of course, but you can also use presets as a launch pad to
explore the effects of changes to the settings in order to master the
filter. I'd love to see Boris FX set up a preset library on its website
— maybe something similar to the Exchange section of the Adobe
site.

Among the prominent new features, all filters now support processing
in 16-bit color space. This helps ensure maximum output quality and
minimizes the banding that can sometimes occur when using 8-bit color
graphics and effects. The catch is that, as of this writing, only After
Effects 5.5 Production Bundle (which I used to test the package) fully
supports 16-bit mode. Boris Red and Final Cut Pro do not currently
support it, and while Discreet combustion can work in 16-bit mode, the
mode is not supported for plug-ins. Anything can change — and in
this industry, anything generally does — so it's good to have
built-in support ready to go.

But most of the features new for Continuum Complete 2.0 come in the
form of new filters — 32 of them in all. True of After Effects
filters in general, most of the filters in Continuum offer a dizzying
array of settings to tweak.

One of the notable new filters is called BCC Light Zoom. A
sought-after filter for most digital artists (especially those
constructing logos, titles and bumps), Light Zoom creates rays of light
that spread out from a specific point or mask and shoot out in all
directions. As the rays expand, the pixels in your composited scene
that they hit affect their brightness.

In testing I decided to experiment with a clip of video and not use
an alpha mask or logo. The clip showed a runner dressed in light
clothes. I was surprised to see the BCC Light Zoom filter alter the
scene to make it look as if rays of light were shooting out from
different parts of the person's body. A very cinematic effect
indeed.

The BCC Optical Flow filter, another new addition, creates
high-quality speed and frame-rate changes by estimating the motion
between two frames and either removing or adding frames. This high-end
interpolation works great; however, the penalty is that it takes longer
to render than most of the other filters in the set. Also, this
particular plug-in does not ship with any presets, which would have
been helpful as there are many parameters to master.

Also new to Continuum Complete are a two film effects: Film Grain
and Film Damage. The two do wonders for adding dirt, hair, scratches,
stains, and lots of other muck to your pristine digital video. Of
course there are tons of parameters to tweak; “scratches”
alone contains 10 adjustable sliders. Other new filters include
Colorize Glow, Fractal Knots, Jitter, Rays, Premult, Star Matte,
Trails, Twirl, and many more.

Continuum Complete now features a group of texture generators, which
simulate elements such as marble, granite, wood, wood plank, rock,
cloth, brick, and reptilian skin. Far more than standard tiled clip
art, each element is organic and can be adjusted and animated in
millions of different ways. Plus you can throw on a bump map to create
amazingly realistic effects.

Overall Boris Continuum Complete 2.0 is a rockin' set of filters for
users of After Effects and other programs. Even with such a wide
variety, the percentage of truly usable filters is high, and the
flashy, hardly-ever-useful portion is small. The program is a powerful
mix of keying, matte, color-correction, DVE, time-based, and natural
effects that will give you miles and miles of use.

The major drawback is the learning curve. The huge, 600-plus-page
manual contains no real tutorials. Boris FX supplies the manual as a
PDF, which is helpful for directors like me who do laptop compositing
on location. But be prepared to dive in deep, as each filter is like a
mini-program. Of course you can also just jump in and experiment, and
chances are, that's what most users will do.

Also, the company includes a lengthy and disconcerting “user's
notes” document that goes over many small bugs and lists features
that may not work in different programs. This seems to be an inevitable
consequence of creating a solid program for so many hosts, and I
certainly had no problems in reviewing and working with the package.
However, the document is worth checking into if you will use a specific
filter in a certain program extensively.

Other than that, there is much to love. Boris FX took a stellar
filter package and raised the bar. The program offers a wide collection
of filters and lots of depth for a reasonable price.

Company: Boris FX Boston; (617) 451-9900 www.borisfx.com

Product: Boris Continuum Complete 2.0

Assets: Thirty-two new filters (110 total); most effects
filters are very useful, with many settings to tweak as well as
presets; processing in 16-bit color space now supported.

Caveats: Check the “user's notes” document for
potential bugs and incompatibility issues.

Demographic: Users of After Effects, Final Cut Pro,
Combustion, and Boris Red who need a wide variety of powerful effects
filters.

Price: $595; $195 upgrade from version 1.0 and $299 upgrade
from Boris Red.

Frank McMahon is a media artist specializing in directing,
editing, animation, and graphic design. He can be reached via his media
company at www.fmstudio.com or via Portland Media Artists
at www.mediaartist.com.

To comment on this article, email the Video Systems editorial
staff at vsfeedback@primediabusiness.com.